Poll: Would you push the button?
- Thread starter Evilbunny
- Start date
"If you push this button, I will reward you with a million dol-"
SLAM.
SLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAM.
SLAM.
(Here's a trailer for the movie btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVK-hVGqCpo)
SLAM.
SLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAM.
SLAM.
(Here's a trailer for the movie btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVK-hVGqCpo)
There are a small handful of people on Earth I give a crap about, and even most of them are expendable. The one person (besides myself, and I'm assuming this isn't Final Fantasy VII's Death Roulette spell where you can inadvertently commit suicide with it) I'd genuinely feel a severe sense of loss from their death from would be my wife.
So therefore, I'm betting my wife's life for a hundred bucks at over six billion:1 odds. Is my wife's life worth $600B? Probably not, so that's a bet in my favor. And if I DID accidentally kill her with the magic button? Well, that changes the game---having removed all element of psychological risk I'd hit that button several thousand times, enough to bank plenty of money, and console myself with my newfound riches.
But if my wife lived, I couldn't hit that button more than, say, the five hundred hits it'd take to put myself the rest of the way through college.
And if you raised the stakes to a million? Five hits. That'd be enough.
So therefore, I'm betting my wife's life for a hundred bucks at over six billion:1 odds. Is my wife's life worth $600B? Probably not, so that's a bet in my favor. And if I DID accidentally kill her with the magic button? Well, that changes the game---having removed all element of psychological risk I'd hit that button several thousand times, enough to bank plenty of money, and console myself with my newfound riches.
But if my wife lived, I couldn't hit that button more than, say, the five hundred hits it'd take to put myself the rest of the way through college.
And if you raised the stakes to a million? Five hits. That'd be enough.
I don't know.
I would like to say that I'd press it enough times to land me and my family a nice sum of money, but I don't think I could kill someone.
I would never kill someone face-to-face, unless they were seconds away from killing me, but I don't know about people on the other side of the world.
I didn't really care about 9/11 or about people dying the recent Samoan tsunami, so I don't think my empathy extends beyond my own social circle, but I don't know how much that circle of empathy would expand if I was responsible for the deaths.
Until I'm in that situation, I'll have to say no.
I would like to say that I'd press it enough times to land me and my family a nice sum of money, but I don't think I could kill someone.
I would never kill someone face-to-face, unless they were seconds away from killing me, but I don't know about people on the other side of the world.
I didn't really care about 9/11 or about people dying the recent Samoan tsunami, so I don't think my empathy extends beyond my own social circle, but I don't know how much that circle of empathy would expand if I was responsible for the deaths.
Until I'm in that situation, I'll have to say no.
