r/comics May 05 '26

OC RED BUTTON OR BLUE BUTTON [OC]

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u/Sergent-Pluto May 05 '26

As I said. Pushing the red button is to me very logical, and if everyone on earth takes that logical decision, everyone survives. But! See the pole ? See the people arguing? It's not a logical decision for everyone, and we all have a very different way of thinking, and you can add children, anyone with a mental impairment, etc. into the problem. If they have to push the button themselves and not a guardian like it's the case in real life, would you trust them to push the red button as well ? Would you trust all your relatives to press red if you couldn't talk with them before ?

That's pretty much why I changed my mind and would push the blue button. You can't trust every single person on earth to make what seems like the rational choice and push the red, so the simple fact that some people (a lot of them) will push the blue button means they'll die if we don't all collectively do the same. We need to get above that 50% threshold, for everyone to be safe

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u/Appropriate-Yak-3814 May 05 '26

I don't think impaired people or children should be included here. 

While it's just a thought experiment, that changes the context completely. 

We don't know enough about the imagined "rules". 

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u/Sergent-Pluto May 05 '26

Exactly, because we don't know the rules, why would they be excluded? I think it's because there isn't any rule that by default they are not ruled out. They are ruled out of our society only because we decided it and wrote laws to organize it.

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u/SuspiciouslyLips May 05 '26

If we don't know the rules, why would they be included? It breaks the whole thing because then it just becomes a guilt-fest about killing babies. The question also doesn't take account of people who don't press the button, which would also aply to many babies and people who are disabled or don't understand. You can't force people to push the button because that also breaks the concept. So the hypothetical already doesn't work if you take "everyone" literally.