Board 8 > Moral dilemma - Push the button?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've seen this posted before years ago, figured I'd go ahead and run it again, especially since I don't quite remember which option won.

Someone has a gun to your head. In front of you is a button. If you push the button, one pre-determined person in the world drops dead. You don't know who it is, or any identifiable information about them whatsoever, including location, gender, age, race, etc. And you never will learn anything about who it was. If you press it, your captor lets you go and will never bother you again. If you refuse to press it, you die.

Do you press the button?

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Wow, am I really the first person who wouldn't push it? I guess my sense of self worth is lower than everyone else's.

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i get what you're going for, but these things always fall apart when you take them literally

there's no way for me to prevent my kidnapper from pushing the button themselves. in all of these situations where you're held hostage, i consider the hostage taker to be the only one responsible for the deeds they force their captives to commit

that being said, there are certain things i would not do, but in this scenario, sure, i'd push the button

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Does it have the potential to be someone I know? If there's even a 1/8.5 billion chance I kill my own mother or best friend or husband I wouldn't take it. I have very bad luck. Also even if it wasn't someone precious to me it could be someone who would do a lot more good in the world than I could like a civil rights activist in the middle east or a heart surgeon or genius inventor.

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GenesisSaga posted...

Does it have the potential to be someone I know?

Yes

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GenesisSaga posted...

Does it have the potential to be someone I know? If there's even a 1/8.5 billion chance I kill my own mother or best friend or husband I wouldn't take it. I have very bad luck. Also even if it wasn't someone precious to me it could be someone who would do a lot more good in the world than I could like a civil rights activist in the middle east or a heart surgeon or genius inventor.

think about it this way- if you don't push the button, it's a 100% chance that all of your immediate friends and family have to suffer through losing you.

do you think they would be happier risking a 1/8.5 billion chance of death to save your life?

edit: i forgot to add, if there's any chance of overpowering your kidnapper, i think going for that is the right choice

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GenesisSaga posted...

Does it have the potential to be someone I know? If there's even a 1/8.5 billion chance I kill my own mother or best friend or husband I wouldn't take it. I have very bad luck. Also even if it wasn't someone precious to me it could be someone who would do a lot more good in the world than I could like a civil rights activist in the middle east or a heart surgeon or genius inventor.

Read as written, "And you never will learn anything about who it was." implies it can't be anyone you know, or anyone in the public eye.

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banananor posted...

i get what you're going for, but these things always fall apart when you take them literally

there's no way for me to prevent my kidnapper from pushing the button themselves. in all of these situations where you're held hostage, i consider the hostage taker to be the only one responsible for the deeds they force their captives to commit

that being said, there are certain things i would not do, but in this scenario, sure, i'd push the button

id push it too but i cant agree with this. Youre still responsible for your own decision, even with a gun to your head

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I push it no matter how many people it kills.

Cybat posted...

Read as written, "And you never will learn anything about who it was." implies it can't be anyone you know, or anyone in the public eye.

It could be someone you know, you just will never know for sure if you did it or it was coincidence.

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MysticBrohan posted...

id push it too but i cant agree with this. Youre still responsible for your own decision, even with a gun to your head

sure, you can feel guilty about it personally, and of course you're moving of your own volition, but i don't think i or society would hold you responsible for the scenario your captor set up.

giving someone the choice between 'do what i say or you die' is not a reasonable choice that the person can be considered 'responsible' for, at least in a scenario where you have literally zero percent chance of resisting. like, protesting against pushing the button will do literally nothing. your captor will just push it themselves

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i guess i've talked myself into a corner a little bit, if one were to extrapolate it to a broader context.

i assume we are extrapolating it to being a soldier for a psychotic, despotic ruler and being asked to shoot POWs. i do think future society would judge you for following orders upon penalty of death, but not for the reason you might expect.

it wouldn't be for ethics, it would just be to scare people shitless into sacrificing themselves against future despots and lowering their follower count.

now, extrapolating further, i think the ethical line is losing your livelihood vs losing your life. it also has to be an actual social organization, and not just a psycho with a gun that can't be trusted

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Underleveled posted...

It could be someone you know, you just will never know for sure if you did it or it was coincidence.

I mean if you find out that your completely healthy best friend dropped dead at the exact moment that you were in that situation it would be hard to dismiss that as a coincidence. But whatever, not impossible I guess.

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No matter what I think know, I'm sure in the moment I would end up mashing that button

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I agree with the concept that in situations like this, the person committing the morally bad act here is your captor, not you. Even if by some miracle the family/friend of the person who you ended up killing found you and was upset that you pushed the button and killed their loved one, it's almost certainly hypocrisy and grief on their end, they would most likely have done the same thing you did.

Push the button.
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People are dying literally every second as the day goes by that I'm completely unaware of. I have no reason to believe pushing this button holds the responsibility of one of those foreseeable deaths in the next 10 seconds.

I push it 100% of the time, all the time.

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GenesisSaga posted...

Does it have the potential to be someone I know? If there's even a 1/8.5 billion chance I kill my own mother or best friend or husband I wouldn't take it. I have very bad luck. Also even if it wasn't someone precious to me it could be someone who would do a lot more good in the world than I could like a civil rights activist in the middle east or a heart surgeon or genius inventor.

have you ever driven a car with a family member in it?

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I'm more interested in hearing how many times someone would push the button in some sort of weird scenario where you have to push it X amount of times. What's the limit?

One push is too easy.

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NFUN posted...

have you ever driven a car with a family member in it?

stahp it, i already have family members that are weirdly terrified of driving!

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I would push it. Nobody could prove to me that the button actually does anything
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I cant tell you what fear would do to me, but I dont think I would press the button.

Nope. Every person is as precious as my own. I'm not sure I could live with such guilt of causing someone to die.

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Maybe I'd get lucky and it would kill the dude with the gun in my face

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I think in a stupid situation like this, the only evaluation you can make is whether your own life is worth continuing.

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Always push the button. I had to read the post, but it was more of a courtesy than anything. Could have said it killed everyone else except me. It is a button. It gets the push.

Further, I notice that no time was spent describing the color or shape or size of the button in question. These are important details as sensory feedback counts for a lot if one is to make a proper judgement. Can we press the button multiple times? Are other people being offered this same choice? How much time do we have to make a choice and can this person please stop pointing the gun at us it is kind of rude and quite amusing given the scenario....he should instead have a magic button to press that targets us.

Ok, maybe there are life limits that would make pushing the button the wrong move, but that ruins the fun and is something for the professional statisticians to work out.

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The button is blue and it says "Abort"
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you cant spell button without butt

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