You have been abducted by aliens. For arcane reasons, you have been chosen for a very special decision. Half of everything on the planet will disappear. The other half will remain unscathed. It is up to you to decide how everything will be divided, and once you have chosen, which half goes and which half stays. What is your criterion for the devision of halves? Which half stays? P.S. Choosing not to choose will end in a default decision by the aliens to eliminate the entire planet. Everything.
You have been abducted by aliens. I love it already. But gosh, man... I think you may have stumped me this time! My first instinct was that half should be determined by value. Life is valued over material possessions in my book, so I would sacrifice all material possessions for all kept alive in order to keep our ecosystem balanced. This way, even though we are without machinery and technology, we can still survive. We did it once; we can do it again, right? And then I remembered that, no. We probably cant do it again, at least not without the vast majority of living things dying. And then I wonder, where does value truly lie --in things that will die or things that can withstand rust and are stainless and help us with our lives? Then we have to go about defining value and maybe things arent valued without the help of other things (IE: An iPod is highly valued, but without people to appreciate it, it is meaningless --a person is highly valued, but when they die... they really dont contribute much now do they? ) Perplexing! I...I think you may have got me. Dammit; I've made the world disappear completely!
I say all humans must have their bodies cut cleanly in half from head to toe, our houses cut straight down the middle, cars, dogs, lamposts, you name it - all cut completely in half. Then we'd all be exposed and there'd be no such thing as nosey neighbours. Plus, everything would cost half as much as it did before! Tah-daaaah! Magic. Just magic. I should totally run for president.
I'd get rid of the southern hemisphere. Less people (I'm pretty sure?) than the northern hemisphere, more developed countries (or I'm ignorant and totally off, but I've been up for 23 hours so if I am just give me the benefit of the doubt). Plus, I live in the northern hemisphere, and I generally prefer it to the southern one. ~Christian
Earth loses half its mass, it won't orbit very well. If it's the inside half (the core and mantle) it would implode completely. Either way, everyone dies.
It was understood that "half" referred to surface area, not mass/voliume. However, half the mass wouldn't affect the Earth's orbit much, although the Moon would rrise to a higher orbit around it. The Earth's orbit around the Sun would not change perceptibly.
This kind of question sorta reminds me of myself. I love asking people what they would do, or how they would react, to a given situation. Whether it was realistic or not Though I am unsure on my response at the moment, going to have to think about it.
Hmm going to try to be realistic here. I suspect that given that choice I would think I was either hallucinating or dreaming, and either not make a choice at all, or make a very poor one. Oh and if I continued to live in those circumstances I would probably go mad.
I'd get rid of all the stuff like Happy Meal toys and all the other fad toys with movie/pop culture tie-ins, bits of lego that don't make anything anymore (you know, the stuff like a pirate head that has no hat and half of the face is erased anyway), puzzles/games with pieces missing, shoes with impossibly high heels, greeting cards from people I don't remember knowing... The general random bits of junk that seem incredibly important to have once, then don't do anything - they fill up about half my house, so I figure it holds true for the rest of the world. No alien is touching the talking Steve Irwin doll, though.
