# Would you press this magic button? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 24, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093 "2025-06-24T20:39:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/81 "2025-06-26T10:15:19Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > Would you press the button or no? No. Mind control is (ironically enough) against my morals. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/82 "2025-06-26T20:01:55Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Fear of hyenas is never irrational. > > Nasty beasts, they are. I was watching some nature show on TV ages ago, and they had segments on lions and hyenas. We were joking about the “nice” lions and the “nasty” hyenas when the narrator made some comment about how people usually find hyenas icky, for lack of a better word. They then explained how hyenas were actually pretty chill and probably better than lions in a lot of ways (sorry, it was long enough ago that I don’t remember any details). I felt that. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/83 "2025-06-26T20:17:51Z")
_The Lion King_ did a lot of brand damage to hyenas. Disney seems to have this effect in general. Lemmings never recovered, either. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/84 "2025-06-26T20:23:29Z")
Lions do kill hyenas, but rarely for food. It’s mostly about turf, rivalry… and spite. Lions seem to hate hyenas—it’s not hard to see why. Sometimes they cripple them, whether by accident (hyenas are tough and often escape mid-attack) or on purpose—as a dominance flex. It’s a warning to the rest of the clan: _mess with us, and this could be you._ Nasty? Sure. But the savannah doesn’t do nice. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/85 "2025-06-26T20:50:05Z")
What color is the button? ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/86 "2025-06-26T21:03:24Z")
The color is blue. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/87 "2025-06-27T05:27:51Z")
This changes everything. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/88 "2025-06-27T06:03:00Z")
Absolutely. I’ve long wanted people to become the Borg, except with ongoing innovation and experimentation in morality. I don’t think the largely faith-based and violently tribal status quo is a good long-term match for our species. It would be lovely to push the reset button and start again from a cleaner slate. If they adopted my views, I guess it’d largely be secular humanism, but with small experimental groups that continuously evaluate different lifestyles and moral processes, like a million parallel biospheres seeded with philosopher-scientist-ecologist-artists. I’m sure some of them will become sycophantic cults of personality again in due time, but maybe other ones will manage to evolve our genome with better moral encodings that aren’t so disastrously fight-or-flight. Either way, it’d be a neat experiment, and I’d say it’s at least a better shot than what we have today. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/89 "2025-06-27T06:41:44Z")
Does it still kill one random person? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/90 "2025-06-27T10:29:06Z")
Thinking about it, I’m pretty sure this would technically count as a worldwide genocide, since it is destroying _all_ other cultures. And for most purposes, the people themselves die; the program running their bodies isn’t _them_ anymore in any real sense. They’re just meat puppets. > [@Reply](#): > > If they adopted my views, I guess it’d largely be secular humanism, but with small experimental groups that continuously evaluate different lifestyles and moral processes, like a million parallel biospheres seeded with philosopher-scientist-ecologist-artists. They can’t do that, because their morals and beliefs are locked in. They _cannot_ experiment, cannot change. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/91 "2025-06-27T13:17:44Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > They _cannot_ experiment, cannot change So you are suggesting that I can’t experiment/change? Because I heartily disagree with that. The button imposes my morals and my ideology, nothing more. I am not rigidly dogmatic; my ideology requires exploration and rationality, self-reflection, and most importantly, change in direction in light of lessons learned. My morality is, of course, harder to pin down in a single sentence, but is mostly geared toward an almost-Hippocratic “do the least harm possible for the greatest benefit.” ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/92 "2025-06-27T14:19:12Z")
I’m imagining a game show with a big button called, “Who Wants to be a Cult Leader?” Is there anybody in this thread other than yourself who you would trust with the magic button? ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/93 "2025-06-27T14:38:24Z")
I don’t have the direct knowledge of others’ morals and ideologies. What I know is that abuse, genocide, rape, etc. is incompatible with mine, so there will be much less violence and misery in the world. As is fraud, greed, and confabulation, so grifting and medical woo bullshit will also be right out. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/94 "2025-06-27T21:52:05Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > So you are suggesting that I can’t experiment/change? No, because your beliefs are not imposed by a magic button. And it states in the OP that their imposed beliefs will be lifelong. So no experimentation, no changing of opinions according to evidence, they’ll robotically stick with their programming even if it kills them. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/95 "2025-06-27T22:41:36Z")
Unless responding to evidence and changing your mind accordingly (within reason) is a part of your ideology then it shouldn’t be an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/96 "2025-06-27T23:05:05Z")
Again, changing your mind is impossible in this scenario; people are acting under compulsion, they _cannot_ change their mind. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/97 "2025-06-27T23:06:35Z")
I created the scenario so my previous comment is confirmation that what you’re saying isn’t the case. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/98 "2025-06-27T23:12:50Z")
Then your OP is self-contradictory. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/99 "2025-06-27T23:16:54Z")
It doesn’t change the ethics of the situation anyway. Even if people can eventually change their mind, you’d still have to rewrite their personality and all of their life experiences to impose the moral beliefs in the first place. No different than killing them. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093/100 "2025-06-27T23:22:51Z")
No. I just didn’t feel like writing an entire lawyer reviewed and evil genie proof essay covering every possible circumstance, question and gotcha people would have in response to the scenario. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-press-this-magic-button/1020093.md?page=6)