The Big Red Button and the Wacky Robot

This here’s a big red button.

And this is a wacky robot.

Here’s the deal:

The wacky robot gets its power when the red button gets hit.

Once it’s powered up, it does all sorts of wacky stuff: beeps annoyingly, runs in circles, makes aggravating late night phone calls, texts you constantly, posts long rants on Facebook. That’s just what the robot does when it’s got juice. It’s a wacky robot.

So the wacky robot is powered when you hit the red button.

But the button is binary. You can’t half-push it or push it sideways or anything. You’re either pushing it or you’re not.

It’s like the simplest possible light switch. On or off.

You can’t hit it regretfully or happily or angrily, you’re just hitting the button or you’re not.

So the wacky robot only understands that the button’s been pushed. It doesn’t have the power to interpret your intention when you hit that button – it just gets activated.

It’s not the robot’s fault. That’s just how it’s wired.

But you have to remember that every time you hit the button you’re going to fire up the robot.

It doesn’t distinguish a “nice” button-push from a “mean” button-push.

It doesn’t recognize a distinction between a stern “leave me alone, I mean it” button-push and a “I love you forever” button-push.

It doesn’t discern between a “here’s a logical argument that refutes your points” button-push and a “I am a demon from the hell dimension sent to torment you” button-push.

It just knows the button’s been pushed.

So your job is to not push that button. It feels odd because your natural instinct is to think if you push the button a certain way something will happen and the robot will understand how you’ve pushed the button.

But that will never happen. Something’s gone wrong in the wires. It’s not the robot’s fault. It’s not your fault.

You cannot push that button in a way that makes the robot change. The button does not convey information in any way the robot can recognize. The only purpose of the button is to power the robot.

It’s just the way things are. It sucks. But it’s how it is.

Don’t push that button.