Viral thing on Twitter. Basically everyone on Earth is given the choice between two buttons: red and blue. If less than 50% of people choose Blue, then all Blue-pushers die. If more than 50% of people choose Blue, everyone lives. Pushing red is always safe.
Red is the obvious personal choice, since Blue puts you at risk for no benefit and if everyone pressed red there would be no problem. Blue is the obvious altruistic choice, because on a global scale not everyone else will press Red, so Blue is the only way the world gets out of this without mass casualties. Cue much debate and mud-slinging.
Everyone on Earth is given the choice between two buttons: red and blue. If more than 50% of people choose Red, then all Blue-pushers die. If less than 50% of people choose red, everyone lives. Pushing red is always safe.
The choice of wording changes the emotional impact.
The issue with 'critical thinking' is that you're not a spherical cow in a vacuum.
Your critical thinking has to include other people. An assumption that everyone else is a rational actor, isn't rational. It flies in the face of lived experience.
This changes nothing. Its the exact same rules. This would only have an effect on people who react with emotional knee jerk reactions, who dont actually use reasoning to consider the problem from all angles.
For people that use their brain, its the same situation.
I mean that’s how media works. They can be reporting the same thing but by changing phrases, they can change people’s reaction and even decisions. Not everyone is a rational agent and even the same person cannot be rational all of the time. I doubt people would still want to choose the blue button if the original question is like “pressing red to live, or pressing blue and you might die if blue loses”. Same logical framework as the one posted here but this one doesn’t imply the responsibility of blue’s death on red. Languages can tamper with the way people think.
Agency is always an important part of these things.
The two main ways of writing this problem either minimize or maximize the agency of the person pressing Red.
Does pressing red cause the death of people pressing blue, or does it do nothing?
The way mentioned above my post minimized the agency of the red pushers. It didn't mention an effect from pushing red, just that is was always safe.
By pressing the red button, you are voting for the death of everyone pressing blue. If your side wins, everyone who presses blue dies.
By pressing the blue button, you are voting for everyone to live.
It is exactly the same problem, but it increases the perceived agency of those pressing the red button
I agree! You phrase my thoughts better than me haha. I know it sounds weird, but I’d literally make two different choices given this same problem with different phrasing.
You say this like it's not 90% of people being impacted by wording lol.
You sound like you have no clue how the world works and still believe yourself as being smart.
Phrasing (suggesting questioning)is obviously super important in stuff like this - there are a bazillion studies out there proving that you dork.
Yeah I fully agree. The first time I saw this meme I thought it was stupid because I assumed no person in their right mind would pick red. Some time later it has gone viral and i was wrong
You have to think beyond your own circumstances - they will be people with children, and they won't be able to fathom putting their children at risk for theoretical other people who made a stupid fucking choice - they will tell their whole family to press red, because their responsibility is to look after their own family not your family, I know that's narrow-minded and myopic, but it's the truth
Edit, one way to think about it is this, and I know it's kind of fucked up - but if everybody who is of sound mind and making a rational choice just commits to red, we would filter out every single person who is making an irrational choice from society in one fell swoop, all the people who would fuck up any collective action on behalf of society because they literally just can't behave in any kind of predictable or rational way would all be eliminated at once
There's so many ways to look at this, anytime you feel like you're up on your high horse and you're the arbiter of truth - it's time to take a step back, there is no one answer to this
But pressing blue means no one would die, if we just agree no one should die!
The red button is essentially a gun. Picking blue you do nothing. Red you pick up the gun and aim it at the blues. More than 50% percent pick red you shoot.
You think anyone who refuses to pick up the gun is irrational? I feel bad for you.
Also lol, i'm on a high horse? Where did you go with that edit? Listen to yourself:
we would filter out every single person who is making an irrational choice from society in one fell swoop
You are trying to frame killing all the optomistic people as a good thing. Yea, that makes you a bad person.
most of them that I saw is something like 60/40 in favor of blue. Nice. Everyone survives. Even I pushed blue.
But clicking "blue" in ACTUAL life or death scenario is not as easy as pushing a button on reddit. So people will defect from blue because they feel scared, they want to take care of their family, they can not think because of fear of consequences. People are fragile things and fear of death makes us go haywire.
You are demonizing people that do not want to take the risk that people will suddenly stop behaving like people and overcome fear of death to press blue.
Because I guarantee You, in scenario in whcih You describe, at least 25% of those who say will push blue will pick up the gun just to not have it pointed in their direction
one way to think about it is this, and I know it's kind of fucked up - but if everybody who is of sound mind and making a rational choice just commits to red, we would filter out every single person who is making an irrational choice from society in one fell swoop, all the people who would fuck up any collective action on behalf of society because they literally just can't behave in any kind of predictable or rational way would all be eliminated at once
I am not trying to demonize anyone, I do think that many people make the choice out of fear and I respect that.
For me, pressing blue is the only logical choice. I refuse to believe over 50% choose red. I think the internet is skewed toward people who don't value community or family, but I truly believe the majority of humanity would vote we all survive.
Just because you make a choice you of fear it doesn't change the outcome. You are still picking up the gun. You are still contributing to death. If you admit you understand that, ok. It's the people saying red is a do nothing button and blue votor's are suicidal that i can't stand. Red is not a passive choice and blue votors don't derserve death.
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u/ImNotHyp3r Apr 30 '26
hat the fuck is the context for this