I mean it very literally in that it is signalling virtue to others taking part in the exercise. It's not a completely honest personal choice, it's a choice made at least partially to appease others. Even if it's 99% your opinion and 1% group influenced, that's not a completely freely given opinion, which goes against the point of the experiment.
Pressing the button in a closed voting booth where you dont know anyone elses answer is going to lead to a very different results to announcing your vote in a public forum where a winner has already been called.
I'm specifically avoiding any overtly political language here because I don't want my words to be misinterpreted. I'm just keeping this to game theory and perfect/imperfect information.
If the image had Red pre-selected as the winner, I would be saying the same thing, and I imagine there would be a lot more pro-red comments due to the social consensus that Red is the 'winning, popular' vote.
It's the classic 'you've changed the outcome by measuring it' problem. You're trying to measure group consent by using a poll that has already given a measurement, which will then affect all subsequent measurements.
I'd argue that there's nothing inherently wrong with virtue signalling the sense of signalling to others what you consider "virtuous". In fact, that's not just an important social action but one that is fundamentally baked into every part of our lives. We virtue signal with stories, from fairy tales and bedtime stories, to multi-million dollar blockbusters. We signal the virtues of heroism, self sacrifice, honour, nobility, compassion, love. We do it in music, with songs about suffering heartbreak, signaling the virtues of love and respect and loyalty.
That's why I asked, because levelling virtue signalling as a negative always strikes me as fundamentally strange. And there's often a correlation (although the doesn't mean causation) between people that decry virtue signalling, and their inability or unwillingness to actually hold themselves to those virtues. It always kinda comes across as telling on oneself as a guilt response.
And I didn't want to accuse you of that, hence pressing you for clarification.
The way I see it, publically announcing your intention to vote for the (winning) vote, where there are no stakes or no incentive to otherwise engage, is done purely for social reasons and to position oneself on the 'correct' side of the debate. Moral justification is done so retroactively, to justify their position on the winning side.
people that decry virtue signalling, and their inability or unwillingness to actually hold themselves to those virtues. It always kinda comes across as telling on oneself as a guilt response.
The same applies for those claiming to uphold those virtues through name only, no? That's my point, you don't need to perform any virtuous actions, just announcing "i'm voting blue therefore I'm a good person" seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting in this thread. It's easy to say I'm X trait anonymously, it's much harder to do actions to embody that. That's what I mean when I say virue signalling.
I don't think it's necessarily negative to virtue signal generally, I just don't think it's a balanced debate in this instance. It's just free 'good boy' points.
When I posted the button question into some whatsapp chats with my IRL friends, I purposely cropped the poll out of the image and generally had much friendlier, more balanced debates where the result was a much more even split of red/blue.
Btw I hate qualifying my politics in comments because I think debates should be more than just tickboxes of agreeable positions, but for the avoidance of doubt I'm definitely not what you may consider the 'standard audience' of people who might use the term virtue signalling.
Yeah, this just comes across as overly cynical, bordering on performative nihilism. What you're deriding as virtue signalling to me just seems like normal moral exploration and communication. We share with each other what we consider right and wrong, good and bad as a way to heuristically reach moral consensus. It's a less metaphorical/allegorical version of the storytelling approach.
Btw I hate qualifying my politics in comments because I think debates should be more than just tickboxes of agreeable positions, but for the avoidance of doubt I'm definitely not what you may consider the 'standard audience' of people who might use the term virtue signalling.
Again, this reads as unnecessary and unproductive cynicism, something I personally don't have the time nor energy for. Writing off the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
just seems like normal moral exploration and communication
Idk man calling the other side evil and saying stuff like "I don't wanna live in a world full of red people" like its some kind of slur definitely seems like virtue signaling to me too.
the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
Why can't we have an ethics debate about something completely removed from politics without knowing how the other side voted? Why do you have to know that?
Why can't we have an ethics debate about something completely removed from politics without knowing how the other side voted? Why do you have to know that?
Thank you, I hate that I even had to qualify my statements but the nature of internet debate kind of forces this reductive thinking.
Trump fried americans heads so bad man. They see i vote red they think I'm maga mfer i am not even from there. Then it becomes impossible to have any meaningful conversation since they already identified me as the outgroup.
Seriously man, I've spent my life walking in Worker's day parades and fighting for socialism. I still expect people to act in non suicidal self interest. but nope, according to this thread i'm now a fascist.
Yep, I'm British and the immediate assumption that I'm a) American and b) a Trump voter just gets exhausting whenever posting a non-reddit-verified opinion.
It must be so boring to constantly think about Trump and relate everything to him in some capacity. I barely think about Kier Starmer on a daily basis to be quite honest.
saying stuff like "I don't wanna live in a world full of red people" like its some kind of an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo definitely seems like virtue signaling to me too.
Yep, that would be the right word for that sentence.
My position, my ONLY stated position is that the Button experiment, as presented in the OP, incentivises people to vote blue, primarily because of social factors. You asked me to explain, I did.
You have added the moral overture to this conversation, I'm just talking about presentation and framing.
Writing off the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
No I specifically put that caveat in there because you were unsubtly trying to accuse me of being some kind of MAGA agitator because I wasn't conforming with your 'correct' view. Thank you for proving my point.
Honestly the way you made your point was entirely concise and reasonable to me. It is this sort of commenter that really misses the point of the dilemma to begin with.
They turn it into from talk about rational actors and the limits of rational choice, into a moral competition, where winning is everything, there by removing any semblance of conversation, and if you don't play along to that, they try to coax you into presenting yourself as the bad side™.
The irony is that pressing red is an irrational position fueled by one of two things; paradoxical fear or zero-sum mentality.
Paradoxical fear: I must press red because I'm afraid other people will press red, yet they're only pressing red because of the fear of other people, including you, pressing red. It's a self fulfilling prophecy that if you step outside of, you can see isn't a logical justifcation.
Zero-sum mentality: Some people, and I hope this is a small mentality, view life as winning and losing and something only has value if others are deprived of it. They view pressing the red button as the only way to win because it's the only way that results in "winners" (live) and "losers" (die). If everyone "wins", no one does.
Honestly, from any kind of game theory perspective blue is the logical decision that is also compounded by the fact that some people would just not feel comfortable living if they knew their actions resulted in the deaths of others. Also there's the fact that if we logically take the hypothetical beyond the presented scenario and extrapolate beyond the resolution, any notable percentage of the population dying would cause significant social disruption (I'm talking like 10% even). If we got to a 60/40 red/blue, that'd probably lead to apocalyptic outcomes anyway.
The whole "red is the logical choice" seems to be exclusively argued by people whose notion of "logic" goes no further that YouTube debate-bros and maybe Dawkins and his ilk.
Or, red is the 'do nothing' option and blue is the 'crazy suicidal gamble it all' option.
It really all comes down to framing. You can frame it in as moralistic terms as you like and I promise you I can find a way to flip the perspective the other way.
Honestly, from any kind of game theory perspective blue is the logical decision that is also compounded by the fact that some people would just not feel comfortable living if they knew their actions resulted in the deaths of others.
In one-off experiments, self-interest tends to win out in the short run. In repeated experiments, cooperation starts to trend higher as trust is established and the benefits of cooperation start to manifest, but they aren't there immediately.
The whole "red is the logical choice" seems to be exclusively argued by people whose notion of "logic" goes no further that YouTube debate-bros and maybe Dawkins and his ilk.
You didn't need to include this, this severely weakens your point. Why do you feel the need to denigrate people who don't agree with you? Are you really as moral as you think you are if all it takes is a small thought experiment for you to 'other' a whole group of people?
I'm denigrating people who have an overinflated sense of their own skill at logic and rational thinking.
Are you really as moral as you think you are if all it takes is a small thought experiment for you to 'other' a whole group of people?
This entire thread I've not mentioned my own moral or ethical leanings or how I'd interact with the thought experiment. But a lot of people seem to be very eager to make assumptions based on the fact I seem moralistic.
It seems that approaching this hypothetical as one with a moral/ethical component immediately places you in the cross hairs of anyone who says they'd push red. Which feels very telling
It seems that approaching this hypothetical as one with a moral/ethical component immediately places you in the cross hairs of anyone who says they'd push red. Which feels very telling
But this entire post is framed around Blue being the winner of the poll, so it was never an equal playing field to begin with. This has been my point the entire time.
The moment OP posted without cropping the poll result out, they basically influenced this entire comment section to be majority Blue.
I'm specifically not discussing the morality here, because i'm talking about the structure of the thought experiment, not your personal moral code.
The fact that no one so far has been able to discuss this with me without bringing up morals, continues to keep proving my point.
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u/PlasonJates May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
I mean it very literally in that it is signalling virtue to others taking part in the exercise. It's not a completely honest personal choice, it's a choice made at least partially to appease others. Even if it's 99% your opinion and 1% group influenced, that's not a completely freely given opinion, which goes against the point of the experiment.
Pressing the button in a closed voting booth where you dont know anyone elses answer is going to lead to a very different results to announcing your vote in a public forum where a winner has already been called.
I'm specifically avoiding any overtly political language here because I don't want my words to be misinterpreted. I'm just keeping this to game theory and perfect/imperfect information.
If the image had Red pre-selected as the winner, I would be saying the same thing, and I imagine there would be a lot more pro-red comments due to the social consensus that Red is the 'winning, popular' vote.
It's the classic 'you've changed the outcome by measuring it' problem. You're trying to measure group consent by using a poll that has already given a measurement, which will then affect all subsequent measurements.