Universal agreement?

CrisBrown · #1 10-12-2004, 10:06 PM

Hi All,

A new Dr. David question.

You're just emerging from the Holy Waters Church of Eternal Ambivalence and, having decided not to go get that abortion after all, you head over to the Gay Gene Therapy Clinic to get your fetus de-homogenized. Along the way, you pass a billboard that says "Universal Agreement, Next Left." As you are a curious sort, you pull into the parking lot and go up to an office, where Dr. Mason sits behind a small desk and in front of a large machine. Dr. Mason explains that he has invented the Universal Agreement Generator. You need only push the button on his desk, and his machine will send out a brain wave to everyone on earth. From that point forward, everyone, everywhere, including unborn children and offspring yet to be conceived, in perpetuity, will agree with YOU on every imaginable moral or philosophical issue.

Assume you know 100% that this machine will actually work. Do you push the button?

Cris

Demana · #2 10-12-2004, 10:18 PM

No f***in' way!

I pull out my "Hammer of idiocy destruction +3" and beat the living s*** out of the machine.

Then I take the hammer to the machine's creator so that it can never be recreated.

Funny question though. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

CrisBrown · #3 10-12-2004, 10:44 PM

Hi Demana,

Why wouldn't you press the button? While the question was posed in a jesting manner, it wasn't entirely in jest. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Cris

Nemesis · #4 10-13-2004, 01:30 AM

A very interesting question obviously everyone believes what they believe for a reason... and if they still believe it then it is what they think is the BEST thing to believe. If you aren't willing to push the button then why do you believe some of the things that you do?

Warik · #5 10-13-2004, 01:35 AM

I am not Dr. David but I will answer anyway.

Yes I will push the button. I consider myself a very sympathetic humanitarian and it pains me to see so many people wrong about so many things every day. If I push the button, then everybody will always be right just like me and their lives will be better.

That is all. Good night.

Reef · #6 10-13-2004, 01:47 AM

wouldn't everyone then think that they are God's gift to poker?

... and I jest too

bisonbison · #7 10-13-2004, 01:51 AM

If they actually agreed with me, then they'd get to enjoy the various sub-layers of contradictory beliefs that I've spackled over with the beliefs I can consciously acknowledge and affirm. So no. Everyone deserves their own beliefs, delusions and rationalizations. Even the assholes.

Kopefire · #8 10-13-2004, 01:56 AM

Having figured out once or twice that I was actually wrong about something . . . no, i'd not push the button.

Besides, who would I debate with if everyone thought the same?

bigpooch · #9 10-13-2004, 02:20 AM

If pushed, at least everyone would be right most of the
time! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Obviously, it wouldn't be right to impose one's
understanding of truth on everyone simply because one could
be wrong. On the other hand, it would be nice if everyone
simply had infallible deductive logic!

EnderW27 · #10 10-13-2004, 02:35 AM

Well...as long as logic wasn't affected by the button's push. If everyone thought like me, I'd think that would be negative EV for me at the poker tables. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

There are so many issues that I believe I'm right on and think the world would be a better place if only I were to push that button. But I won't because there are also a number of beliefs I hold which could possibly be changed through well reasoned debate.

Further, I would submit that if the entire world throughout perpetuity (which would be held as an invalid clause as it surpasses living beings + 20 years) believed in exactly the same thing, regardless of what that thing was, it would lead to a stagnation of society. New concepts, new philosophies, new paths would never be created.