Where did the poll “Save someone else’s child or your pet?” come from and why did it go viral
Initially, it appeared on TikTok, then it was dispersed on other platforms. And it is clear why. Many were outraged by the wording itself, others sincerely did not understand how someone else's child could be closer than their own pet. I decided to track whether there was something similar in the past, and how people responded then. Now many chose a pet.
Disclaimer
I do not claim that my research is scientific, let alone that it is true.
Where did the survey come from?
It's hard to say. But it definitely wasn't invented now. In “Mail Answers” there was one 13 years ago. In Reddit – 5 years ago. You can also find it on various forums.
But in fact, such a moral dilemma has existed for a long time. On VK, even before Durov removed the wall, the “Trolley problem” went viral. It is a thought experiment from 1967. A trolley is moving along the rails. One person is tied to the first track, five to the second. You can switch the switch and choose who will live.
In Western countries, most people sacrificed one to save five. In Eastern countries with strong traditional values, they saved one if they had some kind of personal connection with that person.
There is a more sophisticated version of this experiment. A passenger train is approaching a railway bridge over a precipice. You can switch the switch and the train will end up on a siding. And there will be no accident. But your child is playing on the siding. He won't be able to escape. The choice is much more difficult here.
Even earlier there was: “Would you save your wife or your child?” The author of the survey was allegedly Socrates himself. And he answered unequivocally that you need to save your wife. After all, you can give birth to more children. And you will have to look for a new wife. And Socrates, apparently, was right. Nowadays, doctors always save the mother during difficult labor, not the child.
Why do many people in Russia choose to have a pet?
An analogy can be drawn with the “Trolley Problem”. In traditionalist societies, and this is exactly what we have, people saved their loved ones more often. The authors of the experiment attribute this to stronger social ties within their group: family, close friends, clan. In more individualist societies, oddly enough, it is easier to establish social ties, people live in closed groups less often, and have a wide circle of friends. Therefore, we get the following paradox: individualists think more about public interests than traditionalists.
Of course, life has changed a lot now. People live more secluded lives, focus on their own interests, and generally have weak social connections. And there are all the conditions for this. Remote work, food delivery, excellent taxis. There is an opportunity to not communicate with anyone at all, except for your pet. This is especially true for programmers. And especially the top ones.
You can do psychoanalysis and assume that all the problems are from the family. Unloved adults do not really want to have children of their own, because there was nothing good in their own childhood. And why continue this chain of misfortune. Other people seem incomprehensible and even dangerous. But your pet will never betray you, depends entirely on you and is always predictable and understandable. It is very easy to love such a person. Not like these incomprehensible people with their incomprehensible emotions. And especially other people's children.
How the US responded
I found a similar thread on Reddit in the AITA (Am I a Bad Person) section. There, the author, when asked by friends who he would save from a fire, made a whole list in descending order of importance:
My children
My wife
My dogs
Children of friends
Friends themselves
On Reddit, 69% thought the author was not a very nice person.
For comparison, at the largest domestic forum for women, 64% chose their own pet.
Why the survey caused such a stir
The power of social media and the very formulation of the question. After all, in the nearly 60 years since the Trolley Problem and nearly 2,500 years since Socrates, no one has thought of comparing human life and the life of an animal. Although psychologists and philosophers have come up with all sorts of things during this time.
Bonus – “Universe 25”
This is another experiment, but not a mental one, which caused a huge stir 56 years ago. Here is a link to the original final article — https://physicsoflife.pl/dict/pic/calhoun/calhoun's-experiment.pdf
American ethnologist John Calhoun placed mice in ideal living conditions. They were not in danger, always had plenty of food, water, entertainment and living space.
As a result, after a couple of years, the mice split into two groups: males and females, who barely interacted with each other. The animals refused to reproduce, and the females even killed their offspring. The small young generation became outcasts, the adult mice drove them into the center of the enclosure, attacked them and did not allow them to eat normally. Although there was enough food for everyone.
Various forms of deviant behavior emerged. For example, some male mice, Calhoun himself called them “beautiful”, spent the whole day grooming their fur, eating and sleeping.
In the end, the experiment lasted 4 years. There were simply no reproductive-age individuals left in the enclosure.
Of course, Calhoun has been criticized. The cleaning schedule, the structure of the tunnels in the pen, the family relationships within the original population — all of these could have affected the results. And people are not mice. Our psyches are much more complex. But some analogies do suggest themselves.
Apparently, in 5 years, a poll will go viral along the lines of: “Who would you save, someone else's child or a PlayStation/comic book collection/doughnut?” And in the comments, they will write: “Depends on what the doughnut has in it.”
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