For me the button-pressing-plot line is still a thing that's up in the air. They might be intending to introduce some cool idea with it still, but, as far as I'm concerned, it's a complete mystery that lead to no answers (except to tangentially explain how the plane crashed). What the containment was containing, how it affected fate, how it affected the island, and why the hell it relied upon a person choosing to press it each time (and then why those choosing people were monitored) is still a complete mystery for me. That and I don't understand why Ben seemed completely indifferent to the button being pressed, not being pressed, or having that "fail safe" activated. This show needs to start giving answers and those damn answers better be impressive.

That said, the dialogue in that first "should we press the button" scene (in the second season premiere) was primarily dumb because nobody talks like that in real life by any stretch. After the amazing first season, to have that crap dropped in my lap was kind of shocking. Suddenly, in that instant, the realistic interplay between each character was replaced by a few lame and meaningless catch phrases. I understood that Locke has a big thing about following his faith (I wouldn't actually call it "crazy" myself), but at the same time he's clearly not a stupid man. The first instant that Jack started doubting "the button," any normal person would have at least tried reasoning with him on a cautionary basis. Assuming Locke was "crazy" and was desperate to press the button (at that point) then that would be all the more reason for him to desperately search his intelligent mind for rational excuses he could provide to Jack.

Oh, and Jack was even worse in that scene. To me, from a scientific standpoint, his supposed struggle with the button merely expressed a simplistic philosophy and an idiotic approach to science. We should never refuse to accept the possible truth of something simply because we lack specific knowledge concerning it. Science at its core is about a pursuit of knowledge, not a limiting of it. Scientists should seek to explore the unknown and not act blindly. A scientific person would not respond to that button situation by ignoring all of the accompanying warnings and let the countdown finish. Jack had already seen enough information to realize that something was at least potentially dangerous about the situation, and he knew, almost for a fact, that no new harm would be done by pressing the button (since it had already been consistently pressed for years previous to that point). If he had really been a skeptical person at that point, he would have chosen to press the button as a way to delay the countdown and then give himself time to investigate the issue further. It's all logical to me. Instead, I must assume he was acting out of blind aggression, exhaustion, and anger in that scene to explain his trouble accepting a rational approach.

(Edit: changed plain to plane.)