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[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 12 points 1 day ago

I'll take 0,01 if it ensures that the person who dies is a billionaire

[-] Alandrus_Sun@ttrpg.network 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'd press it at least 500 times. Maybe more, you need to make sure it works and one random death isn't going to make the news. So gotta put in work and press it as many times in one instance. And, I get paid at the end?

[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 41 points 1 day ago

The bourgeoisie already does that offer, the proletariat can't choose it.

[-] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 day ago

You pay taxes in the US, you've already paid for the random death of people.

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

paid, not been paid - that's a difference, and also not voluntarily. Arguably, those who don't pay taxes (i.e. took many times 10000) are causing the deaths of millions by their lobbying to become richer.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If you are a U.S. corporation who doesn't pay taxes you've already been paid billion$ for the death of hundreds of random people all across the globe.

Better?

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago
[-] stickyprimer@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

This is an old twilight zone episode. A women is given a box with one button on it and told to press it is she wants the money, but someone she doesn’t even know will die.

She decides the push the button, and then someone comes to collect the button device, saying that it will now be reset and taken to someone else now for the same challenge. Some random person on earth. Implying that she will be the next to die if the button gets pushed.

Frankly not a bad system. Slowly cleanses the selfish from the earth.

[-] lobut@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

I'm an 80s kid but I skipped the old Twilight episodes ... so I'm trying to darnest to catch up on them and I'm learning how awesome the ideas were even if the presentation is dated.

Just a random segue ...

I sound naive but I didn't realize that Rod Sterling wanted to tell stories about social issues -- racism and stuff but the networks wouldn't let him. If he wanted to tell a story about an alien or an invader then the networks would let it pass through. So it was a way for him to tell harder stories to the general public.

I think that's a lot of sci-fi like Invasion of the Body Snatcher and such but I just never thought about it deeply enough.

There's the treehouse of horror episode by the Simpsons where Bart is omnipotent and I knew it was based on something but I only recently learned it from: "It's a Good Life" which is a book and a Twilight Zone episode. I only watched the parody up until this year and I just thought it was a fun concept. Then I watched the original and a breakdown and it was a take on totalitarian regimes.

[-] stickyprimer@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

Yeah some of them are little moral parables and some are just setups for a thrill/shock twist.

This “button” episode was actually from the 80s reboot of TZ, not the Rod Serling original.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 12 points 2 days ago

Was the lady told what would happen if she pressed the button?

[-] stickyprimer@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

Yes it was clear that someone somewhere in the world “who you don’t even know” would die. The characters have a debate:

“Maybe it’ll be just some Chinese peasant.”

“What if it’s someone’s newborn baby!”

More than anything I’m shocked at the casual dismissal of the Chinese peasant. WTF?

Anyway at the very end of the show the same guy who brought them this dilemma comes to collect the device and he very pointedly uses the same language to say “now it will go to someone new that you don’t even know.”

[-] MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 days ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Zone)

Yes, that somewhere in the world, someone she doesnt know will die.

When Mr. Steward returns to collect the button box after the button is pressed, the lady asks what happens to the box next. She is told it will go to someone else with the same offer, with assurances that the new recipient will not know who she is. As the previous commenter said, the wording deeply implies she would be the certain "someone" targeted by the next button press.

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[-] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

She got $20,000 if I'm not mistaken. In '80s money.

Also it was originally meant to kill her husband. They changed it for the show.

[-] stickyprimer@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

$200,000 - which if you consider that it was 1980s money, makes Mr. Beast’s $10,000 look very small.

By “originally meant to” I think you are referring to the short story it was based on ending that way.

A despondent Norma asks the stranger why her husband was the one who was killed. The stranger replies, "Do you really think you knew your husband?" strongly disapproved of the Twilight Zone version, especially the new ending

Frankly I find the twilight zone ending more chilling and suspenseful. The “do you think you really knew your husband” line is kinda sad trombone.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I really liked the line in the Twilight Zone when she asked who it would b given to next, "I can assure you it will be offered to someone whom you don't know." Pretty chilling IYAM

[-] billwashere@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I’m assuming the device gets passed on regardless if the button is pressed. If that’s the case, does it have any correlation to selfishness getting punished? Me living or dying has to do with the NEXT person being selfish, not whether I was selfish or not. Unless I’m missing something

[-] stickyprimer@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I believe the idea is that if you push the button, it goes on to someone else. If they DON’T push the button, they get skipped. It goes to someone else besides them. And so on, until SOMEONE does push the button. And at that point, the last person who pushed the button gets iced.

And so in that way, every person who pushes the button inevitably gets killed, removing selfish people from the world while morally upright people get passed over.

This isn’t detailed in the episode, it’s just my mind filling in between the lines.

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[-] imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works 84 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

About 2 people are dying every second regardless, so if i don't take the money, 2 people die.

Im actually saving a life by briefly capping the death rare at 1.

[-] petersr@lemmy.world 57 points 2 days ago

Sorry, but that's not how it works. 3 people die that instant.

[-] imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works 41 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'll stick with the original scenario and gratefully receive $10,000 for saving a life.

But thank you for your new offer.

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[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago

No.

Also, fuck Mr. Beast. A billionaire proposing yet another Trolley Problem for amusement and engagement bait.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 45 points 2 days ago

The ultra rich:

I'd do it for $10!

[-] AuginTuga34@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago

I'd do that for a dollar!

[-] VinegarChunks@lemmus.org 47 points 2 days ago

We learned during Covid that at least half of the country would kill not some stranger, but their neighbors and friends, and not for ten grand, but to avoid the mild discomfort of wearing a mask and social distancing

[-] theboomr@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

Still happening too

[-] applebusch 4 points 1 day ago

many of them were willing to kill their own children, and even themselves, to briefly avoid that mild discomfort

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[-] BeardededSquidward 48 points 2 days ago

That is happening everyday, done by thousands of people who could have stopped those deaths readily. Just they are obsessed with more wealth.

[-] desra@lemmy.vg 11 points 1 day ago

the only way i'm ever pushing a stupid ass button like that is if hunger gets solved or manufactured housing scarcity disappears, and i'm the only one that dies.

tf is wrong with some of you?

[-] backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 13 points 1 day ago

Host: For $10000, push this button and some random person dies.

Me: Could I take less to get a billionaire?

Host: Sure. $5000.

Me: Make it painful?

Host: [visible discomfort] Uhh, $1000.

Me: The Brazen Bull?

Host: Jesus… You get nothing.

Me:

[-] DaGreenGobbo@feddit.uk 5 points 1 day ago
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[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago

remember that cring video he did with KSI, its like they were in cave in afghanistan, and he had a gun to the guests head to force them to eat his lunchly.

[-] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 days ago

No.

Counter proposition: for every €10 I pay, a random fascist dies. I'm willing to spend all my money, and am willing to take gifts from others to continue paying more amounts of €10 for as long as I have any. I'll even spend €100 to prioritize highly influential fascists first.

[-] DaGreenGobbo@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago

The monkey's paw curls. The word fascist has become so debased that you are now $80 billion in debt. And dead.

[-] Chivera@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

It's a life, how much could it cost. $10,000?

[-] bequirtle@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

if anyone presses the button and I die I'm haunting your stupid ass forever

[-] sundray@lemmus.org 7 points 2 days ago
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[-] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago
[-] mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 2 days ago

Does the name of that random person rhyme with "rump" or "rootin" ?

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[-] katkit@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

That's the premise of the Twilight Zone episode "Button, Button". After she pressed it, the man making the deal said he'd go to "a random person on Earth" offering the same to them (implying that the person being killed will be the one who pushed the button earlier in the chain)

[-] NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 days ago

He’d do anything for attention, so I could see this video happening in future if he felt that social media would support him

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this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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