(Question I)
A train is speeding down a track towards the point where seventy million terrified people are tied across the line.
Their only hope is a group of young men working on a side branch, who are desperately trying to open a set of points which will divert the train into the siding. If they succeed, several of them will probably be killed by the train, but they will save tens of millions. All of them know that they are taking a risk to help others.
Do you:
(a) enthusiastically join the young men
(b) laud the young men from the sidelines, and start a fundraising campaign to make sure that songs are written about their heroism
(c) use the gang of hired thugs you usually use to screw money out of people to prevent the young men altering the points
(d) use your thugs to force the young men to fill out a seven thousand page form, taking six months and rendering their efforts pointless
(Question II)
All over the world, mad scientists are engineering deadly plagues for no known reason. They do this in shoddy jerry-built sheds in the middle of major cities. Although the scientists are not exactly evil, they are careless and incompetent. Their plagues are always escaping. Luckily so far, their plagues are also not very deadly and not very good at spreading.
But the scientists are getting better and better at it, and they share their best results and exciting new methods with each other all over the world through journals.
Do you:
(a) Use your gang of thugs to stop them.
(b) Force them to fill out some sort of risk assessment or even do a cost-benefit analysis to decide whether their activities are a good idea.
(c) Fund them and their journals enthusiastically using money your thugs have stolen.
(d) Prohibit the engineering of deadly plagues in your own country, but continue to fund it as long as it's done in even dodgier sheds in the middle of major cities in a foreign country run by an evil and murderous military autocracy.
Your Score:
If you answered mainly (c), congratulations, you are ideally suited. Welcome to the profession, and we wish you the best of luck impeding the progress of medical "science" for many years. You can expect to kill millions and prevent the discovery of almost everything that might ever help in any way.
If you answered mainly (d) you may be welcome in the more philosophical branch of the profession, but you are basically a bit of an irresponsible shithead and will never be trusted with anything that matters. Don't worry though, the millions will still die and your helpless flailing won't do the slightest bit of good.
If you answered (a) or (b) to either question: what the fuck is wrong with you? You should maybe go and work for a tobacco company or something.
