That would be, dare I say it, karmic justice. After all this hypothetical concerns KILLING PEOPLE…an action that many of us find abhorrent.
I’m not claiming sainthood. But I wouldn’t be able to get over the knowledge that I’d killed someone. (Wet blanket, I know!)
I figure most people will think that. It would be interesting get meta about it and survey what everyone thinks their chance specifically is and what they think the average person’s chance of surviving (as well the percentage of people who will press the button)
One thing for sure the current president has absolutely 0% chance of surviving, though that goes for every president and pretty much any national politician (or most local) or even any globally known celebrity.
I think most people will survive. I expect there will be a handful (relatively speaking) of people who get killed many times over. I don’t think most people will press the button. I wouldn’t push the button.
I’m gonna put my odds of survival at 98%. Most other people I’m guessing would be 95% or higher. If my odds are any better it’s because I don’t know as many people as most people.
So most likely outcome is a small number of people push the button and a small number of people die. (Some of them might die before they can push the button! Bet there’s a lot of overlap in those populations.)
There is also the legal repercussions of the OP. Once a new set of DAs have been hired (they arent surviving the button press for sure) how do you go about prosecuting the surviving button pressers? Presumably some people are going to gleefully Instagram themselves pressing the button. After that does the magical murder button network leave metadata?
Though another variant of the OP would be to add an extra step. After pressing (or not pressing the button) you are given 10 minutes with an equally magically button search engine showing who pressed the button and who they killed, you can then change your answer. How would that change the outcome?
You can only be killed once and there will be 100s millions saying a name that rhymes with Honald Grump (and probably a good few 10s of millions, at least, for Biden, Clinton, AOC, Stamer, Putin, etc.)
Once you add up all the hated politicians and celebrities the human race won’t be in danger. The maths would be interesting, how many unique button presses are there? For regular non-celebrities who are only known by people who know them personally how many have actually offended someone enough to murder them, even in a completely anonymous way with no legal repercussions?
Ohhh that makes it very different. Totally a large percentage of the population dies, probably enough to destabilize society though not enough to make the human race extinct. Every politician or celebrity dies.
If this scenario includes time for it, then the legal systems of the world need to mount a publicity campaign saying they (or their successors as they aren’t surviving) will investigating each button press as murder. They should announce that they’ll be carefully tearing apart the buttons to discover who killed who and charging them with murder (whether or not doing so would be physically possible)
But is the act button pushing final? If you are one of the many many people who push it for Donald Trump but don’t get him, can you decide to un-press your button? Or do you have to choose someone?
The little light stays on, indicating that the button is still working.
Yeah that changes things again. I don’t think the human race is in jeopardy at all. Plenty of people will push for Trump (and Obama and AOC and Stamer). Not that many people will keep pressing until they get someone IMO
I’m done for. Probably within the first hour or two.
Every US representative, every UK MP, every equivalent in virtually every country would die. Maybe not on the first round, but somebody will get them.
Until all the boxes are used up, being the least bit famous would be extremely risky.
Yeah. I don’t push my button. (There’s are lots of people who’d move faster than me on the folks I’d even consider.) And i doubt anyone would kill me. But every politician, every celebrity, most every police officer and lawyer and judge (people don’t die instantly; even if you choose the guy you put in prison, he can also choose you) would all be dead.
Ignoring the issue with piles of rotting human flesh that we don’t have the capacity to process…
Society would be a very different place after the buttons.
Do the boxes work for anyone who presses the button or just for the person who received the box? because if anyone can use any box unused boxes would become a prized commodity very soon.
Even if they don’t you better somehow destroy your box before someone with a grudge tries to force you to use it to kill someone.
What happens–if you try to use the Box on somebody who is already dead?
What happens, if you just say “John Smith”, with nobody in particular in mind? (Art least one jerk will try that.)
Not sure about that. A constituency in the UK has around 70k people. IMO it’s not guaranteed that at least one person in that 70k:
Remember though everybody (except one) who chose Starmer, Lammy, Badenoch, Farage etc as their first choice gets another chance and another and another. Somebody will eventually exterminate them all.
But not everyone will continue indefinitely. And overlap between the group of people who will, and the group of people who know and care about who their MP is not guaranteed to contain one person in every 70,000 person constituency. Every well known MP is doomed but your average anonymous MP stands a good chance of surviving IMO
So there is one thing society can do to alleviate the damage. On the first day it’s announced, before the first 48 hours is up, pass an emergency law that being in possession of a box with an unlit light (or failing to produce your box when demanded by an government official) is now the equivalent of murder in the first degree, and punishable in the same way.