Requests » Mark

REQUESTS » MARK

“Beautiful day! — I always enjoy seeing you doctor.”

“Yes, Mark. It is a beautiful day. How about you take a road trip with your containers and enjoy it?”

“Hmm… not a bad idea, but we have become kind of attached to Boardwalk. The police cruisers surrounding us keep us feeling very safe and kind of cozy, it would be hard to give that up. Plus we are all watching Game of Thrones again and might lose internet access if we moved”

“«You win or you die?» is a bit melodramatic isn’t it?”

“Oh… I personally just watch it for the dragons and the unicorns. And of course the happy ending. I feel a bit like Mance Rayder and am hoping someone will just give us wildlings some land to live on… in peace. That part ended pretty happily actually.”

“They are not going to just give you land. That isn’t how capitalism and negotiations work. People make fair trades that both sides agree to.”

“You can’t have a fair trade if one side could die during negotiations and the other couldn’t. That is actually coercion… in my opinion. But I accept your proposition of a fair trade. I will trade the lives of thirty five thousand people for the lives of thirty five thousand people.”

“How are we trading lives?”

“My request is still the same: reasonable land for that many people to live on in freedom. We will take care of the remaining details of keeping them alive.”

“Yes, I understand that. But how is that trading for thirty five thousand lives? Who are these other thirty five thousand?”

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“Doctor… you surprise me! Surely you know who they are. There are one hundred and twenty thousand of them in California alone. I will let you and others decide which thirty five thousand you are willing to let perish”

“There are one hundred and twenty thousand of them? Dialysis patients?”

“Yes”

“Yes?”

“Yes. ‘Yes’ to those two questions and probably the next dozen questions you come up with. It has already happened. The negotiations are now fair. Now we both win or …

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