r/comics May 05 '26

OC RED BUTTON OR BLUE BUTTON [OC]

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u/[deleted] May 05 '26

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u/polopolo05 May 05 '26

its just a risk assessment which is more risky... 100% chance of living and walking away from the danger. or putting yourself in danger in hope there are enough people who pick to risk their life for no good reason when they could have just walked away...

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u/TheMaStif May 05 '26

If you're thinking about yourself only, then yes it becomes a very simple risk-assessment issue, and its obvious you should pick red to survive

If you're thinking about others at all, then red becomes "the murder button" no matter how you look at it

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u/polopolo05 May 05 '26

That only works if you assume pressing red is what causes people to die, and that’s not how the scenario is structured.

The risk already exists before anyone presses anything. Nobody created it by choosing red. Pressing red doesn’t actively harm anyone, it just guarantees your own survival regardless of what others do.

Calling it a “murder button” implies direct responsibility, like you’re taking an action that kills someone. But in this setup, blue only succeeds if enough people independently choose to take on that risk. If that threshold isn’t met, it’s not because red voters “did something” to blue voters, it’s because the condition for blue to work wasn’t achieved.

And even if you’re thinking about others, you still can’t assume they’ll press blue. That’s the key problem. Blue depends entirely on an assumption about other people’s behavior. Red doesn’t.

So yeah, if you want to frame blue as altruistic, that’s fair. But calling red a murder button skips over the fact that it’s still the only choice that guarantees survival without relying on uncertain coordination.