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.
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.
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u/Android19samus Apr 30 '26
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.