# Black Button. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 29, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984 "2007-06-29T23:00:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/1 "2007-06-29T23:00:14Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/QrKnhOJ-R80/hqdefault.jpg "Black Button - Short Film") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrKnhOJ-R80) Until the end of this Youtube video the question was… Are you willing to push a button that will cause someone’s death and grant you ten million dollars. Something I thought of whilst watching it (until the twist at the end) was; If I were the person who would die, for giving someone ten million dollars in exchange for my life, would I say “Push the button” Or “Please don’t push the button” I would be tempted to say push it. Ten million can make for a pleasurable life for a good many years. I might feel good about dying knowing that by doing so I have improved the quality of another person’s life. And moreso if they were allowed to know that I was happy to die for them to get ten million dollars ---
**Author:** ![Swampwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Swampwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swampwolf)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/2 "2007-06-29T23:10:26Z")
For me, in either scenario, it would depend a lot upon who the other person was. ---
**Author:** ![Rich\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@Rich\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_Mann)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/3 "2007-06-30T06:46:32Z")
I didn’t feel like watching the whole thing. Does it end the same as the _Twilight Zone_ episode it rips off? ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/4 "2007-06-30T21:35:01Z")
I don’t think the guilt of knowing someone died to give me $10M would allow me to enjoy said $10M (unless we’re talking inheritance of the normal sort, of course.) And no amount of money is enough for me to allow someone else to die, or push a button to kill them. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/5 "2007-07-01T06:18:26Z")
[QUOTE=Rich Mann] I didn’t feel like watching the whole thing. Does it end the same as the _Twilight Zone_ episode it rips off? [/QUOTE] Apparently, a lot of people left similar comments, as the author made an edit to the video description denying him having ever seen it. Just curious, but what episode did it rip off and how were they similar? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/6 "2007-07-01T07:06:14Z")
[QUOTE=Red Barchetta] Apparently, a lot of people left similar comments, as the author made an edit to the video description denying him having ever seen it. Just curious, but what episode did it rip off and how were they similar? [/QUOTE] The episode involved a mysterious stranger presenting, as I recall, a couple with a button, covered with a clear plastic shield. If they push the button, they get a wad of cash (was it $100K?), but someone they don’t know will die. The couple frets a long time, even going to far as to open the bottom of the button’s box to discover the button’s not even connected to anything. Eventually, they press the button. Shortly thereafter, the stranger returns with their money. Finale:The couple asks, “What happens to the button?” He answers, “The button will be taken back, reset…and given to someone you don’t know.” The implication being that they are next on the chopping block, and their lives depend on the next stranger being unwilling to push the button. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/7 "2007-07-01T07:45:08Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] Finale:The couple asks, “What happens to the button?” He answers, “The button will be taken back, reset…and given to someone you don’t know.” The implication being that they are next on the chopping block, and their lives depend on the next stranger being unwilling to push the button. [/QUOTE] Hmm, that ending’s even better than the one in the “Black Button” video. Thanks for the details! ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/8 "2007-07-01T13:58:08Z")
Maybe this is absurdly obvious, and maybe I’m being very boring for posting this, but, AFAICT, the moral value of not pushing the button is a lot less clear than the makers of the film seem to believe. If you push the button, someone dies. You get $10M of blood money. We all know that killing someone else for your own personal financial well-being is wrong (assuming, of course, that your financial well-being is good enough that you won’t die for the lack of improving it.) Here’s the thing, though–how many people, who would have died otherwise, would that $10M save? Think of all the people who die for lack of clean water, or adequate nutrition, or a $10.00 vaccine. How many lives could that $10M buy? Could you possibly have a net gain of, say, 10,000 lives saved from the money, in exchange for the one life you take to get the cash? Maybe pushing the button and directly handing the briefcase over to the Red Cross is the right thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/9 "2007-07-01T14:13:08Z")
There’s a few people I would be happy to see die for free. Maybe I could make a counter offer: keep the money, and let me pick who dies. Otherwise, no. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-button/409984/10 "2007-07-01T14:32:44Z")
The _Twilight Zone_ episode was _Button, Button_, based on a short story written by Richard Matheson. In it a couple are in severe financial straits. Two hundred kilobucks will certainly solve their financial problems. The wife wants to push the button. She says that the victim might be someone who would be better off dead. The husband counters that the victim may just as well be an innocent person with everything to live for. He throws the box in the trash. When he comes home from work he finds his wife sitting before the button. She tells him she’d pushed it. That night or the next day the Well Dressed Man who brought the box shows up with the money. As has been said upthread, the wife asks who will get the box next. ‘I assure you it will be someone you don’t know’ is the answer. I’ve watched the video, and at first it does seem to be a rip-off of _Button, Button_. The director claims never to have heard of it. Given that he’s in Australia, I suppose it’s possible that he’d never seen the American television episode. Upon seeing the ending, I think I can give him the benefit of the doubt. The ending is different from _Button, Button_ and the idea is, as he says, an old one. I’m reminded of a short story by Leo Tolstoy: > [@](#): > > A woman died and could not go to Heaven because she had been mean and cruel to everyone all her life. She went to Hell, and from there she prayed for mercy. Was there no way she could be admitted to Heaven? > > The angel who guards the gates looked around and asked all the souls in Heaven, “Is there anyone here who has ever had a kind word or an act of generosity from this woman?” Only one stepped forth. He said that in life he had been a starving beggar, and one time this woman had given him an onion. The angel told him, “Bring me the onion.” It wasn’t much of an onion—small and shriveled—a pretty poor meal even for a beggar. Would it be enough of an act of kindness to raise the old woman out of Hell? > > The angel took the onion and reached down with it into Hell. The old woman grasped it and the angel began to pull her up. The thin dry stalk seemed like it might snap at any minute, but as she held onto it, her feet were lifted from the ground. The other damned souls around her saw her beginning to rise Heavenward and they grabbed at her skirts and her feet, hoping to be pulled up with her. The onion stalk was so spindly. Would it hold? > > The old woman looked down at the other damned souls clinging to her and yelled, “Let go! It’s my onion!” > > And with that, the onion broke. I’d like to think that I’ve done an act of kindness or two in my life and I would not wind up like the woman with the onion. As for the black button, I would not press it under the terms laid out. If I were to be an assassin, I’d want to know my target.