kcdad, what if he kills you because you didn't choose any of the options he gave you?
do you think it's still worthy to lose YOUR life only just because you tried to be smarter and go out of his ways?
don't you think just because he's insane it's better to get rid of him as soon as possible by choosing one of his options?

The name of this area of discussion is DIVISIVE ISSUES. The reason it is so divisive is because it is wrong in its premise. It pretends that this is a moral question , and provides 2 possible alternatives. There is no such thing. It is a game theory problem that is solved by realizing that game theory exists within a box and the solution lies outside the box. See M.A.D., for example, or the work of Antonio Damasio.

How can this be a legitimate question (and there are legitimate questions that can be discussed, debated and learned from) when one is limited to two dimensional thinking?

So you are encouraging a thread based on nonsense rather than reason... HOW INTERESTING considering this is the MATURE DISCUSSION section.
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I am going to die anyway... and if you think this crazy alien cares about anything that you value, you are as crazy as him.

I choose the moral decision of not promoting one life over another, including my own...

It is a stupid scenario because there are no realistic parameters included. No insane person is going to listen to what I or you have to say anyway... my god, have you ever been in a religious discussion on the internet??????????

I choose the single life and he may or may not kill anyone... I choose the group and he may or may not kill anyone... he may kill me for presuming that he was crazy enough to go through with it, or because I was willing to choose one life over another... he may kill the opposite of what I choose, he may go ahead and kill them both just to watch me suffer...

ANY intelligent creature capable of this wouldn't care WHAT I choose. It would be a part of his overall superiority complex, manipulating my feelings and thoughts. Chances are if he went to the trouble of arming the C4, he will use it. Chance are if he went to the trouble to set up this scenario, he wants to experience dehumanization of everyone.

FTS made a couple of scenario threads and Cons didn't like the way they were, and so he made his own with his own rules. I imagine it was to promote some form of discussion in the direction of 'which is better? Kill an orphanage or a woman?' I thought, hey! That could be interesting to see people discuss, and so it stayed.

So if you think you would do nothing, and get shot? Then fine, that's a valid response to the thread. But to start going on about how the madman is unpredictable, the question is not right, etc etc, merely leads the thread offtopic from what the thread creator intended. Cons didn't want to discuss whether or not he's able to hypothetically create a scenario where the mad man is predictable. He simply wanted to discuss which is worse; orphanage or woman.

Feel free to start your own thread to discuss the things you've discussed in here about unpredictable mad men etc, instead of going off topic.

- If that's true, and this isn't a thread about moral judgment or responsibility or discerning right from wrong... if its true that cons is simply asking "which is less terrible, a whole orphanage, or just one woman"... then it seems almost pointless.

If I consider the death tolls themselves, then the orphanage is worse than just the one woman. But if i consider the two events in comparison to what I know to be true, then they are equally terrible.

Even if the psycho didn't do what you said, by telling him to kill the lady, you would have at least tried to save the orphanage.
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I disagree. If he follows through with the described scenario, you certainly could save someone by saying the right thing. In any case, let's do a payout breakdown:

Psycho Follows Through, You Say C4: Orphanage Spared, Lady Dies
Psycho Follows Through, You Say Her: Orphanage Exploded, Lady Spared
Psycho Follows Through, You Say Nothing/Other: Orphanage Exploded, Lady Dies
Psycho Defects, You Say C4: ?
Psycho Defects, You Say Her: ?
Psycho Defects, You Say Nothing/Other: ?

So while we can't predict what will happen if he defects, we can see quite clearly what he'll do if he follows through. So it seems we should base our decision on the assumption he'll follow through, lacking anything else to go off of. Whatever you're basing the decision to say nothing off of, it doesn't seem to be an attempt to maximize the chances of saving the most people from harm, which--I would assert--is what you should be trying to do.
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Now let's say the guy is a robot. It doesn't make a difference. We wouldn't know for certain what the robot would do. Let's say we had twenty seconds to push one of two buttons that we think will result in one of the mentioned outcomes. It doesn't make a difference. We don't know for certain what the buttons will do. We always act with imperfect information. Yet, despite our lack of certainty--the constant possibility of skepticism towards expected results--we still act.

Did the miss the major premise in your own argument? It's a PSYCHO!

And you are playing game theory... not real life.

yes, because you and me cannot predict him but at least do what you were required even if he's insane.
i've said it several times, there's no point in being moralistic in such cases because i could risk my life.

let's pretend he had YOUR DAUGHTER instead of the woman.
which act would you have him commit?
do you think it would still be worthy to show how much you value by not choosing any of the actions?
which would be the least you could do, given that he's unpredictable?

I already explained why it doesn't matter if it's a psycho, a robot, your grandma, or whatever. There will always be a degree of uncertainty as to what the consequences of your actions will be. You have to work with what information you have.

If you're saying my argument isn't applicable to real-life situations, then you're going to have to explain why.

"have to work with" No, I don't. That is game theory.

One can not evaluate "forced" decisions as moral or immoral acts. "Character is what you do when no one is watching". Morality is the motivation behind behaviors, not the behaviors themselves.
So when forced into a decision regarding choosing one life or another, the uncertainty is irrelevant. It is neither moral or immoral to be forced to choose one life over another...

In real life there is no scenario in which a decision must be made that doesn't include a personal interest.

How you want to define "morality" is irrelevant to what course of action is most likely to get the best results, which I would contend should be the focus here. You call that "game theory", but so what? Game theory does give insight into the workings of things. To me, trying to get the best results is to focus on the real world, where concerning yourself with the ontology of ethics is just so much metaphysics. As fun as it is, when the chips are down, pragmatism should reign.