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

  • nitroemdash@lemmy.wtf
    3·
    11 hours ago

    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.

  • sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    10·
    1 day ago

    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

    • ReptilianCleric@lemmy.zip
      2·
      9 hours ago

      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.

    • JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org
      2·
      5 hours ago

      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.