Oh yeah. I was assuming an infinite series (somehow). Also, odds are good that out of 34 people, one of them would misunderstand the rules or be crazy enough to do it anyway for various reasons. I’d probably still do it.
I’d pull the lever to kill one person immediately. Assuming the decision maker at each stage is a different person with different opinions on moral, ethical, religious, and logical questions, then it’s a near certainty that someone is going to pull the lever to kill the people at their stage. If you’re lucky, it’s the very next guy. If you’re not, it’s the guy killing a million people a couple of iterations later. If I’m the first guy, I’ll take the moral hit to save the larger number of people.
Commit to the bit. If you’re deadpan, see if you can keep elaborating on a joke without cracking a smile until it’s so damn silly you’ve got to laugh. People like it, and it’s an easy transition to make for people who have a serious-seeming sense of humor.
Consciously remind yourself that everyone tends to assume that mistakes are caused by inherent properties of people, but sometimes there are fuzzy but real reasons why people say and do dumb stuff- bad day, distracted, etc. Try to give people the slack you’d like them to give you when you get wound up on some dumbass opinion.
I have heard the same from a number of people, and no offense, but I don’t believe you. When faced with personal annihilation, most people (including myself) quickly discover that they desperately want to avoid death.