z121231211 said:
The problem with this situation is that it'll never happen, it's a complete waste of philosophical thought that does nothing to improve or in any way affect your life. It may even negatively impact you since now you were thinking what you could do with the money you would have earned, and thus lowering your mood and wishing for unattainable choices such as this one.
My answer, no I wouldn't, because there is no button to push.
You are over analyzing this however; allow me to break it down to the essential core so as to better attribute to being a philosophical thought. Offering a person this scenario regardless of the financial benefit is fundamentally asking their value upon human life over self indulgence. The button is akin to a metaphor between an action of altruism or egotism; the ultimate test to determine how truly ruthless and devoid of morality you as a human being - a terminology many would find difficult to address you as should the preverbal button be pressed.
The button could be replaced with a switch, a door, anything with the conclusion being the identical. Suffice to say consider this a question of merciless determination of success. Are you such a selfish individual that even human life would not impede your path?
If you would prefer a realistic equivalent to the question I can provide such. In the world of business, allow us to imagine you have in front of you, the opportunity to overtake a company; in doing so the previous owner of the business will be in shambles, his family could be torn apart and he left bankrupt while you will be benefit from a significant boost in position both influentially and financially. Now? would you overtake his company having full knowledge of what may come in doing so?
Hmm that last paragraph is intriguing as it is indeed a realistic possibility. I may just make a topic from that. Anyhow would I press the button? I will admit for one hundred dollars, such is not difficult to come by. If it were one hundred thousand? I would not given it a moment's thought and especially not if it were a million.