• stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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    11 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.

    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.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      4 hours 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
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        4 hours 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.

    • billwashere@lemmy.world
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      8 hours 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
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        8 hours 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.

      • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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        8 hours 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
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        10 hours 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.

      • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 hours ago

        The dilemma is “would you push a button for money” not “would you push a button knowing what it did for money”

        • kartoffelsaft@programming.dev
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          8 hours ago

          “Would you push a button for money”, on its own, is barely a dilemma. If you’ve been given no good reason not to press it then you don’t have a reason not to press it. I’d be curious to see this Twilight Zone episode because, if it really is presented that way to her, then it’s not her morals that are comprimised and instead that of whoever distributed that button.

          • TeddE@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            She’s told that someone on earth would die and she doesn’t know them. The twist is that while it’s implied that it’s a random person, it’s revealed at the end that it’s the last person to press the button.