You are trapped in a room with 2 buttons...

Higus

Higus

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You wake up trapped in a room with 2 buttons. The first has your name written on it and the second has a number X (edit: X>0). There are instructions on the wall that say that pressing the first button will cause your death and pressing the second button will cause the deaths of X people in the world. You cannot escape the room until you press one of the buttons. How large must X be before you press the button with your name on it?

For the sake of argument:
1. X people are randomly chosen from the entire world. A farmer in India has as much chance as being selected as your best friend or child. You have no way of knowing who will be selected until after you've made your decision.
2. You are guaranteed to not be selected as part of X
3. No one will ever know that you were forced to make this choice
4. EDIT - Death is instant and painless for whomever you choose

Bonus round:
How does X change if the entire world knows what choice you made?

EDIT2:
For myself, I'd probably have to get to close to 1 million before I sacrificed myself.
If everyone knew what I did, I'd probably settle for around 10,000.
 
Last edited:
0. X must be 0 large before I press it. I don't even have to wake up in a room. I'll press it right now.

Wait I went the opposite way. Goddamn these hypotheticals.
 
I dont give a fuck about anyone but myself

With that said I press X and I dont feel guilty about it
 
Great question. I would say maybe in the thousands, but I don't think I would press my button at all, if im being honest. I got responsibilities to take care of.
 
I believe that murder and suicide are sins, so I would do nothing and risk starvation or dehydration.
 
ObsoleteSoul said:
Great question. I would say maybe in the thousands, but I don't think I would press my button at all, if im being honest. I got responsibilities to take care of.
Click to expand...
Say you have 3 people in the world you would happily take a bullet for. If the number got to 2.5 billion (world pop. 7.5B / 3), odds are one of them is going to be included in the random selection. How does that effect your decisions?
 
PG29 red0 Jr said:
I believe that murder and suicide are sins, so I would do nothing and risk starvation or dehydration.
Click to expand...
Let's say that if you don't make a decision, you die of starvation and to choice is forced onto someone else.
 
We'd probably all like to think we'd be noble and save other people, but honestly I don't want to die. I'd hit X.

I think X would have to be more than 100 for me to press my own. I mean some of those 100 might be assholes but some might be someone's young child. That would be hard to live with.

I don't think the fact that anyone knows that I picked me or X matters b/c most people aren't going to blame you for saving yourself.

edit: in a weird way I think if people knew I made the choice the number would be a lot smaller. At least the world would know my story and treat me as a hero for saving people and maybe they'd give my kids money or something. If nobody ever knew I'd be much more likely to take the cowardly way out and probably let it get into the thousands....it's hard to say.
 
Higus said:
Say you have 3 people in the world you would happily take a bullet for. If the number got to 2.5 billion (world pop. 7.5B / 3), odds are one of them is going to be included in the random selection. How does that effect your decisions?
Click to expand...
Greatly affects it.

Man, that is really a tough one if you sit and ponder it. I suppose I would still roll the dice and see. Maybe I'm doing the world a favor too, as we don't really need all these people. But maybe I'm using that as a cowards way out of killing myself??

Not sure I could honestly answer that question as I sit here. It would probably take being in that position to truly understand the weight of it.
 
How about this for a bonus bonus?
After you pressed the X button, you would find out the age and the family of every person you allowed to die. Would that change your mind? That would take it from an arbitrary number of random people who you'd never know, to very real people and stories that you'd have on your conscience.
 
I'd press X unlimited times. But knowing it could be my kid or someone I Care changes everything. Depends on the how many and probability. Not because I don't want to kill 100 million people but because chances of someone I know is too great. If it's 4 billion people and none of them I know, I would still press it. But if it's me or my family, I'd press me for sure.
TheNinja said:
How about this for a bonus bonus?
After you pressed the X button, you would find out the age and the family of every person you allowed to die. Would that change your mind? That would take it from an arbitrary number of random people who you'd never know, to very real people and stories that you'd have on your conscience.
Click to expand...
I dont mind killing X amount of people and knowing who they are or who I affected. Knowing it's me or them, I'd choose me 100%. Unless it's someone I give a shit about. If I don't know them, chances are I don't give a shit if you're a 10 year old Einstein.
 
TheNinja said:
We'd probably all like to think we'd be noble and save other people, but honestly I don't want to die. I'd hit X.

I think X would have to be more than 100 for me to press my own. I mean some of those 100 might be assholes but some might be someone's young child. That would be hard to live with.

I don't think the fact that anyone knows that I picked me or X matters b/c most people aren't going to blame you for saving yourself.
Click to expand...
I think having the world know what you did could make a difference, especially if you let the number get very high. Maybe no one would blame you for letting a 10 or even 100 random people to die instead of yourself, once that number starts getting into the 10K range and higher, its going to get hard to live with yourself and people are going to know that their loved ones died because of you.
Likewise, if you chose yourself, people will at least know what sort of sacrifice you made and will appreciate what you've done.
 
freaky said:
I'd press X unlimited times. But knowing it could be my kid or someone I Care changes everything. Depends on the how many and probability. Not because I don't want to kill 100 million people but because chances of someone I know is too great. If it's 4 billion people and none of them I know, I would still press it. But if it's me or my family, I'd press me for sure.

I dont mind killing X amount of people and knowing who they are or who I affected. Knowing it's me or them, I'd choose me 100%. Unless it's someone I give a shit about. If I don't know them, chances are I don't give a shit if you're a 10 year old Einstein.
Click to expand...

But that's the tricky part right? You don't know who it's going to be. I mean odds are it isn't anyone you know or care about, but the possibility is there. So even if you don't care about anyone else there has to be a point where the odds start to turn where you *might* end up killing your own kid or family member.

Still though.... that's a pretty tough stance as far as me vs them even if it's 100 million people. Maybe you could completely move on but that's gotta weigh on a person a bit I would think.

TS - This is a facisnating topic btw.
 
I'll kill all of Sherdog without even thinking twice about it.
 
PG29 red0 Jr said:
I believe that murder and suicide are sins, so I would do nothing and risk starvation or dehydration.
Click to expand...


If you voluntarily die from starvation or dehydration then you would have committed suicide.
 
I'd press X. It might include people I would like dead , there aren't many that I would care whether or not they died and I certainly wouldn't care if anybody knows. I'm not killing anyone, whoever set up the room is.
 
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