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Poll: Would you take a million dollars if you knew it would cost a random person their life?


  • CactusJack
    Oct 27 1:04 PM
    Reply
    Yes -- Ambien can help you sleep at night.
    Eh -- I'd probably need ten million to start thinking about it
    No way -- I could never live with myself.

      Results

  • CactusJack
    October 27

    Reply
    http://www.asylum.com/2009/10/27/the-box-would-you-accept-a-million-dollars-if-it-meant-person-dies/

    I thought this would make an interesting discussion. Yes it's from that movie.

  • Marta
    October 27

    Reply
    Ten million would start me thinking about it, some might consider me not a humanitarian but--I could always buy friends.

  • the back row
    October 27

    Reply
    Call me a Commie, but I honestly don't care much about money. I think compassion and love are far more important. A human life is far more important than silly frivolities, like big screen TVs and fancy cars.

    However, if this million dollars (in exchange for one human life), was to somehow help humanity, and in turn save millions, I would accept it, knowing that it went on to help the greater good. Although, I'd still feel guilty over that one person. Hopefully they volunteered for it.

    Now I'm thinking too much.

    • CactusJack
      October 27

      Reply
      Commie.

      I'd feel better if I could choose the person. Maybe I'm just evil.

      • the back row
        October 27

        Reply
        If we're allowed to have the million dollars first, then choose the person, I would first buy a time-traveling machine, go back to 1931, choose Adolf Hitler as my choice of death, then come back.

        Although, that might really screw up history. For all we know, the world might be even worse...

  • Barbara
    October 27

    Reply
    I remember that premise from the older Twilight Zone show (never read the story it was based on, though)... and the lesson learned from it... doing something like that always comes back to get you in the end.

  • Valkyrie
    October 27

    Reply
    I saw like three previews for that movie in a one hour period last night. It's an interesting concept. I found myself labeling the movie "dark contemporary fantasy".

    I voted no way, above, and then I saw what Cactus Jack said about picking who dies. If I got to pick the victims, I would have three million dollars in about three seconds.

    I think the movie would be way more interesting if it were like that, because then it could explore the reasons for killing another person (aside from just getting cash). Jealousy, rage, vigilante justice? Would the button-pusher be right about their victim's guilt of some kind, or would there be a hidden fact that they don't learn til it's too late, that proves they killed a (relatively) innocent person? That, I'd watch.

  • Oddities
    October 28

    Reply

    for a million dollars

    i would kill them myself.

    Honestly, almost everything we do has fatal repercussions somehow, whether it’s using oil people have died for to drive to the shops, or the conflict diamond in your wedding band, or just your Nikes that were made in some third world hellhole sweatshop that caught fire and killed everyone inside.

    People die every day for my behalf, and for only pennies, so I’d happily let them die for a million.

    • the back row
      October 28

      Reply
      You're quite bitter about consumerism. Although, you do realize that none of these things are life necessities?

      Ride a bike. Get a ring with a different stone. Buy organic shoes.

      To me, you seem to be complaining about things in your life that you can change.

      • Oddities
        October 28

        Reply

        you may have missed my point

        im ok with people who i will never meet, and couldn't care less about, dying for my profit and/or convenience.

        i was simply wondering why everyone else was suddenly getting so morally rightous.

        • the back row
          October 28

          Reply
          Forgive me for misinterpreting your statement.

          Although I consider it a tad inconsiderate to have a condescending attitude towards those you call "morally righteous". Some of us value human life, whether it be of someone we love, or someone we've never met.

          • Oddities
            October 29

            Reply
            well im sure the government only spends your tax dollars on schools and health care, and only buys cluster bombs and napalm with the tax from right wing nutters.

            • the back row
              October 29

              Reply
              I don't see that having a direct connection to our conversation.

              Get off your high-horse. You think you can condescend my government because I'm American, and you British are oh so better than us?

              How can I be intimidated by you when you don't even use proper grammar?

              • CactusJack
                October 29

                Reply

                I love it.
                "you don't even use proper grammar?"

                That's the writing equivalent of that scene in the Sandlot - "You play ball like a girl!"

                Only on a writing site would that be considered an insult.

                You guys crack me up.

              • Oddities
                October 31

                Reply

                TBH

                I read the concept and assumed it was a thinly veiled metaphor for NWO governments, and the fact the murder people for the profit of the citizens they serve, (regardless of actual country) and just jumped onboard.

                Maybe I read too much into it.

  • p.g.Leja
    October 28

    Reply
    People die all the time. My not giving money to the red cross this minute results in someone dying somewhere in the world.
    Who's to say the person was not going to die that day anyway?
    Who chooses who is going to die?
    If it was a murderer or some pedo then I'd be in for 2 million

    • Barbara
      October 29

      Reply
      The premise of Twilight Zone episode, and I think book... (and the movie, I would think) is that someone 'you don't know' will die. You push the button, you get the money... and then... the 'button' is given to someone 'you don't know'. In other words, whoever pushed it before you ends up dying when you push, and you die when the next person pushes.

      • NightVixen
        October 29

        Reply
        I knew that was a Twilight Zone but I don't think I have seen it. In Matheson's original story the person she doesn't know is actually very close to her. But the lesson seems to be: you may know someone but do you really KNOW them?

        Matheson hated the Twilight Zone version so much he used the pseudonym Logan Swanson (he also used it on the script for Omega Man).

  • Marta
    October 29

    Reply
    As a capitalist....I would like to put in my two cents, and just say: Show Me The Money.

  • Farhan
    October 31

    Reply
    I have a story about it in my text book named 'Button Button'. In the story, a couple was offered 50000 dollars to push a button. By doing so, any unknown person would die in the world. The husband refused but his wife insisted to do so. Eventually the wife pushed the button and his husband die. And she received 50,000 dollars of his insurance.
    I would rather not kill an unknown person to get any amount. After all, a murder is a murder.
    And those of you, who think that they would kill an unknown person have one million, would you like your father or husband or gf/bf or any other close person to be killed that way? No? Then why double standards for others?
    • Your textbook contains Matheson's original ending, rather than that Twilight Zone garbage. The point of it being her husband was that she did not really 'know' him. Indeed, the price of pushing the button was high.

      Myself, I would not. I would not be trusting enough of the circumstances. Secondly just because I do not know someone does not mean I have the right to choose to end their life.

  • Finis
    October 31

    Reply
    Accidents happen all the time. If I'm not held responsble for the death then it's not my fault.

    And if I feel bad for it I have the money to save enough lives to make up for it.

  • FaIIen One
    October 31

    Reply
    I think most reasonably intelligent people would take the money, regardless of their ethics.

    1) You can save thousands of lives with a million dollars, or at the very least save hundreds.

    2) People die all the time for your pleasure. The crab you had yesterday at that fancy restaurant probably cost a couple people their lives to try and catch, and a lot of children die in child labor working to keep wallmart prices low.

    3) You could probably afford to donate a couple thousand to charity which would save a couple lives, or at least improve some. That means by spending money on luxuries, you are inevitably allowing people to die anyway. The million would just be much more efficient.

    4) The people that you would save by taking the million would die indirectly by you not taking the money and saving them. In other words, not taking the money, even from an ethical standpoint, is unethical.

    5) If you saved so much as two lives and spent the rest of the money on yourself, the net gain would be one life (in other words, by allowing one to die you saved two, rather than letting the two die instead of the one).

    6) If you devoted the money to medical research, you could save millions of lives through a vaccine or something of that nature.
  • But is it really worth the risk. In the original ending...not that Twilight Zone nonsense the person to die was her husband. Is the money worth your spouse's life?

    As for the Twilight Zone ending, the button will be passed on and eventually someone else will choose to push it. Still worth it?

  • stefza
    November 4

    Reply
    i could do it to help someone commit suicide
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