This story concerns a caravan going through the Sahara desert. One night they pitched tents. Our three principal characters are A, B, and C. A hated C and decided to murder him by putting poison in the water of his canteen (this would be C’s only water supply). Quite independently of this, B also decided to murder C, so (without realizing that C’s water was already poisoned) he drilled a tiny hole in C’s canteen so that the water would slowly leak out. As a result, several days later C died of thirst. The question is, who was the murderer, A or B ? According to one argument, B was the murderer, since C never did drink the poison put in by A, hence he would have died even if A hadn’t poisoned the water. According to the opposite argument, A was the real murderer, since B’s actions had absolutely no effect on the outcome; once A poisoned the water, G was doomed, hence C would have died even if B had not drilled the hole. Which argument is correct?
At this point I’ll tell you the joke of a woodchopper from the Middle East who came looking for a job at a lumber camp. The foreman said,’ I don’t know if this is the kind of job you want; here we chop trees.’ The woodchopper said, ‘That’s precisely the sort of work I do.’ The foreman replied, ‘ Okay, here’s an axe - let’s see how long it takes you to chop down this tree here.’ The woodchopper went over to the tree and felled it with one blow. The foreman, amazed, said, ‘Okay, try that big one over there.’ The woodchopper went over to the tree — biff, bam — in two strokes die tree was down. ‘Fantastic!’ cried die foreman. ‘Of course you are hired, but how did you ever learn to chop like that?’ ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘ I’ve had plenty of practice in the Sahara Forest.’ The foreman thought for a moment. ‘You mean,’ he said, ‘die Sahara Desert.’ ‘Oh yes,’ replied the woodchopper, ‘it is now!’