The totally hypothetical button thought experiment
4d 21h ago by sh.itjust.works/u/FoxtrotDeltaTango in comicstrips from jlai.lu
cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/37546528
[blue]
If you could push a button that gives you a hundred thousand dollars but a random person dies, would you do it?
[yellow, cautious]
Interesting thought experiment… intuitively, I'd say no, but it's worth thinking about… it's a genuine moral dilemma in a capitalist world: there's a dialectic between our desires and the common good…
MEANWHILE, BILLIONAIRES
[an orange guy in a suit is shown with a terrifying grin pushing as many buttons as possible at once on a table, slamming one of the buttons, and even using their foot to press an extra one]https://thebad.website/comic/the_totally_hypothetical_button_thought_experiment
And Americans are basically funding the guy to do it while complaining about it at the same time.
When you say a "random person would die" well that random person could be me or someone I am close with.
Its should've been: "but a random person - who isn't you nor any of your close family and friends - dies" then yes, billionaires would absolutely smash that button
Does Elon have friends or non-estranged family?
There is that kid he used as a human shield who doesn't have a say in anything.
"a random poor person would die"
You overestimate the capacity of billionaires to feel empathy, which is actually zero. Somebody who is going to amass that amount of wealth, I don't believe there's anything that would stop them so I disagree. A billionaire would hit that button with absolutely no hesitation.
Nobel had his brother exploded by the nitroglycerine formula he created, so for certain disgustingly wealthy folks, it really do be just 'a random person dies' matter.
EDIT: sorry, not one of Nobel's later formulations, it was actually just straight nitroglycerine. Alfred Nobel would later stabilize it with diatomaceous earth and then, much later, with cotton.
If I could just round up all the billionaires and put them on an island somewhere…..oh wait.
A good charity can save a dozen lives with a 100k donation. It would take a few million button pushes until well-being of the global poorest gets so good that the cost of saving one life rises to 100k and you are no longer morally obligated to press.