You get a magic button that when pressed makes every single person in the world have the same morals and ideological beliefs as you. No one will know if you press it and their new beliefs will be with them until they die if you press it.
You have two minutes to decide before the button vanishes. The button vanishes when you press it.
Would you press the button or no?
Without a second thought.
ETA: I would be fine if it was just the same morals as me. Ideology is a bonus.
Does it include fetishes?
Yep. I would.
No way. While I do wish more people agreed with me (or maybe just that there were fewer people to take the opposite view to extremes), even so, I enjoy variety.
I would not want everyone to think like me; that would be disastrous.
No. Mind control is against those very same morals.
No, I have no illusions about being the greatest force for good in the world.
Yeah, no thanks times a thousand. What I think is good enough for me. It needs lots of other viewpoints to balance it out, because there is so damned much I don’t know. As I have repeatedly demonstrated here.
Hell no, no hesitation about that answer.
I’m reminded of an episode of the little-known animated series Jeff & Some Aliens
With the aliens away on vacation, Jeff accidentally uses a device that gives everyone on Earth his exact personality traits.
(Needless to say, things don’t go so hot.)
That was also (roughly) the premise of the Twilight Zone episode “The Mind and the Matter.”
No, I don’t have the right to do that.
No, because while I’m not a saint or a demon, my flaws becoming universal would not be a balanced world either. If the button let me pick the person whose morals and ideology I could duplicate, then I’d have to give it serious thought. Yes, I’d be violating my morals, but given the current world situation, I may compromise them for the greater good, even if it meant deliberately sacrificing some of my own freedom as well as everyone elses.
Hey, I specifically said I wasn’t a saint!
Nope. How boring the world would be.
How much does “ideology” encompass here? Like is it just things like “no death penalty” or does it include “Better Call Saul is better than Breaking Bad”.
You mean stop people from having an overwhelming need to kill, torture, enslave, starve, steal from other people? I’d do it.
But that is not all that it would do, is it?
I’d press the button, but not before I first extremely carefully fine-tuned my beliefs to make sure they’re actually good.
However, since the OP only said moral and ideological views, then this is an easy choice. If he said the same “policy views,” that would be a lot harder. What if a 60% tax rate on the rich is not, in fact, a good idea? etc.
Pretty much. If it means that everyone will also like coffee and have an irrational fear of hyenas, well, I can live with that.
makes every single person in the world have the same morals and ideological beliefs as you.