If it was discovered that every time someone pressed the button, a random person died, would you still press the button?

personally, no

I think, once we've been convinced, pressing would almost cease, until word spread beyond this subreddit. Then, sociopaths and the mentally ill would start showing up. Surprisingly quickly, programmers would publish scripts to track down pressers and alert the authorities, or hack the button itself and shut it down manually. This would be a short scenario.

Probably, the mechanism for "random person dies" is gonna be old-fashioned street violence. Each button press would order a random hit somewhere in the world.

We find out when someone publishes graphic, disturbing proof in this subreddit - maybe a corpse posed next to a laptop with /r/thebutton open, and footage from multiple recent murders? We learn that all the mods have been dead for two weeks, and their accounts taken over.

Responsible for this would be some large, existing group we've all heard of, like a huge drug cartel or maybe ISIS No. The scale of deaths here is too large for any one group. Someone is piggybacking off regional conflicts around the world, using existing infrastructures of violence.

So probably a small, monied, very savvy group involving at least one long-time redditor. Attaching deaths to /r/thebutton would really just be a theatric flourish for them, a hook to draw attention towards what is essentially a display of power and connection. These are smart people with big egos and some money to work with.

Really the scenario would arise like this: someone manages to start a 'kill tallying' trend among various factions, and from there build it up into "we want x number of confirmed dead by friday." With this infrastructure in place, attaching deaths to the button becomes trivial.

^ elaborating on this, maybe the tallying trend starts as a form of online recruitment propaganda? All these violent groups share a need for new recruits, and kill tallies would attract more wannabe Rambos. Many groups might hire techs who are skilled with social media. Perhaps the "button massacre" perpetrators are just freelance social media contractors exercising their muscle?

Imagine if groups like ISIS all hired from the same pool of social media contractors? They are basically nerds - but nerds with clout, who want their clout known and respected. Also, the button stunt might be a ploy to entice more blackhats into the fold by saying, "Look how scared the rest of reddit is. Are you one of them, or one of us?"

Internet outlaws, in the right place with the right means - not quite as scary as things initially seemed. Ultimately, most of these deaths would have happened anyway. (We will all be telling ourselves this, over and over.)

Fun prompt, thanks!

/r/thebutton Thread