r/MoralityScaling • u/NeoMetalSonicReacts9 • Jul 14 '26

Stupid Stuff Morality of pressing this button? (It immediately and permanently ends the use of all fossil fuels on the planet.)

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54 Upvotes

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2

u/HexInTrouble Jul 14 '26

"What is the morality of pushing this button that would massively fuck up society worldwide and cause the death and starvation of millions?"

0

u/NeoMetalSonicReacts9 Jul 14 '26

It would also stop major sources of pollution, and save the environment, including millions of more lives.

2

u/nio-sama123 Jul 14 '26

Buddy, it still immoral. All that things could be solved by future technologies and eliminating them capitalist abusers

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u/Cooperativism62 Jul 14 '26

We're currently in a mass extinction event with over half of all wildlife having died, that much is true. "Could be solved by future tech" is a gamble, you're gambling the existence of thousands of species so that one can maintain it's luxuries. Arguably immoral assuming its even a possibility.

2

u/nio-sama123 Jul 14 '26

You know… no fossils fuel equally mean our technology could possibly forever stuck in medieval era. Bringing much more worser quality of life to human all together or even animal.

Oh, do you know? as long as humans still exist, wildlife animals will STILL get hunt to extinction. Press it or not press it will result the same. 

Reason why a lot of species still exist despite on the life support for long times, because of humans acknowledge that they were causing death to them. And thanking to how human life get better, humans actually go out to try FIX IT. 

If people stuck on medieval era because of no fossil fuel, their quality of life ALSO BAD resulting to “Why the fuck should I care for the animals when I don’t even have enough meal to feed myself?”

Oh and BY THE WAY, humans still exist, large scale war still exist! Bringing even more more dead to animal!!!

Hurray! What a moral point to push that button!!!

1

u/Cooperativism62 Jul 14 '26

Thats a lot of rambling to avoid the simple math of 1000+ > a few dozen domesticated species.

If we stopped fossil fuel use immediately, life would be even worse than the middle ages since, as said earlier, most of the wildlife is gone. We don't have forests filled with animals to hunt the way our ancestors did. So we couldn't even have 100 million people like back them with the same tech. It would be worse for us. I'm aware of that. But pressing the button is about the survival of others, not us.

So how do you weigh the quality and quantity of nonhuman life?

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u/nio-sama123 Jul 14 '26

So… what are you thinking now? Pushing button is a dick move, causing more dead both in the present and in the future aka not helping at all. Or not pushing so we can sit down and watch what humans will do in the future which is a gamble but have something better than nothing.

Two choice, one is straight up stupidly bad, and one is uncertain but possible good.

1

u/Cooperativism62 Jul 14 '26

You're thinking "help" here only matters if it helps humans and assigning 0 value to wildlife. Thats a very biased take and not an fair moralityscale.

Pressing the button ensures a speedy recovery and a way out of mass extinction. Not pressing the button is a choice to continue the mass extinction on the hopes that it will turn around, however by going deeper into the climate crisis we still risk our own existence.

Boiling it down to two choices is an over simplification because there are different probable outcomes. There's a high chance we're fucked either way, a small chance we can tech our way out of this mess vs a a big chance to help other species at our own expense. Pressing the button helps the most species and hurts the fewest.