prog | (no subject)

I keep returning to this thought experiment, concocted by the part of me that's been continually angry since November:

You are presented with a button, and are told that pressing it will instantly vanish every person not in the United States. They will simply wink out of existence, leaving the whole world empty of people, except for this country.

Would you press it?

Intentionally worded to avoid words like "kill" and "destroy". If the interviewee asks if the people would die, the interviewer does not answer definitely, instead reiterating that the people would vanish entirely, as if they had never existed in the first place. If the interviewee asks if they could choose to spare certain people, the interviewer says that they could not; it's an all-or-nothing deal.

My hypothesis, which I have no intention of actually pursuing: among people who voted in the 2004 presidential election, a greater number (to a statistically significant degree) of Bush voters would choose "yes" over Kerry voters.

I would not be surprised if in fact a majority of Bush voters chose "yes" and a majority of Kerry voters chose "no", but that would be an interesting side-observation if so.

Threaded | Flat

This probably ties closely into whether the person in question knows people outside the USA.

I'm willing to bet a nickle that most of Kerry voters count at least one person who lives outside the USA as a friend or relative, while the majority of Bush voters do not have a single friend outside the USA.

Mr. Bush, for example, had never travelled outside the USA until he was appointed President.

To be fair, making this kind of statement unsubstantiated is the same kind of horrible judgments conservative pundits make about liberals. My hindbrain shares your prejudice, but my forebrain insists it's not a fair statement.

I think a lot of people would press it simply because its a SHINY CANDY-LIKE BUTTON!!!

Your question made me forumlate this more abstract question:

Would the world be a better place if it were only made up of Americans?