Psyched out

Apparently I’m a psychopath.

 

So says some random psychologist on YouTube, whose main credential is that he didn’t shoot his video in a basement surrounded by Led Zeppelin posters. It’s hard to know how seriously to take the guy. On the one hand, this nameless, lab-coated cranial expert filmed his video for the educational series “Big Think,” an ostensibly credible YouTube channel with a notable lack of piano-playing cats. Specializing in interviews with provocative subjects who inspire thought and debate, on topics ranging from science to morality, “Big Think” has featured such luminaries as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and science educator Michio Kaku. These guys aren’t scrubs. They have diplomas with fancy, unpronouncable words on them. If Psychologist Guy indeed belongs in their ranks, he could keep worse company.

 

On the other hand, his name was never listed, and he spent the entire three-minute video licking the roof of his mouth as though it was caked with peanut butter. It would have been worth finding out who he was just so I could track him down and hand him a glass of milk.

 

Anyway, Psychologist Guy posed a series of questions that were interesting to consider. On the basis of a person’s answers, this sticky-palleted gentleman claims the ability to determine whether someone is, for lack of a better term, “different.” I’ve never doubted that I’m a different sort of dude, but a psychopath? I’ll let you ponder the same questions I did, and hey, who knows? Maybe you’re nuts, too!

 

The first question – more of a scenario, really – may be familiar from school. Let’s say you’re on a train traveling at full speed, and up ahead, five people are tied to the track in the path of the oncoming locomotive. They await certain death, which means this is probably an Amtrak of some sort. Placed in front of you is a lever, and if you pull it, the train will switch course at a fork in the track, missing the five unlucky souls – but on this new course is a solitary person tied to the track who will surely die. Do you pull the lever?

 

I said yes, and so did most people. The reasoning is fairly easy to figure out. KIlling people may be fun in a video game, in which the casualties are fake, and the bad guys are usually part of some evil group, like Nazis, or roadies for the rock band Nickelback. In real life, being responsible for the deaths of five people generally isn’t considered a high point in someone’s day. Taking the life of one unlucky sap is hardly a sunny alternative, but you’re mitigating the causalities in this case; offing one person instead of five, you’re essentially saving four lives. There’s a net benefit to pulling the lever. Sure, the lone victim might be the next Einstein, and by snuffing him out, you may be depriving the world of some deep insight that could finally culminate in the invention of the flying car, or a toupeé that doesn’t look like a hibernating mole rat. But the odds are low; I woudn’t take the chance.

 

This is the most common response, and it doesn’t make us crazy. But consider a twist on the scenario.

 

Same train, same five people. Only now, instead of being on the train, you’re on a platform high above the track, and the only way you can save the would-be victims is by pushing a fat dude off the plank; this man, a daily consumer of raspberry muffins and ice cream cake, is heavy enough to stop the train, and his death will save the lives of five others. Do you push him off?

 

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” I said to myself, “Hefty McWendysburger is getting the heave-ho, no doubt about it.”

 

This lack of hesitation, according to Psychologist Guy, is what makes me a psychopath. Lucky me.

 

Except, despite my derth of head-shrinking credentials, I have to dispute his hypothesis. For one thing, I can swallow without making a clicking sound louder than a shotgun blast in a sewer pipe. But it’s mostly a matter of perspective. I get his reasoning: We’re supposed to feel hesitant, or balk completely, because physically pushing someone to their death is different than flicking a switch; it’s more personal, more direct. With the switch option, you don’t feel the fleshy give of man-bosoms as Diabetes McSugarfiend plummets to his squishy demise. 

 

It doesn’t matter, though. Because either way, I’ve got blood on my hands. Both options result in the sacrifice of one life to save five; both boil down to essentially the same decision. The only question is whether I have the upper body strength to budge a man with enough whoopie pies under his belt (or over it) to stop a speeding train.

 

This makes me a twerp, maybe. But not a psycho.

 

Whether or not our replies indicate deep mental imbalances, it’s an interesting moral dilemma to consider. Sure, it raises plenty of questions – Are the five people violent terrorists? Will the fat man one day invent a vaccine that protects people from rabid aardvarks? – but that’s what makes it a fun hypothetical. The fact that we’re prone to ponder these farfetched scenarios says more about us than our answers.

 

Now let’s ponder an actual name for Psychologist Guy, since he doesn’t seem to have one. I vote for Peanut McSmackylips; call him P-Smack for short. And seriously, somebody get the man some water.