# Would you push the button? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 31, 2009, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816 "2009-10-31T04:43:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/21 "2009-10-31T18:26:08Z")
Richard Matheson is clearly one of the BEST writers in history. He wrote many episodes for Twilight Zone and lots of short stories, including “Button, Button”. (Personal fave = “Blood Son” READ IT TODAY!) Would I push the button? Yep. More than 100 times just to make sure it works. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/22 "2009-10-31T19:03:39Z")
I’d climb under the dashboard and trace the wiring of the button, find out which circuit or patch is responsible for the people-killing mechanism, and short it out. Then push the button. SERIOUS ANSWER: money is not a natural substance, it’s a token in a social agreement. Hence I cannot simply be “getting” money if I push the button, someone has to be _paying_ me to push the button. I am not inclined to work as a contract killer. And there probably exist legal jobs where to perform my job would be to kill some people, albeit indirectly. Some of them may bring good into the world as well. Pushing a button doesn’t strike me as falling into that latter category. Unless I have reason to think the person in question “needed killing”, e.g., I’m hired to be the executioner for a capital murder case and think justice was done in the findings, I don’t think I’d want the job. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/23 "2009-10-31T20:38:36Z")
I see another completely differant point that I have never seen anyone else make. The whole premise of this idea is that is it possible to transfer responsibility from the person who carries out the killing, or at least share the responsibility. You have to ask yourself, just who is actually doing the killing, the person pressing the button, or the one who set up the scenario in the first place. The person making the offer is surely guilty of the crime(along with any other accomplice that we may not know about), the person who is invited to press this button cannot rationally believe that death will occur to another person. Lets change it just a little, imagine a stranger walks up to you with a suitcase of money and a gun, he asks you to say ‘yes’ to a proposed assassination - the stranger will be killed right in front of your eyes - there is a victim ready to be shot in plain view - all you have to do is agree to watch to get the million bucks. Does that still make you responsible? Would you agree, you get no say in who the victim is, you do not know anything about them. Shot rings out, stranger is dead, are you responsible? or does this lie solely with the killer? ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/24 "2009-10-31T20:47:35Z")
I’d do it for free if I got to pick who pegged it. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/25 "2009-10-31T20:57:16Z")
I’d kill the person who gave me the button. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/26 "2009-10-31T20:58:30Z")
—. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/27 "2009-10-31T20:59:30Z")
I wouldn’t have a second thought- I’d give the box right back. No thank you. It doesn’t matter if, worldwide, people die all the time… 'cause I’m not the one killing them. I could never live with myself if I pressed the button. ---
**Author:** ![Gustav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/919ad9/32.png) [@Gustav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gustav)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/28 "2009-10-31T21:12:27Z")
Eh, if it’s a moral thing you can always spend half of the million saving a few people’s lives to make up for it. Unless you’re into silly Batman/Macgyver feel-good morals. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/29 "2009-10-31T21:17:33Z")
Never. I have enough guilt as it is. ---
**Author:** ![Rack-a-Bones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rack-a-Bones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rack-a-Bones)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/30 "2009-10-31T21:40:29Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > Some people would press the button no matter what, because it is a button. This is me. > [@Alessan](#): > > I’d kill the person who gave me the button. I think you want to kill the person who pays you so they can’t take the box and give it to someone else. Now that I think about it, you’d probably have to kill the person who gave you the button too. Can’t leave any witnesses. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/31 "2009-11-01T00:29:40Z")
Even if I didn’t know the ending of that particular story, I think I’d still realize that there was some catch. Not that I’d push the button in any case, but I’d suspect that if I did push it, it wouldn’t work end happily for me. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/32 "2009-11-01T00:40:41Z")
No, for all kinds of moral and philosophical reasons, and also because of a deep mistrust of anything that looks too good to be true. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/33 "2009-11-01T01:13:29Z")
I’d take the box apart to see how it works. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/34 "2009-11-01T01:21:44Z")
I think a better question would be how many people would have to die per button push before you stopped considering it. For me it would be around a thousand. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/35 "2009-11-01T01:42:05Z")
I would not press the button. Anyone who would offer such a bargain is clearly doing so only to fuck with my head. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/36 "2009-11-01T02:48:42Z")
> [@Gustav](#): > > I don’t see any reason to think the guy making the offer won’t do whatever he wants with the button afterwards anyway. If he wants to screw me over he can do it whether I press the button or not. Might as well make the best of it. The problem with that argument is that people who are thinking in straightforward, honest, practical terms don’t walk up to strangers and offer them a push-the-death-button-for-money deal. After all, why doesn’t HE push the button? ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/37 "2009-11-01T03:16:50Z")
If you participate, you’re fully responsible. A million dollars doesn’t even cover the [value of a statistical life](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life), in the US at least. A while back I read a story that the EPA was considering lowering the value from 7 to 5 million I believe, and people were up in arms about it. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/38 "2009-11-01T05:44:42Z")
I’d be on that thing like a rat in a Skinner box. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/39 "2009-11-01T07:20:11Z")
I could only hope that it’s a daisy chain sort of thing where the person who pushes the first button doesn’t really kill anyone. Then the second person that pushes the button kills the first insensitive bastard, and so on until all of these selfish people are gone. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816/40 "2009-11-01T14:48:59Z")
> [@BigGibraltar](#): > > I think it would depend on if I knew the person or not. I figure if I never hear about or are affected by the death, then it wouldn’t bother me much. It would not seem real to me. I know this is based off some previous story but I never read it to find out what the twist is. A story about everyone on Earth having a 1-in-6.8 billion chance of dying each time seems like it would take a long time to catch up with you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-push-the-button/515816.md?page=3)