If there is actually such a thing as Security, the best thing to do is whatever you think will keep you (or other people) alive. Mouthing off to a security officer about your actual reason for saving the redhead is behavior that is suboptimal because it would lead to your death. So testing kids to “see if they’ll reject conformity” is actually testing kids to see if they’ll pointlessly risk their life.
Furthermore, the belief that every sapient being is precious is something that the child was told. In other words, the child cannot claim “well, nobody reasonably argued for the exception” because nobody argued for the rule either!
And I don’t see why the child doesn’t say “you lied to me about Security. How do I know you’re not lying to me about (insert every random thing about the society that the kid might find slightly questionable).” For that matter, the kid could think that “there’s no security” is itself a lie and that the whole thing is a Hundred Flowers Campaign—the actual purpose is not to test for compassion, it’s to detect troublemakers by giving them a few weeks to fully reveal themselves. It’s your world, which isn’t actually a Hundred Flowers Campaign, but how does the kid know, now that he’s been lied to at least once?
If there is actually such a thing as Security, the best thing to do is whatever you think will keep you (or other people) alive. Mouthing off to a security officer about your actual reason for saving the redhead is behavior that is suboptimal because it would lead to your death. So testing kids to “see if they’ll reject conformity” is actually testing kids to see if they’ll pointlessly risk their life.
Furthermore, the belief that every sapient being is precious is something that the child was told. In other words, the child cannot claim “well, nobody reasonably argued for the exception” because nobody argued for the rule either!
And I don’t see why the child doesn’t say “you lied to me about Security. How do I know you’re not lying to me about (insert every random thing about the society that the kid might find slightly questionable).” For that matter, the kid could think that “there’s no security” is itself a lie and that the whole thing is a Hundred Flowers Campaign—the actual purpose is not to test for compassion, it’s to detect troublemakers by giving them a few weeks to fully reveal themselves. It’s your world, which isn’t actually a Hundred Flowers Campaign, but how does the kid know, now that he’s been lied to at least once?