Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Decision Making

The story given here is quite interesting and really gives us an insight into decision making :

A group of children were playing near the railway tracks,one of them was active track while the other was disused.Only one child played on the disused track,rest on the operational track.

Suppose you are the driver of the train and you are just at the track interchange.
You could make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids.

However,that would also mean that the lone child playing on the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way ?

Think over this situation for 2 minutes(10 times the original action time).


Most of the people would divert the train to sacrifice only one child.To save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make,morally and emotionally.

BUT,have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had infact made the right decision to play at the safe place ?

Nevertheless,he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was.

This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday.In the office,in community,in politics,and especially in the democratic society,the minority is often sacrificed for the majority no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are,and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are.

The child who chose not to play with the rest,on the operational track was sidelined.And in the case he was sacrificed,no one would shed a tear.

To make the proper decision is not try to change the course of the train because the kids playing on operational track should have known very well that the track was still in use,and that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens.

If the train was diverted to the disused track,we could put the life of all the on board passengers at stake.And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child,you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

Moral of the Story : What's right isn't always popular and what's popular isn't always right !



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