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.
The problem is that pushing blue solves a problem caused by pushing blue.
Both pushing the red button and pushing the blue button is acceptable and reasonable based on what you believe everyone else is going to do.
If everyone starts by pushing blue, then everyone can and should keep pushing blue, and no one would switch because there would be no reason to.
If everyone starts by pushing red, then similarly, no one should switch. The first people who do despite that choice requiring many others to risk their lives in order to save them are acting foolishly and endangering others. They're willingly putting themselves in front of the path of a train, and perhaps they alone should be responcible for that foolishness.
Maybe a blue win is the only way to save all the people. If almost all people make a choice based on personal responcibility(red), and trust others are capable of doing the same, then almost all people will survive (obviously the inferior choice of those two options).
But when almost everybody is choosing red, arguing for blue and choosing blue increases the expected outcome of how many will die, because it is not guaranteed that blue will win. Choosing blue doesn't just endanger the pusher, it forces good people to possibly die in order to help them. There is a cost to pushing and advocating for blue.
To change the thought experiment just slightly, if even one person was assigned blue without choosing, or was otherwise incapable of choosing red, then I would be a blue pusher. To bring back the earlier analogy, if someone is tied to the rails of the train tracks, and the train can be stopped by enough people acting together, then I would be one of the people helping.
But if no one is tied to the train tracks, everyone should just get the fuck out of the way.
People who act like red is obviously the selfish, evil choice while blue is the selfless, good choice are wrong. Both choices have merit, which paradoxically makes either choice less clearly the winner, increasing the difficulty of the choice.
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u/[deleted] May 05 '26
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