The Box

A couple of weekends ago, time flies when you work every day, Billy and I watched a movie called "The Box". Cinematically, I can't recommend the movie, but I won't bash it either. It had several big star names but I've seen them all do better work. And it had some sci-fi elements that I didn't care for.

But the basic premise of the movie was thought-provoking.

In it, a couple is anonymously presented with a simple looking plain wooden box with a big red button on top, covered by a locked dome. When the owner of the box came to explain, he brought the key to the dome and a moral dilemma.

Spoiler alert - if you think you want to watch the movie, stop reading here. I may give too much away after this.

The decision the couple had to make was this: whether or not to press the button. If they did, they would get $1 million. All in cash. No taxes. He showed it to them and even gave them a crisp $100 bill out of the briefcase. The catch, at the very moment they hit the button someone, somewhere in the world, that they didn't know, would die.

They had 24 hours to decide and they couldn't tell anyone about the deal.

$1 million.

Very tempting.

In a sense, with today's global population I could say that every time I hit a keystroke writing this blog, someone, somewhere in the world, that I don't know, is going to die. It's just a fact of life. I'm not causing it by writing. And it is probably true.

But the seed was planted that they would cause it. And the rest of the movie wouldn't make sense if you didn't buy into that piece.

What would you do for that kind of money? Of course, this family had some financial struggles so it made hitting the button all the more tempting.

That was the moral dilemma.

Is causing someone's death somehow less wrong if you don't know them? If you aren't the one pulling the trigger or plunging the knife? If you really need the money to feed your family?

Is it worth it?

Billy said he would do it and I said I wouldn't.

He made the argument that the person that died could be a terrorist or a rapist or a child molester. You could actually be doing the world a favor by hitting the button. Ridding the world of evil.

But my side was that it could just as easily be a child, or a grandmother, or someone like Mother Teresa that the world needs.

You just don't know.

So, are moral decisions always black and white?

Killing is wrong no matter what? Do circumstances factor in?

Later they were faced with a different dilemma, as a direct consequence of their actions.

Here is where the sci-fi part came in. Because of something they did, their child was struck deaf and blind. And would remain so forever unless the husband killed the wife. There was one bullet in the gun so he'd have to shoot well. And she couldn't kill herself. He had to do it.

So, what do you do? Rob your child of a life of sight and sound? Or sentence them to a life with only one parent, and that parent could be on the run from the law for killing the other parent.

Makes you think a little doesn't it? (Billy said that if we were faced with this the child would just have to stay that way, that killing me wouldn't be the answer. Good for me!)

So often we make decisions without always understanding the ripple effect.

I can hit this button and big deal, someone I don't even know is going to die but hey, they might have been going to die anyway and I can really use this money. Even do some good with it.

Justification. Rationalization.

It really has made me think.

What am I doing that may be unknowingly adversely affecting someone else? How are my actions altering someone else's world? Maybe it's because my world is being so affected by others' decisions that I'm trying to stop and see more clearly what I'm doing to someone else.

We don't live in a bubble.

Or even a box.