Moral Quandry
August 2, 2017 6:39 PM   Subscribe

Would you kill a random person for a million dollars? Made by comedy troupe Picnic Face, creaters of Infomercial Voice . Based on a 1985 Twilight Zone episode, (which was also made into a film with Frank Langella). Through a Pictures for Sad Children panel by John Campbell, which was found on mltshp
posted by growabrain (44 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
I remember that episode of the Twilight Zone, and find the Picnic Face update very true to the spirit of 2017. (Also, they rock generally - when I think of them, I'll always think of Powerthirst.)

Great post, and thank you for sharing. :)
posted by mordax at 6:56 PM on August 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


Based on a 1985 Twilight Zone episode yt ,

On a 1970 Richard Matheson short story, surely.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:36 PM on August 2, 2017 [7 favorites]


On a segment of a book from the 1800s, surely
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:40 PM on August 2, 2017


huge props for "quandry" not "dilemma"

That guy knows his stuff!
posted by thelonius at 7:40 PM on August 2, 2017


I am told it's "passage 1.6.2 of The Genius of Christianity, which was written in 1802, by Rene Chateaubriand"
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:41 PM on August 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


I have pretty strong memories of SMBC Theater doing basically the same gag, but I haven't been able to find it. It may be that I'm thinking of this one. (WARNING: puerile.)
posted by suetanvil at 7:56 PM on August 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


If I remember the story, the person killed was not totally random... it was the last person to agree to kill some other person for a million dollars...

(Paul Harvey voice) And now you know... (long pause)... the REST of the story.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:01 PM on August 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


The story now just makes me think "how many people who I also don't know could I save the lives of with that million dollars?" You can buy an awful lot of mosquito nets.
posted by solarion at 8:14 PM on August 2, 2017


The original Matheson story (PDF), which has stuck with me since junior high, especially the ending.
posted by Flannery Culp at 8:30 PM on August 2, 2017 [9 favorites]


"On a 1970 Richard Matheson short story, surely."

That was my first thought, then I clicked the link to the video and the first words spoken were "Mr. Matheson ..." and I was like okay everything is all right with the world.
posted by komara at 8:32 PM on August 2, 2017


Metafilter: BOOOONNNNNNEERRRRRRR!
posted by Samizdata at 8:43 PM on August 2, 2017


oh my god powerthirst is 10 years old how can that be
posted by protocoach at 9:08 PM on August 2, 2017


The Ones Who Press Buttons In Omelas
posted by Earthtopus at 9:20 PM on August 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


You guys are looking at this wrong. I get a million dollars to kill some rando? Sign me the fuck up.
posted by Sphinx at 9:30 PM on August 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


oh my god powerthirst is 10 years old how can that be

I don't know, but I know how to avoid feeling old when I think about it: more Powerthirst. (I really could use inordinate amounts of energy.)
posted by mordax at 9:31 PM on August 2, 2017


Given how many people would kill a random person to get to the next stop light two seconds faster, I'm sure there'd be a lot of takers for a million dollars.
posted by asperity at 10:12 PM on August 2, 2017 [12 favorites]


Plus there is a big difference between sentencing a random person to death (easy), and dragging a bound and gagged random person into a room, handing me a ball peen hammer and telling me to get to work.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:34 PM on August 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


Literaryhero's got a point, who has that kind of time?
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:01 PM on August 2, 2017 [5 favorites]


You guys are looking at this wrong. I get a million dollars to kill some rando? Sign me the fuck up.

I'll do it for $900k. Sydney real-estate is bonkers.
posted by um at 11:51 PM on August 2, 2017


[tapes down button]

Uses money to buy Metafilter from Cortex then sends ponies (yes, REAL ponies) to willing MeFis.
posted by Samizdata at 12:31 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's also a CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode titled The Chinaman Button.
posted by PHINC at 1:38 AM on August 3, 2017


It would have been even funnier if on the 3rd button-push he killed the interviewer.

(And I have to point out that if Monty Python had done this sketch they would have interlaced each button push with a very brief scene of someone dying in a ridiculously random manner.)
posted by chavenet at 1:55 AM on August 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Wasn't there one of these by another comedy troupe, similar joke with somebody inexplicably willing to push the button, that went on for quite a bit and ended with a dead button delivery guy and a few dozen other random dead folks? My Google-fu is failing me.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:59 AM on August 3, 2017


Wait, then what button have I been pressing repeatedly for the past few years? I'm confused.
posted by loquacious at 5:14 AM on August 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


This one, probably. It's been around for a while.
posted by ardgedee at 5:31 AM on August 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Clearly not the right one. I mean just look around.
posted by Naberius at 5:39 AM on August 3, 2017


If you keep pressing that button you're going to go blind and grow hair on your palms.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:13 AM on August 3, 2017


Random people are the worst.
posted by srboisvert at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2017


Is it someone random, or someone I don't know? Those are two very different categories.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2017


Is it someone random, or someone I don't know?

There's 7+ billion people on the planet. You "know" probably between a few hundred and a few thousand of them, depending on how broad a definition of "know" you adopt.

Those are two very different categories.

For the purposes of selecting one person, they're nearly identical. If the pool includes people you know, the chance of selecting such a person is less than one in a million.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:25 AM on August 3, 2017


Man, time has been as kind to Andy from StreetCents' hairline as it's been to mine.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:44 AM on August 3, 2017


I mean, arguably I've already chosen to indirectly kill or injure a fairly large number of people for pretty trivial benefits, a million dollars is a pretty good deal.
posted by lucidium at 9:26 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Huh. Am I the only one for which this wouldn't be much of a dilemma at all? Sure, a million dollars would be nice, but not at the cost of wondering for the rest of my life who I killed. I mean, really people mostly use it for a metaphor as to how your life is predicated on other people dying so you should constantly feel ashamed and guilty, but as an actual choice it's not very hard. Barring being uninsured and dying of cancer or the like, where it would be your life or theirs.
posted by tavella at 9:47 AM on August 3, 2017


Jeez. I've been doing this backwards. My share of taxes pay for drones that knock off people on a more or less random basis. How do I get paid to push that button? What if I give the random guy a pass, then put the money into a local school or park?

Full disclosure: I used to get paid about $500 per month to knock people off back when I was a dumb kid, but I ain't like that anymore.

I can't seem to get on this gravy train at any station.
posted by mule98J at 10:23 AM on August 3, 2017


The Matheson story is sufficiently well-known by now that I've thought about writing a follow-up to the story where the mark, once the premise is revealed, says "Oh, like the story!" and then locks the button-bearer in the basement to die so that the protagonist can safeguard the contraption and prevent anyone from pressing it ever again.

Is anyone the author of more famous premises than Richard Matheson without being a household name? Besides the button one, he wrote the Incredible Shrinking Man, Little Girl Lost (AKA "Poltergeist 0.1 Beta"), the gremlin on the plane wing, the one where Kirk is split into good and evil...
posted by Quindar Beep at 10:34 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I have pretty strong memories of SMBC Theater doing basically the same gag, but I haven't been able to find it.

Were you thinking of this video, by any chance?
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:36 AM on August 3, 2017


oh. it's the same one from the post
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:51 AM on August 3, 2017


mule98J: "Full disclosure: I used to get paid about $500 per month to knock people off back when I was a dumb kid, but I ain't like that anymore."

Huh....hitmen are way cheaper than I'd thought!
posted by Grither at 11:03 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


No, it's just that mule98J is 102 years young.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:00 PM on August 3, 2017


For the purposes of selecting one person, they're nearly identical. If the pool includes people you know, the chance of selecting such a person is less than one in a million.

Not at all, they're very different in a vital way. "One in a million" is still not zero. "People I don't know" guarantees no risk to family or friends. Given that this is a Monkey's Paw kind of deal, any odds in this situation not zero are 100%.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:18 PM on August 3, 2017


Theory: With the number of people who die every minute all over the world, this turns out to be a case of correlation and not causation.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:50 PM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Sangermaine, the nuance in "someone you don't know" is the whole point of the original story. The Twilight Zone adaptation dropped that part and made it a lesser story. I think the movie did too.
posted by Flannery Culp at 3:21 PM on August 3, 2017


What if I spend the million I get from pushing the death button to buy more death buttons?
posted by um at 4:51 PM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Were you thinking of this video, by any chance?

Actually, maybe? It's from the same time period and has a similar style of humour so I could well have gotten the attribution wrong. But still, SMBC Theatre is pretty good too.
posted by suetanvil at 10:13 PM on August 3, 2017


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