You asked what might be the real reason to push a button – a task that could easily be automated. Of course I don’t know for sure but here goes …

I have a couple of theories but most of them are based around the loose concept of making sure the stations are staffed. By having a timer count down you can ensure that that someone is present who knows what they are doing every 108 minutes.

If a person isn’t present then some drastic action is taken. Maybe information is cleared from a computer, a bunker is destroyed, or something far worse. Something like what Kelvin told Desmond, “Just saving the world.”

To me this is viable on a couple of fronts. First, if Dharma and Hanso are doing something illegal or otherwise not good, they would have a system like this that could destroy any evidence of their activites if they ever lost control of the bunkers. Think Mission Impossible … the hero gets the mission and then in 10 seconds the record of the mission is destroyed. Same kind of concept.

Anyway, just a thought. Should be interesting to see how this all plays out. Keep up the great work!

Now I don’t know what Hanso might be covering up. Whatever it is I think it is pretty bad.

Anyway, I am very happy to share my “Lost passion” on the internet, it is quite new for me and I really think it’s an amzing idea to speak about one of our favorite show together.
But, generally speaking I think you American people really have a greater sense of fun and imagination than the rest of the world. In France, shows like this are considered in a trivial way, you know most people think it is just advertisement. Of course, it is ! however it really has deep meanings too.

okay everyone, I ain’t gonna log in this site until this weekend when I find the new episode on the web otherwise it will be spoiled. The synopsis seems REALLY good !

See you lucky ones !

Skinner: Pushing the button maintains human behavior.
Pascal: Not pushing the button destroys human behavior.
(feels like two sides of the same coin)
Neitzsche: Pushing the button kills God.

Humans built the button (what, a Commodore 64? … not exactly on par with the long term engineering of Roman acqueducts or Egyptian pyramids), and in the Neitzsche dialogue, humans built God. How do you maintain the permanent operation of a man made machine? I could think of no better
machine for operation than man himself. The pyramids will fall, but man prevails – and when man no longer exists, who cares if the button gets pushed or not? We’re all gone! Is it a concidence that the
characters upon countdown are egyptian heiroglyphics?

Some might take this as a argument for the button as an absolute force, a doomsday button. No. The nature of the button is too relative. The pyramids were engineered, built, maintained, and eventually abandoned, just like every other human construction in history. Man either chooses to maintain the machine, or not, moves on, creates another.

This is not to say that the concept of doomsday is not at play here. All of Lost takes place post-nuclear awareness. The nature of a “bunker” connotes post-apocalyptic survival, and the writers are no
strangers to the iconography of these things. The button probably could not exist and be maintained as simply a God-button anytime before the A-bomb.

So my point in the end is that there IS no more reliable system of button machine maintenance than man himself. He is certainly more reliable than a Commodore 64 (which has nearly been broken already,
but was promptly fixed by Sayid, a man), and as we’ve seen – despite the world, we still keep filling it with new people – especially the Lost island itself.

So the next big question is in Neitzsche terms – if man attempts to, or accidentially kills God, does it actually work??

Great point! I never thought of it that way before. A leap of faith seems more about giving yourself up to the unknown. Locke knew what would happen when the button is pushed (counter resets, alarm stops) but they have no idea what happens if they fail to push the button.

Well, I think from the teasers for tonight’s episode we just might find out- I hope we do anyway! :)

If they do not input the code, it would be assumed that they where dead or maybe.. “infected” (as in quarantine) and the hatch would be sealed off and/or destroyed to either make sure that a sickness does not spread or to make sure that the technology or information held by the hatch or the persons living there does not end up in the wrong hands.

Oh, and great first article Job, welcome to the team!

I also cannot reconcile the fact that so much of the bunker appears to be neglected but there is a full pantry of edible food (manufactured by what appears to be a large company) and a newer washer and dryer. Considering the Others use costumes to sneak about perhaps the failure to update provides a costume of sorts to Swan.

I can’t wait to see additional crucial information in the still missing portions of the Orientation tape. that Locke is still searching for.

I agree that pushing the button gives the group some focus or sense of purpose, whether or not they all agree with that action or not. It provides some constant/order in the chaos they are living.

It appears the writers want us to believe that DHARMA (assuming that the “Others” are DHARMA gone “bad”) originally had good intentions. Didn’t Skinner intend to use his works to better society? What if the orientation film is just a small piece of DHARMA propaganda and DeGroot’s crew were always militant scientists?

(Oh, d’ailleurs, l’actrice qui joue Rousseau, Mira Furlan, est d’origine Croate, et elle n’est pas francophone.)

Sorry for the French interlude.

Bill, I agree with you, but in my typical dichotomous fashion, I have to ask another loaded question. If it’s not an experiment, then what plausible reason could there be for not implementing a system to automate the “button”? Surely that would make more sense than to rely on fallible (or unwilling) human “button pushers”.

SmileyMe, juxtaposition simply means placing two things side by side in order to compare and contrast them.