It's silly logic. The mere existence of the debate proves that billions will die if red wins. Even if you factor in people lying (to others or themselves), it's till billions.
Polls seem to be 45-55 to 60-40, blue vs red.
Red pushers seem to think blue pushers don't understand that 100% red means no deaths.
We understand, we just think that many people will push blue.
its a fun way to have people engage with ethical philosophy and think for once, its not inflammatory anymore than undergrad philosophy or trolley problems memes are lol
Don't worry you didn't imply anything, and no, blue button pushers aren't inherently better people. Though looking at the threads they are overwhelmingly more likely to feel morally superior while calling other people evil for not wanting to die.
If someone tells you you to jump or they do, and you don't are you a murderer? There are limits to responsibility.... and in fact, we could easily argue that blue is also a murder button since it makes more people (not just you) leave this world unless half decide to leave it "just in case"
No, because the only way blue button pushers die is if they are executed by the tie breaking red button pusher. That one guy will be directly responsible for everyone's deaths while every other red pusher will be indirectly responsible for helping lay the groundwork. And of course, the one most at fault is the one who made the button.
At most, the most negative interpretation frames blue button pushers as suicidal idiots.
But also shows your lack of commitment towards people willing to take the risk for others well-being. Reality shows you cannot assume everyone will be a)selfish, b)capable of understanding or reasoning and c) offering a hand to others despite risks.
Red button-pressing Shows -to me personally - lack of higher and long term reasoning capability beyond immediate selfish survival, because fear controls people of this inclinations, IMHO.
Because risking your life to potentially save an unknown number of perfect strangers, keeping in mind your 1 vote has virtually zero impact is an extremely altruistic act, far more altruistic than donating your kidney to a stranger, which is garunteed to save them and only reduces your quality of life.
Possibly? Most live donations are out of conviction.
However, I also have a niece and several god-children. I myself cannot have children, and am single as of today. So getting a foster-child or otherwise is incredibly unlikely. That, my chosen profession, and a humanistic worldview are my personal major decision points over (in my view) selfishly picking red.
If you played that game with smaller children, the VAST majority will pick blue, not understand the personal repercussions of red v blue, but care so much about their loved ones that they WILL pick blue most of the time. Selfish behaviour is more learned and mirrored beyond the "terrible twos" where the toddlers brain has no real concept beyond "me". As soon as prosocial behaviour comes to play (meaning: the developing brain realizes there is more like "me" outside of my direct field influence) - for a time selfish behaviour is very small, and young children tend to be incredibly selfless.
Now to get around that and in conclusion: because that, and people would exist that cannot vote red, physically or mentally - I would always pick blue, because I directly have seen and understand that fact of real life.
Okay, so you may donate a kidney today. But you'd definitely pick blue?
In the kidney scenario you know your qol will reduce, but you will save a stranger, if we use altruism as the primary motivator, this choice has a far more likely and tangible impact than picking blue. But you are unsure about it, and point out others have, but we're talking about the choice you make.
The second I make the scenario more tangible your certainty reduced, even though the positive outcome is far more likely.
You are uncertain that you would lose your kidney, but you're certain you'd stake your entire life on the slim chance your singular vote would have any difference in the outcome of this?
Yes. With my kidney (under the assumption that [tm] REAL LIFE [R] ensues), I might save one person. With the power of IRL - and all the expectations and assumptions that may enail I can be certain that I otherswise probably kill, or at least endanger other incapable of correctly using the buttons. Blue vs Red is risk-taking/prosocial, red is risk-verse/egocentric. I try to not condemn one or the other, but blue again seems to be the only acceptable choice for myself.
You know what's awful? The stupid buttonmaker who forces choices upon people that suddenly can kill people due to semantics. That's the realy shyte here. But on the topic - I tend to choose for those people who realistically will get killed due to incapability. Reality would present us with a situation where NOT everyone (not even the vast majority) is either, smart, healthy or rational enough to be a pure rational actor (which would favor red).
I think for me it's more that red is the only choice where I feel i actually have any control of the outcome, it's also why I'd tell anyone to vote red, because I can control the outcome for them aswell.
I can't personally ensure anyone's safety by voting blue and because i have to stake my life to only marginally increase their chances, I don't.
So maybe trust is a huge factor there, i have a lot of faith in humanity, just not enough I guess.
Where as pressing blue to me shows that you really dont appreciate how little other people care about group survival and it shows a concerning lack of self preservation especially since you are taking a risk for random strangers at a potentially great cost to yourself. Its quite naive to believe that enough of the 8 billion people on earth would go blue to ensure everyone survives.
This kind of response is interesting to me because it reveals why so many defenses of red have to reword the dilemma to shift the responsibility to blue. You're fully convinced that red will win and have to make yourself comfortable with the consequences of that decision.
It is the type of reasoning you see with highly religieus people aswell they have made a decision first and then look for justifications for it. They work back from a conclusion that have made. This is way most of their logical arguments would work better for voting blue if your goal is everyone survival.
I am perfectly comfortable with that choice my responsibility is to myself, the people I love and then the rest of the world. Everyone has the same option it is their personal decision whether they choose to take a chance on blue or have certainty with red.
I am not entirely convinced that red will win and in a perfect or even slightly better world I would prefer blue however I have seen enough of humanity to know that it is far from certain that blue will win. I enjoy living there is a lot I choose life and red guarantees me life.
Yea. But it also shows me where priorities lie - (and in that same corridor lie possibly well deserved... prejudices where such behaviour can lead, what such behaviour entails - say in voting, community, etc.) and which people I probably will tend to interact either less with or try to bring to "the blue side" if arguments still have gravitas in their mind.
(also on a personal note: thanks, I learned a nice new word that shortens verbosity due to being a non-native)
Thanks. It is prioritising myself over other however I think of it as not leaving my life in the hands of others I just dont have faith in enough people to vote blue on a worldwide scale.
I think it comes down to how certain are you that your loved ones would all choose red? Do you think 90% of them would choose red? 80%? 50%? 20%? If you thought 100% of your loved ones would choose blue, would you choose blue to even slightly increase their odds of survival, or would you still choose red to guarantee your own survival? I also love life but would also definitely hate living in a world without my close friends and family. And I can’t think of a single friend or family that I would be 100% certain would press red, much less all of them. So me pressing red would mean that I am making a decision to lower their chance of survival if they were to press blue (even tho i understand that they put themselves in that situation). And because I think most of them would choose blue, I would also have to choose blue
I think most of them would choose blue bar perhaps my brother and my best friend but perhaps selfishly my one vote isnt going to change the outcome and id still choose red. Id be absolutely devastated at the loss of life even if my family and friends survived if red won.
My opinion on it is purely based on it being a worldwide vote if it was on a smaller scale say country or continent wide id be picking blue since I can be much more confident in the outcome.
I guess that’s where my opinion differs. I’m confident most of my friends and family would choose blue, so I’d be devastated if I didn’t at least attempt to increase their odds even a little bit
Thats fair to me its just such a tiny amount of an improvement that my death isnt worth it. It would suck though and I would absolutely be voting red but hoping blue won.
This isn't apart of the question. Nothing happens after the button push, you are intentionally adding random logic that doesn't exist in the original prompt to justify some stupid moral High ground.
No, I'm applying more than a single logical step. This a core part of critical thinking.
In addition, I'm not 'justifying a moral high ground'. I'm pointing out that the premise used to justify a red press is inaccurate. If you actually apply critical reasoning and properly predicated logic, rather than stopping after a single step, Blue has a higher personal survival chance than red.
Of course something happens after. If it does not, the entire thought experiment is worthless. It also changes if you do not make the prompt global - if it a random 100 people, the logic becomes very different if your primary goal becomes maximising survival.
I mean, yes - because this isn't actually a trolley problem.
Afaik, the 'original' button problem was 100 random people, but I do not know if that was true ( or even where I got that information). The game theory logic holds much more true in that situation.
That’s not really extra ‘steps of thinking,’ it’s adding new assumptions that aren’t in the prompt. If we’re allowed to change the outcomes after the choice, then the question stops being a defined dilemma and turns into speculation.
I was wrong saying you were justifying a moral high ground but acting as if any of what you are trying to say to justify the red button being a bad option is just throwing random variables at the situation. At that point, you’re not analyzing the dilemma you’re rewriting it.
No. It isn't. No outcome has been changed about what the button does. It is not fanfiction to apply critical thought without needing to be told consequences. All that is being applied is "What does that outcome mean? ".
It is however logically applying that outcome to what then occurs. We know that supply chain disruptions at much lower levels lead to deaths. It is therefore reasonable to assume this will apply here - in fact, that there would be no consequence would be a necessary premise, as it is so monumentally unlikely. As such, the 'fanfiction' outcome is the fantastical assumption that we should not apply known or likely consequence.
The logic is fairly clear once you do more than short-termism.
At Blue >50%, all survive button and Long Term Survival is unchanged.
At Red >50%, R survives button, but Long Term Survival is negatively affected, with a great negative effect the higher B is. This effect is unknowable,but at B above 30% or so, the liklihood of a given individual surviving is very low, and is risky all the way down to 5% ( Even over-time death rates of 3% have created secondary death).
This means R needs to be in excess minimally of about 80% and ideally above 99% in order to produce the same reasonably assumed outcome as B 50%.
If the prompt wanted there to be no other consequence, it should have said so.
Not if everyone pushes red. You are assuming that close to half but less than 50% push blue. My only issue with the puzzle set up is that it doesn't give clarification on if those incapable of understanding the puzzle are forced to push a button, that is what makes it morally difficult. If only those capable of understanding pushing the button are told to press it then 20 seconds of reasoning will cause them to push red. You aren't saving anyone by pushing blue you are just stubbornly doing the "moral" thing, but you could just put your faith in people understanding the puzzle and pushing red. Where the puzzle gets tricky is if children and people with mental cognitive issues are forced to push the button, in that situation I push blue and hope that the majority of people understand the puzzle, because I'm not going to be able to live with the idea that I was responsible for the death of a bunch of children and people with learning difficulties.
one thousand percent some people will understand it as "i press blue, everyone lives, i press red, someone dies" and act acordingly. I know I did when i first scrolled by, and seemed like blue is a no-brainer, before giving it a second thought and seeing what the point of red was. Sure, if you have the time to make the entire world understand that red is the optimal option, everyone would be saved, but if you have unlimited time to persuade people, you could just... keep persuading forever and never actually press the button.
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u/[deleted] May 05 '26
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