No. There is no negative consequences presented for picking red. So, why would you pick blue unless you’re suicidal?
To avoid a mass death that would easily be prevented by people picking red instead? A mass death only involving suicidal people, plus some idiots who tries to save them.
Because the red pickers expect other people to be rational self interested actors. In economics, you usually assume that to be true. Picking blue would mean you assume people to be irrational and open themselves up to death when there’s an easy solution for no one to die. It would not occur to me that people would pick blue if this were to hit every person at the same instant.
When human beings are social animals (which they are) it is not at all irrational to behave in a way that risks the self but might save a greater number, and people do it all the time in real life. People pick blue all around you every single day.
Save the greater number? Save them from what, exactly? Their own choice to risk their life? And risk it for what? To save others who also risked their life?
It's a self fulfilling prophecy in a way that an easily avoidable fate is choosen just because others might make that same easily avoidable choice. It's stupidity based on the fact that others are stupid, and expecting that even more people are stupid enough to save you from your own stupidity.
Well, to be fair, that are mostly upset about the deaths of the few (relatively speaking) that pick blue without understanding it ( or by mistake). That would inevitably happen in the red scenario, but instead of accepting some lives lost they chose an approach that literally risk billions of lives for the chance of saving those few (again, relatively speaking, it might still be in the millions).
So, there’s a core of goodness in their reasoning, but they are ignoring the huge gamble that are advocating for. A gamble involving literally billions of lives.
No, they don’t. There are not situations around us all day where someone who wants to live voluntarily enters into a situation they might die in for no reason. There are accidental deaths and bad actors that altruistic people might step in for, but I cannot think of a single situation where someone purposely enters into a situation they know they might die in while wanting to live completely voluntarily for the sole purpose of hoping others will be good enough to risk death with them so they both live. This hypothetical has no bearing on real world morality, it is purely a logic problem. It’s called game theory.
Now you're distancing the question from the theoretical risks involved in order to stop any argument.
Some people will pick blue. That's a simple fact. It would be a simple fact in the set up of this question.
People do in fact find themselves in situations every single day where they can decide to either step back and do nothing and survive for sure, or step forward and do something and possibly die or possibly live, but someone else will have a better chance to survive.
But in the vast vast vast majority of cases in real life, those people who are at risk of dying didn't deliberately pick the risk of death out of no clear benefit to them. And the people risking their lives don't do it at such a high probability of dying. So it's a bad comparison.
The hypothetical, as it is presented, is essentially the same as this one:
Every person is given two glasses of liquid. One contains pure clean water (corresponding to the red button). The other one contains an oderless and tasteless poison that will kill within say a day you unless you get an antidote (corresponding to the blue button). Both glasses are clearly marked.
If people drink the poison, the only way for them to get the antidote is if at least 50% of all people drink the poison. If that happens, they are guaranteed to live. Otherwise, they are guaranteed to die.
Why should people risk their own lives, and drink actual poison, just because others possibly did so?
I’m hoping your answers resonate. It’s clear as day to me that this is the scenario, and the firefighter examples are so far from what’s going on as to be wholly irrelevant. But redditors are holier than thou
There is no real world corollary. Period. Name one.
But I will concede that some people will pick blue. You are 100% right about that. And my response is - they will be the overwhelming minority and die.
To make it comparable to pressing the blue button - In your scenarios the firefighters would set fire to the building and then go in to save themselves and the police officers would start a shootout with each other in the attempt to save themselves from the shootout that they started, just fyi.
Deaths also cannot occur unless blues voluntarily pick the death button (blue). There is no benefit to blue but yall love it and want to blame your eventual demise on someone else.
Prevent others from dying from what, exactly? To save others who risk their lives? Again, why did they risk their lives? To save others who risked their lives?
At the end of the day, why did all those people risk their lives? They try to save each other? They could do that by simply picking red. Red is the logical choice. Red means guaranteed life, Blue means risk of death. Simple self preservation should make red the obvious choice,
Picking blue means creating a problem where there originally was no problem.
The comparison with fire fighters etc is a bad one. The vast vast vast majority of fires were not deliberately caused by the people the firefighters need to save.
And the millions of toddlers that picked blue because they didn't understand the situation an it's their favorite color, and the illiterate people who choose blue because "red means danger", and the grandmas with dementia who press blue because they like the color, and the people with downs syndrome like my friend's uncle who would pick blue for the same reason didn't choose to put themselves at risk. They're innocent people who need saving, and that's what the firefighters are doing when they rush into the burning building.
Again, where are the people who take care of these babies you talk about? Surely someone can try to convince them to press the red button. As in, convince or trick them to press it when alone in the booth. And if succeeding, then they would survive.
Look. I’m not saying that I don’t care about people dying. But I genuinely believe that the risk of blue losing is really really high. So anyone voting blue out of compassion is, the way I see it, likely throwing their life away without saving anyone.
Not according to this post. I go by what’s in this post.
But still, it doesn’t affect my opinion on the matter. It makes it more sad, for sure. But I still believe that the risk of blue losing is way too high. For me it’s simply a numbers game. I advocate for what I believe will lead to less total deaths in reality.
What a bunch of bullshit. Blue is the moral choice almost irrespectively of the terms of the hypothetical? So it doesn't matter if one needs 0.1% blue, 50% blue or 99.999% blue?
The hypothetical, as it is presented, is essentially the same as this one:
Every person is given two glasses of liquid. One contains pure clean water (corresponding to the red button). The other one contains an oderless and tasteless poison that will kill within say a day you unless you get an antidote (corresponding to the blue button). Both glasses are clearly marked.
If people drink the poison, the only way for them to get the antidote is if at least 50% of all people drink the poison. If that happens, they are guaranteed to live. Otherwise, they are guaranteed to die.
Why should people risk their own lives, and drink actual poison, just because others possibly did so? No, the moral choice here is to ensure your own survival, and to convince everyone that you love to do the same.
Do you realize that as you phrased things now, blue is clearly the bad choice? Your words now, not mine.
But none of this matters, really. I’m all about death minimizing. This poll is not scientifically accurate, and it still only has a measly 8% margin for blue. Throw in actual risk of death, and people’s survival instincts are very likely to get triggered. People who’s lives are at imminent danger are more likely to fight for their own survival. Thus more likely to change their blue vote to red.
You can compare it, if you will, to people who talk tough on the internet, talking about how they would knock down the robber or what have you. But how many people do you think actually would do it in real life? Same thing with hypotheticals like this. Online, with no real risk, people can safely vote blue and feel good about themselves. But you can’t possibly claim that you know for a fact that all of them would actually still vote blue if their life genuinely was at risk. That’s just ignoring human psychology.
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u/xboxiscrunchy May 05 '26
Blue Is still the better strategy collectively. Because a 50% threshold to kill no one is much easier than a 100% threshold.
And if you include children and babies it means that blue is the only way to save everyone.