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
We are all pushing the button every day. We are outsourcing or pollution to poorer countries where it poisons the population. We are buying things that have been produced under unsafe or downright dangerous conditions. Our consumption is often based on slave labour. The list goes on.
Once. Probably?
I’m too broke to say no, as then I’d probably be dead myself. Once out of the dire situation?
No.
The better variant is a button that takes $1 from 100,000 people and gives it to you.
It seems so much nicer, and on its own, it’s not particularly harmful. However, when 1000s of people start hammering it, then it suddenly makes a huge difference. Particularly to those to whom a $ is a significant amount of money.
No, no. They’re often CEOs so they delegated with the mission of “make me money” (aka. fiduciary responsibility).
