I was planning on writing this post upon seeing the film, The Box, but there is a short film that provides a similar theme (not an uncommon one) that I can link and use as an excuse to address the topic:
The basic premise is that you can press a button, killing a random person, and get money. Now, I’m not sure how these are usually structured, but it seems that there is no cost to not pressing the button other than the opportunity cost of forgoing the ill-gotten gains. Call me naive or overly moral, but I don’t see how this should be a difficult choice. Clearly I would not be willing to subject someone to their death for money. I wouldn’t act as a contract killer, so why would I accomplish much the same in this manner, even though odds are the one to die would be some Asian or African kid living a miserable life in poverty.
But I suppose not everyone would find this decision so easy. And once you think about what they might do, it can affect what you would do. This is at the core of the Prisoners’ Dilemma coordination game (theory). In that game, a prisoner’s best option is to rat out the other prisoner but have the other stay quiet, but both staying quiet is preferable to both talking and staying quiet while the other talks is the worst outcome. Your ideal outcome is to talk, but that is the case for the other prisoner so you’d end up with your second worst outcome. How you behave is based on what you think the other will behave (when in a pinch, assume they would do what you actually do).
Anyway, if you suspected that there are many other people out there pressing the button, that might make it more tempting to press the button yourself. After all, one less person that isn’t you is one less person who might press the button to kill you. But going with the as you do, so does everyone else, you can safely avoid pressing button because doing so would be to sign your own death warrant. As it seems to be the case with The Box game, there is always a catch.
