Push Button to Destroy Earth.

[silenus]

Oh we’ll all go together when we go
All suffused with an incandescent glow
When the air becomes uraneous
We will all go simultaneous
Yes we’ll all go together when we go.
–Tom Lehrer

[Oakminster]

I’d push that sucker in a heartbeat. If by so doing I destroyed the planet…oopsie.

[Achren]

@Cervaise

I work at a large technology company whose name you would all recognize.

In our corporate data center, there is a large red button on the wall. There is no label, and there are no instructions. The button is not protected with a cover or otherwise made inaccessible. It’s just a big red button on the wall.

Everyone assumes the button is an emergency power cutoff, which can be pressed in the event of data center fire, or if V-Ger tries to download our memory core, or whatever. It’s a pretty good guess. Most data centers have something like this.

But here’s the thing: nobody knows for sure. Because we have had total staff turnover from the time the data center was designed and built. There’s nobody still at the company who was there when the button was installed. And there is absolutely no documentation about what the button is connected to.

So while it’s a reasonable assumption that the big red button is a failsafe of some variety, we have no idea exactly what it will do or, more importantly, what would or should be done to reverse its effects in the event it gets pressed.

Needless to say, everybody really, really, really wants to press it.

Makes me think of Joe Versus the Volcano when before he leaves his job he turns the wheel on the pipe to see what would happen. He’s very disappointed when nothing does (as was I the first time I saw it).

[danceswithcats]

Glad I’m not the only one who read the OP and immediately thought of Ren & Stimpy!

[Cervaise]

@El_Kabong

Oh, and Cervaise, if anyone ever does push that button at your data center, we all want to know what happened.

Oh, I think we’ll all know pretty much immediately.
“Uh, what happened to the sun?”

[h.sapiens]

“Where’s the kaboom? There’s supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!”
-Marvin the Martian

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Cluricaun

Accidentally my white Irish arse. I was coming in here just to say “Until **Winston ** or **Skald ** gets there”.

::Skald enters with pie for almost everyone::

There’s at least 5 reasons I’d not press the button:

1. Earth is where I keep all my stuff.

2. Alyson Hannigan lives on Earth. Also Angela Bassett. Also Jodie Foster. Also CarlyJay and Anaamika. And so forth.

3. I want to CONQUER the Earth so that I might rule it despotically, casting most of you lot into chains, sending the worst of you into the pickle mines, making Anaamika Wife #2 in my harem, and generally being an evil jerk. Hard to do that if the Earth’s been destroyed.

4. Immediately upon discovery of such a button, I’d send my legions of flying robot sharks (with lasers on their heads) to secure the area. (I’d keep the winged venomous howler monkeys out of the vicinity for obvious reasons.) Once the archeological team, media, and so forth were, ah, quieted, I’d study the tech, take the useful part for my own purposes, and disarm the barm.

5. I really should learn how to count.

:: Skald distributes pie to everyone but **Clurican ** ::

[Colophon]

I’d just assume there was a mistranslation in the runes – it should, of course, read “Push Button, Receive Bacon”.

[Captain_Carrot]

@El_Kabong

Didn’t we set off our first atomic bomb despite some calculations showing that there was a chance it would ignite the entire atmosphere?

Some people thought that pretty early on, but I believe it was fairly quickly and conclusively ruled out as a possibility.

[Carlyjay]

@Skald the Rhymer

2. Alyson Hannigan lives on Earth. Also Angela Bassett. Also Jodie Foster. Also CarlyJay and Anaamika. And so forth.

You’re nice. I like you.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Carlyjay

You’re nice. I like you.

You get an extra piece of pie. And when I am God-King I promise not to unnecessarily condemn you and yours to the pickle mines.

[CalMeacham]

Interviewer: How powerful are you? Could you, say, destroy the Earth?

The Tick": Egad! I hope not! That’s where I keep all my stuff!

[MacSpon]

The resident arch-fiend at work here has just pointed out:

Hey, aren’t there already supposed to be two of those buttons? One in America, and one in Russia? (Okay, maybe the Russian one isn’t there any more.)

I do not find it comforting that George W Bush has access to the American one, though.

[Cluricaun]

@Skald the Rhymer

Skald distributes pie to everyone but **Clurican ** ::

Cool. My name’s Cluricaun, so balls to that other guy you mentioned. I’ll have his slice as well as a huge portion of your dominated world to boot.

I swear to Og if I hadn’t already changed my name once…