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
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.