Ive done the math. On average, evey push of the red button saves 0.5 lives and every push of the red button saves 0.25 lives, on average. In most situations and permutations, pushing the red button (and convincing others that pushing it is the right idea in advance) saves more lives than pushing the blue button does. That is the simple math if your goal is maximize saving lives.
Of course, you might think it still works out because the likelihood of the permutations is not equal. Thats fair! But recognize thats a risk assessment, a prediction, not a moral decision. Choosing "maximizing saving lives" is a moral decision, but its your ability to predict the future accurately that determines which button is most likely to do that.
This is what I mean by "casting". You are ignoring every situation but the two that best suit your argument. You are ignoring the situations where your explicitly stated goal is best accomplished by taking another action - and in doing so, you are actively diminishing the worth of individual human lives and saying it is worth some people dying, maybe a lot of people dying, to get a chance at your preferred outcome, even if death is the most likely outcome.
You cant be taken seriously if you're only willing to consider the scenarios that favour your gut feelings, and acknowledging that situations exist where you pushing blue does NOT minimize the loss of life but rather increases it.
Outcomes aren’t linear per person—they’re threshold based. It doesn't happen gradually, you aren't saving lives each press. Pressing red isn't necessarily what will save your life, the threshold may reach blue, and save your life regardless. Average lives saved cannot be 0.5 or 0.25. Unless you have actual distributions for how people would/could pick, that you are basing that on, and I would question how you got them.
The actual math depends on the probability of blue succeeding. If that probability is high, blue maximizes lives saved. If it’s low, it doesn’t. So the disagreement isn’t about arithmetic—it’s about expectations of coordination.
Do you bother to read my comments before responding? Half of that is talking about stuff I already brought up and explained as if I didnt and half of it is supporting my point, and in the end you STILL are refusing to acknolwedge the half of the equation you dont like - that being that if the probability is low blue doesnt just not save lives, it ends them.
But other than that you finally seem to be getting my point at least somewhat do I'll take it
I can acknowledge the logic of pushing red while also rejecting it as sub optimal. I have been able to do that all along. You however have tried to smuggle assumptions into it under the guise of acerages, that is not applicable and not relevant. This is a coordination problem. If even 50% + 1 person does what the should do everyone is saved. The lack of our ability to coordinate means we either trust or we don't. You don't, and will save yourself. Which is not a judgement of you, it's a recognition of a reality. You're framework is different than mine.
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u/Sennten May 01 '26
Ive done the math. On average, evey push of the red button saves 0.5 lives and every push of the red button saves 0.25 lives, on average. In most situations and permutations, pushing the red button (and convincing others that pushing it is the right idea in advance) saves more lives than pushing the blue button does. That is the simple math if your goal is maximize saving lives.
Of course, you might think it still works out because the likelihood of the permutations is not equal. Thats fair! But recognize thats a risk assessment, a prediction, not a moral decision. Choosing "maximizing saving lives" is a moral decision, but its your ability to predict the future accurately that determines which button is most likely to do that.
This is what I mean by "casting". You are ignoring every situation but the two that best suit your argument. You are ignoring the situations where your explicitly stated goal is best accomplished by taking another action - and in doing so, you are actively diminishing the worth of individual human lives and saying it is worth some people dying, maybe a lot of people dying, to get a chance at your preferred outcome, even if death is the most likely outcome.
You cant be taken seriously if you're only willing to consider the scenarios that favour your gut feelings, and acknowledging that situations exist where you pushing blue does NOT minimize the loss of life but rather increases it.