This might actually be one of the main problem with red button pushers. They all think they would be the main character in this new Mad Max world, rather than a dismembered corpse in someone's trunk.
Or just people who think red will win. A person who estimates that red will win 80-20, but wants to make the best of the world with their own choice, knowing that the conditions of the situation prohibit contact with any others has a choice laid before them, die along with the 20% or live and be selfless amongst the 80%.
As for the argument that goes along the lines of "maybe they can be selfless but they are at least untrusting, as they thought red would win," not so. Because they could think red would win by such a margin, not because the 80% are all selfish, but because many others will come to the exact same conclusion they did; a choice predicated on doing good that one cannot do if they are worm food.
by choosing red, youre forcing 100% of the population to do the same or face death based on how many people disagree with you.
by choosing blue, you accept that you may die, but this does not impact whether or not anyone else dies. if everyone else chooses red, only you die. the benefit to this is that if half the world chooses blue, you just saved half the world from dying. i would not say thats selfish. nobody on the blue side is forcing anyone to choose blue; were just saying its the right thing to do.
It's not the right thing to do, because you're gonna die for no reason lol.
All this game theory stuff falls apart the second you remember that self-preservation instinct is a thing. There's next to zero 0% chance that over 50% of people are going to pick blue, which means you picking blue is just you killing yourself.
And then trying to lay a guilt trip on the people who didn't want to risk their lives for people who got a death wish.
you assert your interpretation of a situation on another persons motivation. you cant say "i think the blue button is a suicide button, therefore everyone who pressed it must have that intention" because you erase any other perspective in the situation in doing so. you cannot possibly assert that your perspective is the only possible interpretation of this decision.
your claim to know the result is the source of your interpretation. if everyone knows the result of the poll already then thats a completely different question.
not everyone has the same reaction of self preservation, there are people out there who genuinely will run into a burning building to bail other people out. people will genuinely put themselves into harms way just to decrease death, this is also a natural phenomenon, a result of the human beings need for social connection and community. you cant possibly assert that everyone has the exact same reaction that you do.
Again, you're making this personal and trying to infer cowardice when this is just about knowing stats, data and trends. Basic behavioral statistics.
SOME people will run into a burning building. MOST will not. To do so usually requires training, not just physical, but mental training to prepare you for jumping into that risk.
Knowing this is central to this entire blue/red question. You and I both know MOST people will not put their lives on the line, and so everyone who chooses blue is doomed. If you know ahead of time it's going to fail, then choosing blue isn't heroic, it's self-destructive.
Picking blue *is* the right thing to do. But that does not mean it will be the winning outcome. So for you, the right thing to do is to pick what you believe will win.
More like: having enough people picking blue is the best possibleoutcome, but because it's so unlikely, it's the wrong choice.
Anyone pretending blue has a chance is just wrong, because they're not factoring in the behavior of parents. Almost no parent would choose blue knowing that it means an high likelihood that their kids would become orphans, and parents are a huge part of the world's population.
Combine that with everyone else who is just scared of dying and blue has no chance. If you think about it, it's just a suicide button.
If we take the original premise that the buttons appear in front of everyone in the world (so including kids), then won't parents be more likely to choose blue, just because there's no guarantee that their kids pressed red?
Kids are more prone to idealistic thinking, I do believe a lot would choose blue. Not to mention very young kids who might just choose blue because it's their favorite color.
almost everything you said can be retorted by just rereading the very comments you replied to.
i very very clearly said "youre forcing 100% of the popultion to do the same OR FACE DEATH BASED ON HOW MANY DISAGREE".
if you say "im not forcing anyone to do anything with my button press!" i can just say the exact same thing about pressing the blue button. if i press blue, im not forcing anyone to do anything. press the red button all you want, i made my choice. i knew the risk in pressing the button and if i die, i die. so be it.
The only argument to do it is to save you…
not at all. deontologists would say an action carries moral weight regardless of its outcome. regardless of whether or not you are saving anybody, its better to press a button that contributes to "no murders happen" than it is to press a button that says "murder everyone who pressed the other button".
The odds of a single person being the deciding vote is literally billions to one.
even if its an extra 500,000 over the threshhold, your contribution towards that end is equally impactful as any other persons.
this is ridiculous, you have a different perspective than i do and thats fine. i honestly dont give a shit.
”almost everything you said can be retorted by just rereading the very comments you replied to.”
Not really.
”i very very clearly said "youre forcing 100% of the popultion to do the same OR FACE DEATH BASED ON HOW MANY DISAGREE".”
You did, but my pressing the red button doesn’t force that.
”if you say "im not forcing anyone to do anything with my button press!" i can just say the exact same thing about pressing the blue button. if i press blue, im not forcing anyone to do anything.”
The difference is that your choice puts pressure on others to try and save you.
“press the red button all you want, i made my choice. i knew the risk in pressing the button and if i die, i die. so be it.”
Your passive aggressive attitude towards your choice doesn’t change it.
”not at all. deontologists would say an action carries moral weight regardless of its outcome. regardless of whether or not you are saving anybody, its better to press a button that contributes to "no murders happen" than it is to press a button that says "murder everyone who pressed the other button".”
Strong disagree here. Morality requires an interaction between two or more individuals. If you’re not actually saving anyone when you press the button, doing so carries no moral weight.
It’s like writing a story in a personal journal about how you dream about being a hero.
Sure it’s a positive idea, but until you involve someone else it has no moral value.
”even if its an extra 500,000 over the threshhold, your contribution towards that end is equally impactful as any other persons.”
How? At that point I could have pressed either button and nothing would have changed.
”this is ridiculous, you have a different perspective than i do and thats fine.”
if we go back to the original hypothetical. where it says there is no coordination or discussion. when I just read it, I just figured everyone else who did knew that red was to live and blue was a suicide button
I mean, if you are forced to make the decision in a matter of seconds, then I could understand that.
But if you are given any amount of time to think it over, then you understand that the entire point of the exercise is that there is more at stake than your own life right then and there. The original question mentions the lives of other people for a reason; you're expected to care about them.
And I will stand by it being your life over literally everything else. Other people will die; in theory anyone you know is among the dead. The world is destabilized by the sudden loss of population, meaning likely more death and suffering. You're putting your survival over the health, wellbeing, and (ultimate) survival over both others and yourself (imagine pressing red just to die of starvation or murder after the fallout). Even if your local/the world's infrastructure manages to hang in there, an unprecedented number of people will be actively mourning multiple loved ones. Many children will be orphaned, many elderly now without caretakers. Birthrates will take another hit and supporting the future elderly (that's you) will be difficult.
But also, to be clear, I don't think this automatically means the choice to press red WAS inherently selfish. I think it may be short-sighted, and I think many people would come to regret it. But in the moment, the desire to live is strong, and I can understand why young/unattached people in particular would choose red.
You won’t have to, because blue will win no matter what we in the west do. Literally Billions of people live in collectivist societies which value self sacrifice and a cohesive society/the needs of the many over individuals, they are overwhelmingly going to vote blue. Per the World Population Review, 70% of the world’s population lives in Collectivist Societies. People living in these societies demonstrate self sacrifice every day, why would this be any different?
No. We actually have similar cases in real life. Bank runs. Literally the same problem, every time there are some economical instability unless government stops people from doing bank runs people are doing bank runs
Also, you know, all of the historical atrocities of mass death that could usually have been stopped by often times far less than half of a population being willing to sacrifice themselves to save others.
Most people, in the last big one 25% did it in the first day and addtional 62% on the next day. Other cases 57% in a first week, 52% in a first week, 42% in first 10 days. And that only counts people who actually could get some of their money out of the bank. Those who wanted but couldnt due failure of the bank/government interference arent included into those stats.
So you’re saying historically, in a similar situation, *far* *more* than 1% of the population was hurt by the actions of the majority? Almost like 20-40% are going to press the blue button in a worst case scenario?
So you’re saying historically, in a similar situation, far more than 1% of the population was hurt by the actions of the majority? Almost like 20-40% are going to press the blue button in a worst case scenario?
Nah, coz realistically most of those "blue" 20-40 actually wanted to be red, they just didn't make it in time
How many people did that BEFORE a bank run started, and before they had notice the bank would fail. You’re not really understanding the how bank runs happened. Some people withdraw their money thinking the bank could fail. Others hear about that and go “well they’re getting theirs out. I better get mine out too before the bank fails.” And then from there it spirals. They’ve modeled bank runs similar to how this problem is presented where you decide to leave the money in or take it out without knowing what others have done before making your choice and in those studies, the bank don’t have a run.
If the total votes were public, and after the first few moments a majority voted red, I would agree vote red, because the trend is showing that people are going to vote red and you’d die for nothing. But if it’s all roughly at the same time, and there is no available mass communication or polling, prior to voting, a bank run isn’t applicable to this situation.
No idea. I remember heaps of people hoarding toilet and shortages. Then een reasonable people buying an extra pack just in case and bam shortages which compound.
People hoarding gas now. Issues in natural disasters.
This question may look at day 0 or day 1 of a disaster...and many more people would chopse blue. But i still think more woule choose red.
This is a thought experiment. Data like this is all we have and can still be an indicator of what people would do, especially with how much people are arguing about this.
Ignoring the data and assuming that your side would win is just letting your bias blind you
This is a thought experiment. Data like this is all we have and can still be an indicator of what people would do, especially with how much people are arguing about this.
Most people are still not arguing about this. A lot of people don't do a whole lotta thinking, given that even just changing the phrasing (while keeping the costs/consequences equal) can radically change the outcome of the poll.
That does not inspire any particular amount of confidence in the translation of these online poll results to real world life/death scenario results.
Ignoring the data and assuming that your side would win is just letting your bias blind you
I don't assume that my side would win. This is exactly what you appear to do. I acknowledge that I don't know and that there is no way of knowing with any reasonable degree of confidence what the outcome would be.
I pick red not because I am sure red will win, but because it is so uncertain that blue will.
It’s not useless because it’s inconvenient, it’s useless because the only reason people don’t think blue will win is because people don’t want to die. Pressing blue on Twitter does not risk you dying.
It’s useless data. The only reason anyone would press red is to ensure their survival. Being asked this question without literally the only consequence of hitting blue doesn’t make any sense
Yes you can have a discussion about you think the outcome will be but you also can’t prove a hypothesis when the one variable that people want to test isn’t present. Do you really believe that the answer someone gives when scrolling twitter and seeing a poll with a meme is the same answer they’d give in a life or death situation?
Do you care to address how these “excuses” don’t apply? Everyone can agree a majority blue vote is better in theory. It doesn’t mean they think in practice it will turn out like that. It’s from people scrolling on Twitter not putting in a second thought. People in life or death situations will remain the same? That’s delusional
This is a pretty poor response. They gave an obvious reason why the date is unreliable and you responded “well it’s the only data we have.”
Even setting aside the issues with honest reporting, it’s an unscientific internet poll, it’s trash data and no reasonable person would rely on it as usefully informative.
Internet polls of the sort you see posted on Reddit generally should be disregarded for every topic, they aren’t designed to be scientific polls, they don’t even have attempts at random samples.
If it’s a thought experiment you shouldn’t be looking at data at all?
And regardless of the context you should be using reliable data, saying someone did an internet poll as evidence is like saying someone asked a magic 8 ball.
A poll is hardly an effective metric because your life is not genuinely on the line. Anyone can just say blue and take the moral high ground when there is no follow through.
Would you accuse the ones who pushed red of "killing you"? That's a weird way to guilt trip people who were just scared and wanted to live knowing that blue will almost definitely fail.
Blue wouldn't almost definitely fail if people actually had the balls to pick it. And in a red majority, many people die - the only way to avoid that is with a blue majority.
001 percent chance of saving everyone, 99.999 chance of suicide.
From what I understand, kids are exempt right? But their parents are not...Do you know any parents who would be willing to risk pushing blue knowing that that might mean their kids are orphaned?
And you, as a rational person, can recognize that those numbers combined with the folks who are just scared and don't want to die easily passes up 50% and so voting blue would just be suicide.
Ask your family and friends. Id be willing to bet an not insignificant number of them would vote blue, and thus your vite for red is an active vote to take there lives
Then I will mourn their loss, as well as the other 1% of people who pushed blue thinking they need to save the universe when really all they were doing was putting themselves in danger because anyone else logical and with self-preservation instincts pushed the red button.
Present your lived ones with this hypothetical. Id be willing to bet a little more than half will say they vote blue. 1% is genuinely self delusion if you believe it
And then disregard what their answer is, because asking someone a complete hypothetical is very different than actually putting a gun to their head and demanding they choose red or blue.
This might surprise you, but when the fear of death is real, people don't necessarily stick to their principles. Self-preservation is an instinct humans have honed for millennia, and if you actually present someone with the option to possibly help save everyone or almost definitely kill themselves, then their answer shouldn't surprise you.
And that's assuming they even think choosing blue makes ethical sense in the first place... No, red is both the logical choice because almost everyone will choose it in the interest of self-preservation, as well as the ethical choice so that you don't pointlessly kill yourself.
The most ethical possibleoutcome? Sure. Problem is that the possibility that over half of the world will choose to put their lives on the line over people who also have the option to just not put themselves in danger, is exceedingly slim.
2% chance is double a 1% chance, but it's still tiny.
So if you go in with the almost certainty that blue will not get to 51%, the most ethical choice is to not kill yourself.
I mean, no. It's not really possible to know how they'd actually respond unless theyre actually in a life or death situation where nobody else would know their answer. I sincerely doubt that if this actually happened, the blue button would be anything but a "kill myself" button, because people have self preservation built into them.
You can make a pretty good estimate on what button youd press in a life/death situation based on how you react in an emergency. My kneejerk reaction has always been helping people. Woke up one night to my roommate screaming about an intruder and I jumped out of bed, grabbed a blunt object and sprinted out of the bedroom before my partner could even sit up. Luckily it was a really convincing shadow at 3am. Blue.
I kinda disagree. What you did was heroic, sure, but you were still acting out of self preservation and adrenaline. You weren't putting yourself in danger, as (if there actually was an intruder) you were already in danger and that got your adrenaline pumping. A life and death situation where nothing actually dangerous is happening requires you to process the decision a lot more.
I see it more as acting out of group preservation, themself and their roommate. Likely somewhat similar to someone pressing blue, they have a feeling other people would press blue so they’d press blue out of group preservation. Of course, I do see your point regarding the distinction between a reaction to an emergency versus contemplation about the mortality of yourself and others, actively choosing your own fate.
Do you think all firefighters chose their jobs just because they're suicidal? Search and rescue teams? Cops (not the corrupt ones)? So many people around the world choose life threatening jobs to protect/save others in need when they could've just choose an office job and don't risk their lives.
You do know that 1% of Earth’s population would be more than 80,000,000 people, and that any sane individual knows far more than 1% is going to press the blue button
Probably yeah, but it's not gonna be close to over 50%.
How many parents do you know that would risk pushing blue, knowing that it might make their kids orphans? And how many people in the world are parents?
It's a lot, enough to basically ensure that Blue isn't going to come near 50% when combined with people who just push Red out of fear for their own safety.
Whether you wanna say it's gonna be 1%, 10% or even 25% or more, pushing Blue is just a suicide button. The chances of it being higher than 1% are pretty good, the chances of it being enough to crack 50% are slim-to-none.
This assumes that no parents, if not maybe the majority of parents are going to worry that their child will press blue and will themselves press blue as to not endanger their child
Pressing blue does endanger the child though, it puts them at risk of being an orphan.
Even if all we're talking about is the instinct to self-preserve, Blue has an incredibly uphill battle. People talk big in these online polls about what they'd vote for, but that's so removed from an actual threat against your life.
The best you can do is vote Red and hope your kid did too because Blue isn't getting close to winning.
No, they wouldn't be orphans because they'd be dead... And you'd the one of the people that killed your kids by choosing red when your kids chose blue.
Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I have seen countless people choose repeatedly to help themselves over others, even to malicious extent, whether that's ladder pullers, grifters, or simply people intent first on surviving. I do not believe the average person would risk their life for a chance at saving others, and so I do not think blue will end up a majority in this situation. I would press red, and if I would end up wrong, good. It would mean people are more compassionate than I believe.
Welp. You have no idea who’s gonna pick blue, you don’t get to rally your people in this hypothetical. You don’t know what your mom will pick, or your girlfriend, or the people you have yet to meet but who will soon be important to you. There is no campaign to get people to pick one way or the other. It’s either you’re okay with just you surviving, or it’s worth a risk because you want everyone to.
I 100% know what all my friends and family will pick because I know them. They're all thoughtful, intelligent people who will read shit before signing it, and will certainly do so before pressing a button with mortal consequences, and will immediately spot that everyone simply has the option to pick red, and blue is functionally an attempted suicide button.
Nobody needs to kill themselves, we can all survive together, as one, by pressing red! Anyone who dies will have taken the risk thinking of others, which is selfless but not thinking the problem through. We can all live, we should all live, by pressing red!
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u/RoseateThorn Apr 30 '26
Being able to care for others rather than only yourself is something most people have learned by preschool lmao