The Vacuum States question

[Simon_Jester]

Unless, of course, there is some reason of physics why the devices can't cause a universal collapse, just as nuclear reactors can't blow up like H-bombs. Which there might be, for all I know about the subject... but that is also not part of the hypothetical, since no one in the scenario seems to have bothered to tell me anything about the underlying physics.

If I seriously thought that industrial extraction of vacuum energy had any significant chance of blowing up the universe, I'd be opposed regardless of how useful it could be.

The opposite attitude would feel horribly wrong to me. It makes me think of a child who smashes his toys rather than share them, so that if he can't enjoy them to the fullest extent possible, no one can.

[Darth Holbytlan]

I panic and shut it down. Then spend a good deal of time alternating between wondering if I did the right thing and cursing the stupidity of whoever set up this ridiculously expensive, one-chance-only experiment only to put a schmoe like me in charge of aborting it with only a summary paragraph containing the words "collapse entire universe" and a 2-second timer.

I'm not going to bother with any detailed analysis of why this experiment is a good or bad idea. There isn't nearly the sort of detail required to judge its safety, and it's pretty obvious that they didn't want anything more than a snap, fear-based decision, anyway.