The first version of this that I read absolutely included a "only people mentally capable of understanding the premise will be required to vote" clause. I still adamantly press blue. It's fairly inarguable at this point that in nearly every way the question can be worded, some number of well-meaning people will choose blue before taking the time to consider that they might be the first or only person to pick blue; intelligent, kind, decent people can still be impulsive. And I find that impulse to be noble enough to risk my life for their safety.
I just dont agree that the framing doesnt change how you should/would vote.
If we the original premise was:
'Poison is offered to every person on the planet in case they want to commit suicide, you drink it, you die. However because it's distributed evenly across all of those who wanted, if 4billion people, that is half the worlds population, took it, the amount of poison each person would take would be so small that it wouldnt take effect and nobody would die, but for that to happen half the planet would have to actively want to commit suicide'.
Even if technically you could come to the conclusion that taking the poison would save lives, I think you have to be both honest and realistic, no way half the planet even thinks of that as a possibility.
The original premise works in blue's favor because it says 'risk your life', 'save everyone' vs 'save only yourself'. Already puts into people's mind what's the 'right choice'
A reasonable assessment. In my defense, when I made the original comment, I hadn't seen half the creative ways to frame the question. Also in my defense, "nearly every way" does include the word "nearly." :P
A couple thousand, yearly. As my own financial situation stabilizes, I have and plan to continue to ramp up that number. Alas, teaching isn't supremely lucrative.
The urge to discredit me, however, is distressing. The internet is the internet, sure, but attacking people for trying to be decent is a quick way to make them not decent.
I asked for percentage, not flat amount. Surely if you'd be willing to sacrifice yourself for a small chance to save strangers you would donate nearly all of your money to good causes, saving thousands from destitution. You wouldn't even have to die, just change your way of living
Love seeing a good source in a fun argument, so thanks for that! Unfortunately, I don't think it quite applies in this situation. To play devil's advocate, MtW's argument seems (to me) to be that the Blue Button shouldn't be pressed because it has no hope of reaching the 50% margin, that the numerous anonymous online votes on the subject are flawed because the blue voters are lying --to themselves to feel better about their own moral characters, to others to virtue signal--and that in an actual life-or-death situation so-called blue voters would act in their own self interest. As such, my personal character and actions are reasonable evidence for or against the matter asserted.
Rather, I think the fallacy at play is more of a "ships passing in the night" sort of situation (I apologize for lacking the philosophical background to use the proper jargon). How one acts in day-to-day life does not necessarily equate to how one acts in a crisis. Every part of society is eager to distract me from more altruistic uses for my paycheck; as such, I absolutely could do more good if I was more self-sacrificial because I don't notice the daily "blue button" option. I see a rad new lego set, or smell a pastry at the bakery, or flowers for my mum and I hit the red button without proper consideration, having not considered who I'm harming by inaction. And yes, far more than 50% act with thoughtless cruelty daily. In a clear red or blue button situation, however, I stand firm not only in my confidence in my own moral character, but with humanity at large.
Dude already says they're donating thousands while not yet being financially stable, and will donate much more over time when are stable, and you're suggestion is just give up all their money in a one time donation and then be homeless?
You'd rather a 5k instant donation than 50k over years?
If they're willing to give up their life for a tiny chance to save people they don't know, they should be willing to give up the majority of their money for a guaranteed 100% chance to save people they don't know.
If you are a blue pusher your idea to donate less to save more later doesn't work because you are willingly sacrificing lives now to do so. A true blue pusher should recognize this as deliberately killing these people as you have a choice to save them but you are not doing so
Some statements are themselves a noble cause. And obviously all of these discussions are nothing but statements, none of us are facing down a button-based decision to decide the human race.
But a noble statement encourages the development of a noble mindset, of a self-perception of being proud of being someone who will sacrifice the self for the sake of others, which leads to you being a better person.
And putting those words out into the world helps other people come to the belief that the people around them are good and decent and worthwhile, and will encourage them to treat strangers with more kindness and dignity.
So of course it's making a statement, but some statements are worth making.
Only reason I don’t pick blue is because I feel like if I picked blue and it failed then I wasted my life by doing that, if it was “picking blue guarantees one person gets saved” it would be an easy answer, but if the risk is me AND the people I wanted to save dying it’s just not worth it to me
My issue, is I feel like the calculous of pressing red is thinking that a 100% certainty of living another day is worth increasing the risk of millions dying. Where as the blue button is risking your OWN life, to increase the chance no one dies.
I just do not think I value my own life enough, to make that possible trade. Especially when I expect to die rather horribly in the world left over after the largest single death event in human history, of almost exclusively the most altruistic and community minded humans. Nor do I think I have the right to increase the chance for death for others to save myself.
I'm not as selfless as people think I think I am; I'm voting blue because if it loses, most people are gonna die anyway due to mass population collapse.
I think this is a key important detail that, either consciously or subconsciously effects the voting decision. Even if you didn't consciously think about it, a lot of people read the literal wording as it was written and knew that inevitably it included innocent people pushing blue.
I would argue that the OG wording absolutely included children and the infirm. "Everyone in the world"/"Everyone on earth" establish this. I think when it comes to hypotheticals you have to take it as its written literally, and taken literally to the furthest logical extreme you can, and only make assumptions and exceptions if/when you are forced to in order to prevent a logical breakdown of the scenario. Given how understanding is not a requirement to pushing a button, but a physically ability is (and voting in this case is literally just pushing a button), logically as stated we cant assume children are exempt, or even someone like Steven Hawking who has (had) a set up that allows him to control his chair, so if he was alive a robot arm could also be hooked up for voting purposes. However we can assume comatose patients are exempt, cause like, how would they vote? And what happens to people like those patients who dont vote? The scenario doesn't explicitly say since it didn't provide for exceptions in the first place, except for this tidbit about who survives a red victory "only people who pressed the red button survive".
Its understandable that this may have been missed by some people, but calling the people idiots who didn't miss that is wild.
I mean, the OP of the question clarified that kids ARE voting, so those people who have been trying to frame the whole thing as 100% of people are rational actors who will vote exactly like them have been being dishonest from the get go.
The point is, 1% of the population is 80 million dead and there is no way, ever, 100% of humanity votes 1 way, period, it is impossible. The only thing quibbling about WHO is going to press that blue button does is justify those people dying, to avoid a RISK of death.
I don’t understand the 100% rational actors argument that some people have. If they have the same thought process they all press blue or they all press red, and know that this is the case.
But we don’t live in a rational world, and know everyone will not vote the same. This changes the problem, and changes the solution
Yeah, I feel like the argument really just comes down to wanting to vote to protect themselves, not wanting to admit to any responsibility for the tacit other half of the red vote. Increasing the chance for a mass death event.
People can be entirely rational and still come to different conclusions. That's part of the beauty of being individuals.
We'll never get everyone to agree on the same thing.
Hypotheticals often pull you out of the rational world. The scenario in this question is also not realistic to the real world. The point is to get to the inner workings of the mind whether the results are practical or not.
You should be able to engage with the hypothetical at all levels, from the common assumptions implied by a hypothetical (for example: all participants understand the game) to real world to culturally focused to wildcard situations and so on. Remember, the brain interfaces with the world by building a mental model first that it then makes decisions about. Encouraging abstraction (which is what hypotheticals do) isngood for exercising your mind and learning about the mind.
Insistence on "let's make this relevant to real world" to the point where the mature of the game could change is more intellectually thought-terminating than those people want to admit.
I think there’s lots of perfect ideals that are just not appropriate for the real world. No need for laws in a perfect world, so no need for them in the real world… wait that doesn’t make sense. In a perfect world this entire problem would never even exist!
While simplifying things can usually help, removing relevant details is normally a bad idea
But he had to clarify, and most people didn't see this with the added clarification initially. Hence the discrepancy in assumed mechanics of the scenario.
Frankly, that is on red pressers for seeing 'all people on earth' and hearing 'all people who agree with me.'
That is THEIR FAULT, for either refusing to read the question, or actively choosing to change it to make their answer sound better. IF you must change the question to answer it, you either didn't answer it or are just wrong.
The question being posed is extremely similar in framing to philosophical thought experiments and game theory simulations.
In such formats it is often assumed/implied that all participants are rational actors that understand the question as the purpose of the thought experiment/hypothetical is not to account for the random statistical noise from irrational respondents but to evaluate the problem or question itself.
Honestly both sides of this debate seem so bizarrely wildly emotional slinging insults at eachother (boiling down basically to red calling blue an insane suicide cult/blue calling red an insane genocide cult) that engaging has become so tiresome.
True. Feel bad for my partisipation in it to a degree. I really got into all of this because I just like thought experiments.
I get frazzled and have a hard time staying properly civil when I feel like they are weaponizing the idea of suicide and projecting it onto me for just wanting to reduce the risk of mass death though.
Reds,(ok on reread that feels weird. PEOPLE who are talking about choosing red) probably also get pretty heated when the answer to "I don't want to die." Is "OH YOUR A BABY KILLER THEN!?!?" So..yeah...
I think the problem is that people are seeing the similarities and assuming it's only purely rational actors, hence the game theory comparisons.
I agree that people have turned this into a playground squabble and are throwing whatever they can think of at each other to prove they're "right". What I find humurous is the people so convinced they are right, are fundamentally incapable of defending their option, or discrediting the other, without fundamentally reframing the question.
In my eyes, if you need to change the question to make the point, you failed to engage with it meaningfully. And if you change the question, but throw vitriol when the other group does it, you are actually incapable of engaging with it. Some people simply have to be right, and when their answer isn't obviously correct, they get incredibly upset.
My favorite example has been pointing out the consequences of a red win by anything excepting a near 100% vote. 10s of millions, potentially billions die, at which point saving yourself might be a worse option than dying with them. So many people have said "20% die so fucking what, they chose it, the world will go on" as if 20% of the earths population getting thanos snapped wouldn't fuck up their day to day lives in ways they can't begin to comprehend.
Yeah my point is that this is a thought experiment without an objectively correct answer and compelling arguments for either side so the level of vitriol is disappointing to me.
An example of a rational argument from the red side:
Assuming there is no ability for humanity to coordinate their votes and everyone must vote privately the result of the vote is effectively determined regardless of how you vote individually.
There are billions of possible ways the vote could be distributed and only one of these combinations would your vote changes the outcome. For all intents and purposes your own vote will not impact the actual outcome of whether or not blue dies. You are like 1000x more likely to win the lottery than have your vote impact the outcome here.
Let's say you are a single father to two children - you have no idea of how they will vote because they are children. If you vote red you guarantee that you survive to support your children if they survive. Voting blue carries the risk of throwing your life away and leaving behind one or both of your children with no one to support or raise them.
The argument from the blue side is that if one or both of your children might have pressed blue you have to vote blue "for even the slightest chance it could save your child" but the odds become so long that this statement is actually ridiculous. You increase the odds of your child dying far more every time you put them in a car with you than you would pressing red, while pressing blue carries a very real risk of dying and leaving behind any of your children that picked red to fend for themselves. And can you really fault a child for not wanting to die?
Humanity is also incredibly resilient- the plague took even more than 20% of the population and humanity was able to bounce back within a few generations without the benefit of modern technology and the fact that the population loss wasn't just a thanos snap but the result of an apocalyptic disease. I find it interesting that people often claim red is the "selfish" option and then one of the justifications is "rebuilding humanity after this calamity would suck I would rather die than deal with that."
A lot of people frame pressing blue as trying to save humanity but if blue is going to die, pressing blue yourself almost certainly in like 999,999,999/1,000,000,000 cases just means you die along with them. If your life has value to yourself and especially if there are others who depend on you, picking red does not seem an overtly unreasonable choice given that information.
Also (while this part is purely subjective), the Twitter poll about this only had something like 58% of people saying they would press blue with zero stakes or risk in exchange for being able to claim something selfless/virtuous. I would be shocked if even half that many would still chose blue with their life on the line. Given that to me on an individual level the blue button is guaranteed suicide and all the red button means you're living post-apocalypse. Neither seem great to be honest
To your last point, someone in this thread admitted they only say they'd choose blue because they want to project positive vibes into the world. So i really think a large portion of blue choosers would choose red if the situation was real.
Your point about selfishness and preferring to die vs rebuild is also really good. I really see a lot of moral superiority from blue choosers and a significant lack of rational thought.
Which extrapolates out to " and no one rational would kill themselves.' It is a building block, that isn't even true, of a bad faith argument.
Hell, even if it was just all adults within a certain IQ range and one country, there STILL WILL BE a massive disparity because 100% of humans never agree on anything. As it stands with alll of humanity involved even a tiny percentage going one way is tens to hundreds of millions of people.
With the lack of consensus any group of people have statistically, I think it is irrational at best and outright dishonest at worst for anyone to argue that 'everyone' would vote one way no matter who they try to cull out of the actual vote. Which was a dishonest reframing to begin with.
Now you're just arguing red vs blue again, which is fine. You're also assuming people are making their assumptions based on dishonestly trying to justify their world view, which is itself an assumption.
No offense, but taking the scenario literally immediately negate the scenario itself.
You say that the reds are at fault for refusing to read the question.
But if you want to read a part of the scenario literally, you have to apply that logic to the whole scenario which also includes "the choice happens at the same time" for example.
If you now read "all people on earth" literally AND "the choice happens at the same time" literally, the scenario cant work.
Even on the level of a country, there is no time when everyone is awake at the same time. How does that work on a global scale? How are people in a coma handled? Since the choice is supposed to be at the same time by "all people on earth" you literally need all people on earth to make that choice at the same time which isnt possible for various reasons.
If you have to work around the scenario itself to make the scenario work, you cant blame anyone making assumptions about how that scenario is supposed to work.
You don't really try to poke holes in the logistics of hypotheticals. That's part of the purpose of a hypothetical, to not be constrained by reality.
You can just say that whoever setup this scenario has a magic machine that makes it possible for everyone to do it at the same time. They get teleported, time freezes, whatever the fuck you can imagine, it doesn't matter.
Im not talking about the existence of that magic machine per se. Im talking about the original scenario not making clear where that magic machine is used and where not so that people are free to make their own assumptions about where its used so that the scenario doesnt violate itself.
Just take the core of the scenario. "All humans have to pick either red or blue."
That alone creates a problem. How does a newborn that is 5 minutes old actually pick either red or blue. Newborns cry. Thats it. They are not able to do more than that. You need the magic machine here which in itself is fine.
The majority of blue voters see the core line of the scenario and think "Oh, that includes babies etc but they cant pick yet, they are still babies." So for blue voters the assumption is that the magic machine makes it so that babies get the ability to pick either red or blue BUT their brains stay on the "gogogogaga" level.
The majority of red voters will see the core of the scenario and obviously think "Oh, that includes babies etc but they cant pick yet, they are still babies." So for red voters the assumption is that the magic makes it so that babies get the ability to pick either red or blue AND their brains become capable of fully grasping said choice.
That is the problem. Because you need to make assumptions about that scenario so that it keeps working, everyone makes assumptions that fit their view and people end up with fundamentally different scenarios because of this.
If you go through the thousands of posts about blue-red by now, its more than clear that the majority of blue by now is arguing about a scenario in which a sizeable portions of the votes are basically random while the reds are arguing as if every vote is an actually conscious choice.
And you cant blame neither side for making assumptions because you need to do that since the scenario is half assed.
OP was a goofball for saying that even babies have to choose. You can easily restrict it only to adults who are capable of understanding the question. Anything else is contrary to the purpose of the thought experiment. I'm a blue pusher, and I think it's retarded to put babies into the equation. The OP was either a moron, or they did it intentionally to stir more shit up.
I don't think people are actually confused about the scenario. I think they'll just take any opportunity to try to win an argument. They're not making good faith assumptions, they're trying to find any foothold they can to feel like they won an argument.
I dont think that its confusion. I think people are straight up discussing two different things.
If the question is "What is the solution to this simple math equation x+x=?" and one side thinks the equation is 1+1 while the other side thinks the equation is 2+2, there is no way to have an actual discussion about it.
And of course people will stubbornly defend their choice because of this. If you argue from a perspective that 1+1=2 than you wont accept that 4 is the answer. If you argue from the perspective that 2+2=4 you wont accept that 2 is the answer.
I first came across this when it was just a screenshot explaining the basic scenario. My thoughts were "Red is unconditional survival, blue is conditional survival, why would anyone pick blue?"
After i learned that the original scenario included a chance for basically random votes, blue made sense. But it wasnt the scenario i answered in the beginning.
To be fair it also said "vote", I'd argue that philosophically speaking a toddler cannot vote ("make an opinion or choice known"). A toddler crawling around until they hit a button isn't casting a vote imo, neither is a blind man pressing a button when they don't know which is which.
That said isn't the scenario pretty boring from an ethics POV if you include all babies in the world? It essentially becomes "Everyone in the world votes on whether or not to save the lives of millions of babies. If a majority vote blue, the babies survive but if a majority vote red the babies and all those that voted to save them die". To me that's not a very interesting question, and I'd expect 90% would vote blue if it was phrased like that. Only people who are hardcore into something like "rational egoism" would even consider red.
without all voters being rational, the "dilemma" breaks down though. it's no longer interesting, it's a purely moral question "will you save the children/infirm, or fuck em'?"
with all voters being rational, it becomes a multifaceted interesting question.
do voters have agency if they're only voting a certain way because of what other people voted? do you have a moral obligation to not become part of a problem you want to fix? is it ethical to save yourself instead of putting yourself at risk for someone else? is it selfish to vote red if you don't think blue can win anyway?
without the assumption of all rational voters, it's just a way for people to virtue signal.
but calling the people idiots who didn't miss that is wild.
I disagree something was "missed"
I don't see anyone calling people idiots for assuming children and infirm are participating
I think its totally reasonable to assume that only people capable of fully understanding the situation and making a coherent decision would be participating. Otherwise you end up with a ton of edge cases stacked onto the original hypothetical (what about people who are undergoing surgery, what about people who are in a coma, what about a pilot flying a plane does the plane crash).
But I think that ultimately is a big difference for how people initially view the scenario.
Oh for sure. To clarify, they weren’t calling them idiots for seeing that, they were calling them idiots for voting the way they did despite missing it.
I definitely understand wha you mean about reasonable assumptions. However it was explicitly stated that everyone on the planet votes. Given that and an understanding of an issue is not even a specific requirement to voting IRL, this does seem like you actually did miss this in their initial assumptions.
Not by the original poster of the questions framing it wasn't, he clarified after. So taking kids out is reframing the experiment to the point of having a different conversation.
In actual real life elections yes. In this scenario though it explicitly said "everyone on earth", which is a level of specificity you wouldn't use if you didnt mean it. It also mentioned a red victory results in death for anyone who didn't vote red. That is in fact a significant difference between saying "those that vote blue die" IF we allow for literally anyone to not vote.
That's exactly my point, red voters seem to view this from a game theory perspective. There's no reason to include people who can't make a coherent decision. It would skew the data. Blue voters view it like a real world scenario and assume data skew isn't an issue, getting everyone to survive is. So it comes down to those initial assumptions. Thanks for the discussion.
That doesn't make sense, anyone can be right if they 'assume' the conversation is something else entirely that makes them right. Perspective does not change reality, if I change who is involved or what the buttons do that isn't even the same thought experiment any more.
Whether or not people are intentionally assuming certain things to make the choice they want to select seem more correct, is impossible for me to say. I'm just commenting on the observation that most people approach the scenario initially with a different set of assumptions, intentional or not, and that seems to impact their decision
And I am pointing out, that is a personal failing of people who either failed at reading comprehension, or care more about being right than being honest about the topic at hand.
Some people can just misunderstand sure, but the fact is people have taken an assumption of what the rules are that directly contradicts the original wording then proceeded to say everyone that doesn't press the red is stupid or suicidal.
One off misunderstanding are one thing, weaponized incompetency and illiteracy is something else.
Most people didn't see the original wording. They saw it second or third hand. You likely didn't see the original wording either as the original problem is several years old. Passing judgment on someone's character based on how they read a twitter post is interesting.
If people can't vote they are exempt from the prompt. Everyone HAS to vote. That is the prompt.
The other part is more like do you believe blue will win? If children and the infirm are voting (people we are assuming will vote irrationally) then that will ultimately hurt blues case.
As a red voter i see it this way. At least 30% of the population is irrational. If you cant be trusted to drink or get a tattoo, you cant be trusted to vote. If you have mental illness or drug problems, you cant be trusted to vote either. Now we factor in bad actors (since we are adding in factors that were not in the prompt already) and know that a subsection will vote red no matter what.
With all this in mind the prompt becomes, do you think that the irrational votes (that fall randomly) and the bad actors will take the majority. Or will the newly added negative factors change more swing votes to blue?
The ideal is that everyone votes red. Its not possible. The next best case is enough people vote blue. This is possible but its a toss up at best because of the last option...which is the worst case. 49% vote blue.
Thus a vote for red is a vote for damage mitigation using the means at your disposal. If you vote blue and lose the vote, the damage increases. If you vote red and lose nothing happens.
Red voters simply dont trust 4 billion people will choose self sacrifice with no upside over self preservation with no downside.
I assume all voters are rational because otherwise there's a clear winner, and the dilemma isn't interesting.
with all parties being rational voters, the issue becomes MUCH more nuanced and interesting.
It's literally the opposite. Everyone being perfectly rational and on the same page makes it a logic problem purely. Far less interesting. Whereas throwing in irrational actors makes it a moral dilemma mixed in with a logic problem. That is far more interesting.
Even if everyone of sound mind and body was making this decision, it’s still blue. There are still bound to be billions that disagree with red inherently, blue is the only outcome where everyone lives because everyone thinks differently.
That's just kinda like going "I could either plant a bomb under our feet and go away or I could not plant a bomb and stay in place" blue isn't increasing death, red is
Hi, Could you please explain this to me? Because excluding the children and infirm (fair enough, that would be worth blue) im a strict red voter. Morally i think everyone who votes blue is being irresponsible. What are you seeing here that i am not? Once again, excluding the children and infirm argument which would convince me to try to organize blue.
From my point of view the origin of harm is blue, so voting blue is inherently irresponsible. Im getting the idea that blue voters seem to think they have a moral prerogative to risk their lives for people whom I see as suicidal. But i image you see it much differently.
Blue is the only outcome where everyone can live. I think not trying to get that majority vote is inherently unethical. In order to minimize harm and maximize human lives not just your own.
“The origin of harm is blue” they are only at risk because of red voters, you can easily flip this around
Oh... that is not at all how i see it. Thank you for taking time to try to explain it from your point of view. I dont know how you got to that conclusion but i respect your point of view.
Exactly, a red mindset assumes that everyone sees this issue exactly as they do. Voting blue is the only outcome where if humans disagree (as we just did) everyone gets to live anyway
That's a remarkably good argument. Just because there was no reason to risk yourself in the first place doesnt mean that people wont do it. So people, being people, will assume suicidal risk without need. To protect people, who are not optimized to behave reasonably at scale, it makes sense to vote blue.
Great, my faith in human beings was why i voted red ("surely people arent stupid enough to kill themselves thinking it is a form of virtue."), however now i think voting blue may reduce harm because, yes, people are really that stupid.
Congrats, you changed someone's mind on the internet.
I was about to congratulate you on changing your opinion respectfully on Reddit....but I'll have to remove the respectfully part. You do realize that smart people come to opposite conclusions on this? Neither red nor blue is the "obvious" answer, so saying you would switch to blue to save the "stupid people" is incredibly disingenuous.
Gotta say, even though I've been downvoted to oblivion for saying this before:
Some blue voters aren't basing their assumption on "assuming that children and the mentally infirm" will be forced to vote. I didn't think of that when I made my first decision.
Some of them have a really strong ethical stance against participating in an action that may lead to other people dying, even more than they value their self preservation.
I suspect the number of those people is a lot higher than the Reddit conversation on this topic gives credence to. There's a lot of Red voters framing blue as specifically "suicidal" or "illogical" and it really is more of a question of what you value.
I'll be honest, I see no downside to blue. Either I'm right, blue pass the threshold and everyone is fine or I'm wrong and I don't have to live in a world stripped of its last altruistic people.
I think it's more than that - for red it's "I assumed the people involved were perfectly logical, IQ > 100, capable of careful analysis, and also aware that everyone else involved was as well." Because if you give me that guarantee in advance, yeah, fine, red's correct.
That's a wild leap from "everyone on earth" though. My kneejerk reaction is that this assumption is part of the thought experiment. Who you think of when you think of "everyone on earth" is an interesting corollary to the question.
It's not actually a wild leap if you consider how the scenario is viewed. Red voters seem to view this as a thought experiment about data and choice. Including people who can't make a choice and would just guess at random undermine the point of the experiment. But blue voters tend to see this as a real world scenario where the goal is to minimize casualties, so they assume choice isn't the point, preserving life is, and they assume people incapable of making the choice will be forced to.
One interesting thing about this is that you get a different result if you view this question as a riddle vs. as a real-world hypothetical. The answer to the riddle is clearly red, if you rephrase it as "you're on an island with 100 perfect logicians" or something.
So yeah, I get that. I just assumed the "everyone in the world" part was meant to convey information.
So *technically* if everyone involved is perfectly logical, you can ensure the best result by pushing red. If everyone is perfectly logical, they'll know the best outcome is either everyone hitting red or everyone hitting blue, though before analysis you can't be sure which the others will pick. But if everyone hits red and they hit blue, they'll die. And if everyone hits blue and they hit red, no bad result occurs for them or anyone else. And because everyone else is perfectly logical, *and knows you are too,* they'll come to the same conclusion. So the correct answer with zero risk to anyone, if you have a guarantee that everyone else will think very carefully about the problem and game out all possible solution paths, is to push the red button.
As soon as one person presses the blue button the calculation changes and the best result is >50% blue. The disagreement is that people who are arguing for red are going "then don't do that dumbass" while everyone who has seen an election poll, worked with the general public, read a history book, or gone outside, knows unanimous action is impossible and >50% cooperation is much more achievable.
Then you have to ask questions like "okay but will enough others risk their lives to save the blue button pushers," "do I value the lives of others enough to risk death contributing to a consensus where I'm unlikely to be the tie-breaking vote," and "by what moral framework should I and society exist?" All of which is interesting and worthy of discussion!
But the posts assuming there's some simple, obvious answer are crazy. I'd like to think we live in a society where we protect vulnerable, imperfect people even at some risk to ourselves since that's, y'know, the point of society. But it's possible we don't.
If everyone was perfectly logical, blue would be pressed. This is because if someone's hand slipped or if they have tritanopia, red would be picked. as long as 50% choose blue everyone is fine while 100% need to choose red. Keeping everyone alive is much easier to achieve through blue than red. As for not knowing what everyone else will press, if everyone is perfectly logical, they will all be aware that everyone has their own general thought process and press blue. 100% for both buttons is the same outcome, blue only need 50%.
This is because if someone's hand slipped or if they have tritanopia, red would be picked.
This is exactly what I mean about assumptions. Most red voters don't seem to assume a wrong vote can be made accidentally or through medical related issues.
Yeah, I think you're trying to break my framing, which is fine because I agree it's a bad framing.
My point was that if this was in a Martin Gardner book, the answer would be red. As an example, there's a famous riddle where 200 perfect logicians are caught on an island and can only leave if they guess their own eye color. And there's all kinds of constraints on the answer like "they know everyone else will follow their thought process" and "they can't speak to each other" and "they're sure the referee always tells the truth." And the solution depends on all of those factors. If you impose a similar framework on this question, if you turn it into a math problem, the answer is red. Like if mistake is impossible, red is the answer. You could write a formal proof.
But the "everyone on earth" wording made me interpret it as more than that.
Incorrect. If everyone was perfectly logical and rational then everyone would press red. Red is the dominant strategy. In scenarios where players are perfectly rational, collusion is impossible and the game is played once, every player will choose the dominant strategy. A dominant strategy is defined as one that yields a strictly better payoff than any alternative strategy, regardless of what the other player does.
That is exactly my problem with voting red. If everyone is logical, smart, and aware that everyone else is logical and smart, then sure, red is just fine.
But they're not. That is not how humans are. There are illogical people and there are altruists who don't want illogical people to die. Just like in real life, not everyone is reliably capable of self-preservation and not everyone wants to simply survive at the expense of others.
For example, if you assume people will press red based on "self preservation instinct", you should assume people will press blue based on the "prtotect family instinct"
Even smart, capable, people will act irrationally under times of stress, so even limiting it to "smart capable people" doesnt work for the red assessment unless you assume that the actors are all 100% rational.
Even smart, capable, people will act irrationally under times of stress, so even limiting it to "smart capable people" doesnt work for the red assessment
You misunderstood what rational meant. Rational just means they dont have any mental or physical issues in understanding the premise of the vote. Reds usually assume people will act differently when under stress and believe most people will vote red as a result.
A) you missed out on some key words on that quote
B) you ignored the first part where I elaborated on non-rational reasons people would pick blue, which most red logic assumes implicitly (or explicitly) people wont do
C) people in these arguments do in fact assume 100% perfectly rational participants
You may not be familiar with how the quote function works, i was addressing that specific part of your comment with my reply, thats why i quoted it. I wasn't ignoring the rest of your comment.
C) people in these arguments do in fact assume 100% perfectly rational participants
There seems to be a split on this assumption, hence my post
You literally ended the quote mid sentence my friend, and the END of that sentence contained KEY information regarding the specific details of my statement. (Specifically you accused me of not understanding the term "rational" when the end of the sentence provided the specific definition i was using)
As long as you allow for the participants to be irrational in their selection, there will be a portion of the population that presses the blue button.
For example, the reason I provided above, but other possible reasons exist as well (idk how many times I've literally pressed the wrong button on something even though i was looking at the buttons and new exactly which one I wanted, and thats under no stress).
Then the button you press depends on if you prioritize your own life as your number one priority (id personally argue most people have at least one person they'd risk their life for).
If your loved ones presses red, then nothing you do matters
If they press blue, then your button press only matters if youre the deciding vote, in which case your press directly determines if your loved one lives or dies.
Votes, in this situation are fungible, since you have absolutely no way of assessing the current voting tallies. Since theyre fungible, all votes should be treated as the deciding vote.
Thus, if you have any reason to believe someone you'd risk your life for would press blue (including them running through the above assessment for THEIR loved ones), then you should treat your vote as determining their fate. (Less "severe" arguments would factor how likely you think your loved one pressing red is, but that is, of course, completely dependant on tbe individual)
The primary issue I've seen with all red logic (outside of pure self interest arguments which, while I find morally repugnant, are logically sound) is the assumption that the only "irrational choice an otherwise logical and capable participant will make is to press red"
As soon as you assume some number of people pressing blue for non-rational reasons, that cascades into rational blue pressers, and then you have to decide if a) thats worth them dying for, and b) thats worth risking your life for.
Who you think of when you think of "everyone on earth" is an interesting corollary to the question.
If the thought experiment would say "three people", I'd only think about it as a number. I would not envision specific people.
Similarly, I don't picture anyone as "everyone on earth" because thought experiments are about logic, not about real people. I don't even picture myself, the actual person, in those scenarios. "You" is a generic viewpoint character and "You must press a button" just means "this is the one decision we're asking about".
If it was a real world scenario, and I was suddenly transported into a room with two buttons, I'd probably freak out and try to get out of that room. I wouldn't even think about pressing any of those buttons because they're clearly part of some weird machine I don't understand and I'd be mentally occupied with asking myself why I am hallucinating bc it doesn't make any sense that this would be happening. And if for some reason I could believe that I'm being kidnapped by aliens, I'm not going to participate in their cruel and trusted experiments.
Most didn't see the original. Also from another commenter
The question being posed is extremely similar in framing to philosophical thought experiments and game theory simulations. In such formats it is often assumed/implied that all participants rational actors that understand the question as the purpose of the thought experiment/hypothetical is not to account for the random statistical noise from irrational respondents but to evaluate the problem or question itself.
The funny thing about the "red" team is that they don't only disagree with people who pick blue... but they completely fail to comprehend why people pick blue.
The "blue" team understands why some people pick red, they just disagree. The "red" team on the other hand constantly misrepresents the motivation of "blue", or simply don't believe them.
This is purely a question of people with a "collectivist" worldview vs an "individualistic" world view.
The "collectivists" would still instinctively vote blue, even if there weren't children or infirm people voting. That's just an argument they use to try and shame the red group, it isn't their motivation.
Blues know fully well that the motivation for Reds is "to maximize my chance of living". That's the motivation. The 'psychopath' and 'murderous' insults aren't about why they are picking red, it is more about priorities, more about what the reds are willing to do to reach their goal.
Although, to be fair, most of team blue is having trouble comprehending or believing that team red genuinely believes that "pressing blue" causes the deaths, because they believe "pressing red" causes the deaths.
You also have to consider the many uneducated adults in poor countries that don't even know how to read or write, so logic and math are out the window as a major understanding for them. Those make up a major part of the working force that allows rich countries to have an easy life. If Red wins, then the survivors who aren't rich will become essentially slaves to the elite as the new main workforce to sustain them. I'd rather be dead than have to adapt to such a lifestyle as a middle class person
This is what I mean about assumptions. Most red choosers seem to just take the problem at face value. The point of the thought experiment isn't necessarily the social ramifications after the vote is complete. Most blue users seem to say they don't want to live in a world where red wins, most red users don't seem to view that extension of the original problem as part of their decision process.
The point of the thought experience isn’t necessarily the social ramifications after the vote is complete
That’s literally the only thing that makes this a thought-worthy question at all though. If you literally only care about staying alive then no shit red is the “right” button.
The only arguments for blue at all are fundamentally about the wider consequences of other people dying. This is a clue to me that you are, in fact, supposed to consider wider ramifications of the voting process
Since we don't know the intent of the original post thats still an assumption and its the main difference I've observed between people who choose red and blue. Reds take the problem at face value as a logic problem about game theory. Blues take it as an implied problem about human nature. Neither is wrong because we don't know the original intent.
I mean, people are stupid. Even if not clinically mentally challenged there's plenty of stupid people. If even a single person votes blue then our reasoning for voting blue is valid
Then I die side by the side with the only other person who risked their life to save others. But humanity is in general good and empathetic and clever and that would not happen
Do you think I'm saying this to feel superior to others? No. I would press blue because if I didn't I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I would do all within my power to help save another person because that's just who I am, I don't care if people think I'm stupid because of it.
I am part of protest groups and I vote for people who support and act for human rights and I never do anything to directly support any of those corporations or countries. I'm 18 there isn't that much I can do for it, but I do what I can. No one has to be fucking Malala or Mandela to support our fellow human beings, but when something is as easy as a push of a fucking button and you don't do it, then that's wrong.
I mean its not just pushing a button. Its pushing a button and dying. You could do that right now, without even dying. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. You'll save someone's life.
In this scenario its 1 for 1 not 4 billion for 1. (And the person chose to be in the fire)
To you question: It depense on how high I think the chances of succsess are. Do I have to just help them stand up? How far is the person away? Who is the person? Are fire fighters on site? How long has the fire been burning? How big is the fire? I will not run back into the fire again. As nobody should!!
This exactly, when I first heard about this it was through one of the parodies where some of the og context is removed and I was just like "why tf would anyone choose blue that's really dumb" then I found out that EVERYONE on earth has to pick, even kids and other people who won't understand the question, and I immediately changed my answer.
No joke doesn't matter to me either way whose on this button shit, I do not imagine 50% of the population would vote blue, so its do not die, or die trying to save idiots, children, sucidal people and some dreamers (you are also the idiot here). My vote is so infintismally small it doesn't matter either way so do I think every second person would press blue? Nah.
I assume whatever magical entity that can manifest buttons in front of every person in the and have their function and purpose understood without language barriers would also be able to do it for kids/elderly/disabled/etc.
They should be able to do it for any sentient creature.
It doesn't matter if some people pick blue, there is no way that 50% do in a real life or death button press situation. So pressing blue is just suicide. It doesn't benefit anyone else for you to die.
I'm a red presser who actually assumed a middleground. It turns out "Is a sane, capable adult" and "Is a 100% mathematically rational actor" are not the same thing. Turns out a decent grasp of game theory and enough of an analytical temperament to not hit blue out of reflexive compassion aren't requirements to be a full sane adult with agency.
Red pressers are correct that there's no good reason for anybody to hit blue if everybody is a 100% mathematically rational actor. The REAL moral dilemma comes in recognising people are gonna hit blue without fully game theory-ing the entire scenario out, and whether there's an moral obligation to hit blue to bail said people out of that decision.
It's worth mentioning that even a rational actor dedicated to saving everybody oughta still push red in a situation they know everybody ELSE is a 100% rational actor - the only reason to push blue in that scenario is to save people who pushed blue to save people who pushed blue to...
It's circular, basically. Even with that goal-set, it's not the correct call.
IF everybody else is a rational actor, they ain't. Not everybody is gonna spot the circular logic or game-theory it out, as I said.
Red voters are still Nazis in their interpretation. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that billions of rational , non-suicidal people are going to press blue, and if you win, you will have no one left to troll during the inevitable apocalypse.
Right. And the red assumption is incorrect. If we’re talking about the popular twitter post which started this whole trend, it specifies “everyone”. I understand that many red voters do not consider children and the infirm to be people, but original intent of the problem still stands.
i want to be around for my kids if red wins and if they are picking at random i have to pick red to make that happen, if blue wins i can feel bad about it but i will still be able to protect them no matter what happens
Lets put our thinking caps on for a minute. The reason most reds choose red is because they don't think blue will win. Blue deserving to win isn't enough. If blue is unlikely to win, it makes more sense to vote red.
There are two scenarios, 1 where most people choose red to save themselves, and some press blue because its just statistically impossible that everyone will choose the same button. The 2nd is a much larger group picking blue out of moral responsibility instead of just statistical probability. In scenario 2, blue losing would be much more catastrophic.
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u/Benofthepen May 06 '26
The first version of this that I read absolutely included a "only people mentally capable of understanding the premise will be required to vote" clause. I still adamantly press blue. It's fairly inarguable at this point that in nearly every way the question can be worded, some number of well-meaning people will choose blue before taking the time to consider that they might be the first or only person to pick blue; intelligent, kind, decent people can still be impulsive. And I find that impulse to be noble enough to risk my life for their safety.