I was coming home last night, after a long day. As I approached the metro coach, a girl came out, stopped me abruptly, and cried for help.
She was speaking very fast. She appeared in distress and confused. My French is limited, but I gathered she claimed to have just come out of the hospital and needed help for a ride home. I didn’t have a car there, I always used public transport, and didn't know Lausanne that well anyway.
Her story didn’t make much sense to me. After struggling for a bit with the language we switched to English. She said she was a student, had to go to the hospital because of a hypoglycemic attack, was super tired and just wanted to go home.
“Don’t you have someone who can pick you up?”, I asked.
“No, I need to get home but the buses don’t get there. I’d take a taxi but it costs 70 francs and I only have 50, can you please help me?”
And there goes my metro. I guess I’ll take the next one.
“Where do you live? We can check Google Maps.”
“Yes yes, I checked, I know, I need a taxi. I tried Uber but I need a taxi that takes cash”, she replied.
“Wait, you have Uber? Why don't you sue Uber then?”
“I can't.”
“You don't have a credit card?”
“No, my father takes care of that. I only have cash. I need a taxi.”
“Can you call your father?”
“No, I need a taxi.”
At this point I was looking at her positively puzzled. Then she jumped in:
Listen, I’m not trying to steal your money. My name is __, you can look me up on Facebook, here is my phone number. After I go home I can pick up the car and meet you tomorrow to give you back 20 francs.”
She was young, maybe 22, but she looked much older. She was pretty, but her teeth were yellowish and didn’t seem like she was taking good care of herself. Also, her speech wasn't nearly as eloquent. I paraphrased the conversation above, in reality she was a lot more discombobulated.
Everything about her story was fishy. After a couple of minutes I gathered there was a 99% chance she was lying, and simply wanted to con me.
I immediately thought of that scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
He has the power to wipe out the entire human race, and if we believe there's even a one percent chance that he is our enemy we have to take it as an absolute certainty... and we have to destroy him.
I was in the exact opposite situation. I thought, “Even if there is a 99% chance that she's lying, if she really is a confused girl, who just came out of the hospital and is just trying to get home, then not helping her would be an asshole thing to do”.
Altruism
At that moment, as far as I could tell, I was presented with the following dichotomy:
- If she’s lying I lose 20 francs (about $21). Not a big deal.
- If she’s telling the truth, my 20 francs will have a large positive impact.
You can see this is as a simplified example of game theory, where my utility function was to try and maximize well being.
It seemed like a no-brainer.
Effective altruism. Or so I thought.
The Perils
I ended up giving her the 20 francs. We exchanged phone numbers, Facebook details, and took off.
In the metro, I started thinking about what happened. Pretty quickly it occurred to me I could have handled the situation better. If she was actually in distress and confused, I should have helped her find a taxi to make sure she would arrive home safely.
It wasn’t a terrible mistake, but still.
Then it hit me. I assumed that the worst case scenario was that I would lose 20 francs. But that wasn't the case at all.
As I pieced things together, the puzzle started to make more sense. The fidgeting, the yellow teeth, the story that didn’t make sense and yet seemed well rehearsed… all the clues pointed to one conclusion.
Drugs (and not the good ones)
What if she was an addict, looking for another shot? Maybe that’s why she was so impatient, why she wasn’t making much sense, why she looked so worn down.
Maybe that’s where my 20 francs will go. To allow her to continue a downward spiral of addiction.
And I'm not talking about “nice” drugs, the psychedelics kind. I’m talking about stuff that kills you. Maybe that’s what she was getting.
Effective Altruism
Effective altruism defines itself as follows:
Some people would have turned their head and walked away. Some would have given her the money and felt good to have done good. Maybe a few would have accompanied her to the taxi, and made sure she was ok.
Have I made the right choice? In hindsight, most likely not. At the moment, I was having a hard time thinking clearly myself. I was very tired and super hungry. It was already late at night and I hadn’t had a proper meal for almost a day, my ability to think rational was surely affected.
Now I can think of at least 10 ways I could have handled it better. Then again, it's easy to explain and rationalize things post facto. Not so easy when you're in the middle of them.
So, in the end… what happened?
I called her back once I got home to ask if she had found a taxi. To my surprise, she picked up the phone, said she did, then hurriedly thanked me and interrupted the call.
I texted her the details for meeting up the next day, like she promised.
She never replied.
What would you have done?
Have you ever been in a situation like this? What did you do? How do you think you would have handled it? Share your story.
follow me 