"The first person to live to [200, 300, 500, 1000] has already been born"

[Excited Penguin]

It's your scenario...it's not as though it could end any way other than the one in which you hoped.

I don't hope for it to end in any way. It's just a thought experiment.

[Excited Penguin]

You either let three people die, including yourself, or you save two lives by getting your hands dirty.

You chose to let three people die, you do realise that, do you not?

[The Grand Nudger]

And you think that is the moral thing to do in that situation?

Do i think the moral thing to do is give a sick man medicine and not eat him?  I;m starting to wonder what rock you crawled out of.

Of course it's a thought experiment, your thought experiment, in which you control the variables.  In your thought experiment, the only choices are death or depravity, and you seem to be taken aback that anyone would choose death.  You should have known that before you started in..when I said I'd rather die than castrate those who disagree, and asked you to hold a bandolier of ammo for me in my hypothetical insurgency against anyone who would choose the latter over the former. If you were capable of putting yourself in Steves shoes (or the castratis)..which by now I can see you aren't., this would have been a much shorter conversation.

[Excited Penguin]

And you think that is the moral thing to do in that situation?

Do i think the moral thing to do is give a sick man medicine and not eat him?  I;m starting to wonder what rock you crawled out of.

Of course it's a thought experiment, your thought experiment, in which you control the variables.  In your thought experiment, the only choices are death or depravity, and you seem to be taken aback that anyone would choose death.  You should have known that before you started in..when I said I'd rather die than castrate those who disagree, and asked you to hold a bandolier of ammo for me in my hypothetical insurgency against anyone who would choose the former over the later.

The sick man will die either way. You wouldn't be killing him, if you chose to withheld the medication. That's the crucial difference. You would be saving two lives instead, at the expense of none. The only price you would have to pay is to degrade yourself in that manner.

[Excited Penguin]

So I contend that you're the immoral one in this scenario. You would kill yourself rather than live by eating a corpse, that's fine. But you would also be killing the third guy.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd be withholding medicine from a dying man..........it's not a crucial difference, it's no difference at all.   You like thought experiments, eh?  If you were bleeding out on the pavement and the paramedics "withheld treatment" - what have they done? Your contention is absurd. I didn't put us on the island..you did, it's your scenario..remember?

[The Grand Nudger]

Maybe -you- should give the medicine to Steve and see if he's any more amenable to your plans than I am?

[Excited Penguin]

Ok, let's say you give him that medication and he lives. Now let's take that to its conclusion. You realise all three of us will die, as a result of that action? And you're the one who made that decision, being how you have both the knife and the medicine, and only you know about it.

And somehow you deem that moral because in the process you gave a dying man his medication, just so he can die a little bit later of starvation instead. The only difference between the two scenarios is the number of preventable deaths that occur. In case you choose the medication, you prevent no deaths. If you choose to wait and take out the knife, you prevent two deaths.

So you think 0 lives is better than two lives.

[Excited Penguin]

Can you see the problem with that, or not?

[The Grand Nudger]

We're all going to die because you've dropped us On Island Impossible, nothing to do with me.  Giving him the meds was the best I could do for him, and keeping your murderous ass from putting him on the list of the eaten..to save your own skin, isn't the worst way to go. Why don't we eat you..in any of your scenarios? Explain that to me......