ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Evil God Challenge

The Evil God Challenge is a thought experiment that asks a very difficult question. It goes like this: What would you do if an evil god asked you to do something bad, like breaking a promise or doing something unfair, but threatened to do something terrible if you didn't do it? This can be a very tough question, because doing the bad thing means making things worse, but not doing the bad thing means suffering from the terrible consequences the evil god might impose. In this situation, it can be difficult to decide what is the best thing to do.