Version 2.0
Updates:
The Village
CSC208—Elliott
All city and village councils across the country must make the following
community decision. A plague is coming to the United States and it is known
that, on average, one out of three people will die from it. There is a
vaccine, but the vaccine is absolutely regular in the number of people it
will kill, also one in three people. The plague will either strike everyone
in any particular village, killing them, or pass over the village altogether
with no victims. The vaccine makes no distiction from one village to
another. Death from plague or vaccine has identical symptoms.
600 people live in your village.
Option A. Give the vaccine. It is an absolute certainty that exactly 200
people will die.
Option B. Do not give the vaccine. There is one chance in three
that all 600 in the village will be killed by the plague.
Option C. Do not give the vaccine. In this case there are two chances
in three that all 600 people will be saved.
Option D. Give the vaccine. It is an absolute certainty that exactly 400
people will be saved.