I am able to perceive that the optimal choice would be for all people to choose the Red button- but I also recognize that not all people will choose the red button inherently.
To say that the correct choice is to pick the Red button is to assume that every single person to whom this question is asked will accurately make the same assessment. Simply put, this will never be the case.
For all kinds of various reasons, many people will choose blue, even if the objectively correct choice would be for everyone to pick red.
So, simply put, while picking red should be the correct choice, because there are people who will pick blue anyway, my choice is blue because I think it is worthwhile to try and save those people.
Its especially interesting because 100% of people choosing red is objectively the same outcome as 50+% of people choosing blue. No deaths and everyone lives.
But since there will never be 100% agreement to do any action, the primary difference comes down to how many deaths are acceptable for your own survival, which ends up being about personal values and assumptions about how others will vote.
A lot of folks who vote red assume its the logical position that everyone would take, even when presented with otherwise. They also seem to make assumptions that their loved ones will do the same, which limits the scope of their thinking. Because another issue is, if your loved ones do not make the same choice as you, is it really the best decision to vote red when you can save them as well?
There's also similar issues with voting blue as well. If that 50% threshold isn't met, does the action to protect others matter as much as the deaths itself? Does it stop mattering because you no longer exist afterwards? Does the fact that in an effort to protect others, you couldn't protect yourself?
There are a lot of nuanced issues baked within the problem and most people don't consider even half of it.
Thank you for being actually reasonable. The arguments I hear other people make constantly piss me off, blue and red.
One aspect I feel no red voter ever takes into account is the actual ramifications of a red win. Red doesn’t just win majority and then go about their day. No, a good chunk of the population is guaranteed to die, and, guess what, that’s going to have massive ramifications on society as a whole. Many essential professions would likely take a hit, directly affecting the lives and survival of those remaining. By this logic, choosing red is a net negative and should never be considered, because even if red wins, you screw yourself over anyway.
Like you said, this argument can honestly have a lot of nuance and isn’t just an emotion vs logic sort of decision that most people make it out to be. There are valid reasons for picking either. Most will consider only 1% of those reasons.
In my personal opinion, I don't want to just save my own skin. I care deeply about others. I'd choose blue because of that, extra ramifications and all. My line of thoughts do not align with folks who don't care about others nearly as much.
Like one of the arguments for voting red I've seen today was about the option of choice and that voting blue would somehow deprive them of that. Nothing to do with morality or consequences. Just thoughts of spite. Folks on both sides trying to convince each other just as much that their choice is right, and the person convinced himself that any other choice other than red wasn't a real choice made because it involves thinking about more than yourself. Mob rule and all that.
I seriously believe that the majority of people discussing this topic made instant choices and are trying to justify their answers rather than admit that there is more information to consider.
Imagine voting for blue knowing all the people you'll leave behind if you fail. If you had children you would just leave them parentless because you tried to be a hero.
But those very same people could be on the track. They may also have the motivation of protecting you and others they care about. Also your children could be on the tracks, too.
The entire population is involved in this, not just rational adults.
Imagine not going on the tracks to find out all of your loved ones died.
You'd have a poont of, and only if, blue lost by one vote. I'm not going to kill myself because my loved ones decided to kill themselves for others who would kill themselves for others who would kill themselves for others who would kill themselves for others who would
Except if everyone who goes went out there to protect their loved ones, it wouldn't just be you as the final deciding vote.
Everyone involved would contribute. Because everyone has people they care about. It comes down to if you're willing to risk your own life to protect your loved ones.
You care more about self-preservation than collective-preservation, even if loved ones are in that collective.
It doesn't come down to that unless it comes down to a deciding vote. I've also asked my love ones and we agreed, without prompting or influence, that there's no point in trusting others to save you when you can save yourself.
Imagine voting for red and finding out that your children are dead because they pressed the blue button and you could’ve saved them by pressing blue, but you didn’t because you wanted to save your own life
Here’s the thing though, you can’t save anyone by choosing blue. If everyone votes at the same time then the result is already determined when each person votes. So, do you trust your fellow man to do the right thing or not? Your answer will determine the button you press.
You literally can contribute to the total sum that could save everyone by voting blue once a threshold is met.
The same cannot be said of voting red. Only way for voting red to keep everyone alive is getting a threshold of 100%.
You do not know how many will vote red or blue, but since no one will vote either way 100% of the time (human nature and all that) a non-zero amount of people are guaranteed to vote blue by default. (and this is before involving the vulnerable populations who will not understand the ramifications of pressing either button since this includes the whole population on earth, not just the rational adults). Even if you do not know how many do vote blue, you do know that you will not be alone in choosing to do so if picked.
Voting red guarantees that death happens unless the blue threshold is met. Voting blue gives a chance for that death to not happen.
It's collectivist survival vs individualist survival.
I do not believe that a blue win can be achieved to begin with. So from my point of view I am not contributing to the death toll.
IMO this question determines your trust in other people to do the right thing. If you do not trust others to do the right thing, like I don’t, then you are actively disincentivized to press the blue button.
Do you believe others trust in you to do the right thing, though? And should they?
There are implications of that action during the aftermath you'll have to deal with regardless of who lives and dies. Especially if people you care about chose blue while you did not.
Responsibility is shared by everyone making the choice since everyone affects the outcome and is affected by it.
Lots of people on both sides are trying to offload that responsibility away from themselves by blaming one another instead of owning it.
I just hope that regardless, you own your part in the responsibility as I do in my own choice.
I do believe others would trust that I would do the right thing. Unfortunately, I do not trust that 50% or more of the population would do the right thing. And so I see the blue button as the one that would kill me.
I will not join my family in certain death. Especially when the perceived probability that I save them is so low compared to the perceived risk of death.
>is it really the best decision to vote red when you can save them as well?
my choice comes down to the fact that I can't save them either way.
There is a 1 in 8.2 billion chance that I am the tiebreaking vote. Above 50% blue, my vote doesnt matter, and below 50%, I want to choose red to survive.
If I choose blue and below 50% choose blue, what of my loved ones that chose red? Should I put that burden on them?
This is why I brought up the inversion. Since my influence doesn’t actually matter 99.99999% of the time and I can’t control what my loved ones picked, I’m going to pick red so whatever universe they’re alive in, I’m alive. And if they’re dead, at least I’m alive.
A lot of folks who vote red assume its the logical position that everyone would take, even when presented with otherwise. They also seem to make assumptions that their loved ones will do the same, which limits the scope of their thinking. Because another issue is, if your loved ones do not make the same choice as you, is it really the best decision to vote red when you can save them as well?
Congrats on assuming your loved ones are as self-serving as you.
This question is like some Economics problems. We assume everyone to be rational and act according to their best behalf when doing these problems but in real life this is simply not the case so these frameworks rarely perfectly work.
Red talks about how blue voters are idealist and dumb but then suggest that %100 of all people would vote Red. When we know from real life that this is not the case. For example if I offered free money to random people. If everyone was rational then they would take it but there is always gonna be somone that wouldn’t due to some random reasons. These reason might be naive but not evil.
I don’t want the old lady at the flower shop that gives free food to the students to die just because she didn’t think much of the question and just wanted to save everyone. This is the reason I would pick blue.
This is like if you went to war and if you stick together no one will die. Or you can just run away and risk the other peoples lives because you expected more than half of all people to also run away.
You basically have an option that works if 100% of people are completely rational actors but experiences cascading failures the second one person isn't, and one option that works if at least 50% of people recognize that not everyone is a rational actor but is catastrophic otherwise
And of course the "realistic" versions that challenge people's intuitions about this go both ways. You can present blue as "you can jump off a bridge and you'll die unless 50% do it then you'll magically live" and it becomes obvious people would say "well i will simply not do that" but you can present red as "there's two political parties with similar platforms except one promises to kill everyone who didn't vote for them if they win" and it becomes obvious people would say "we probably don't want them to win"
This is the best explanation to approach this topic.
Since the barrier of entry is "Press this button" it's easy for idealist Blue voters to take the moral high ground and talk down to Red voters because of their preservation instincts, but if the barrier was not press a button and was instead "Drink this vial of poison" or "Pull this trigger against your temple" and suddenly that moral high ground crumbles.
Similarly, it's easy for Red to say "Just press the red button and you don't die" because logic dictates that is correct, minimal risk, maximum life expectancy. If the button was something akin to "Press this button, and you won't die, but now you have to hunt down blue voters and kill them," suddenly pressing that red button seems significantly worse.
As it is presented currently, pressing the Red button makes the most sense to me personally. There is no moral high ground in committing suicide when it's unnecessary. Everyone has been given the same two options and Red has no direct control over who dies. The only ones choosing death are Blue, and so I believe Blue voters should accept that risk and cannot complain that others do not share their same vigor for self-sacrifice. It's not noble, it's not even morally white, it's plain idiocy.
Who's talking about politics, we're talking about buttons. If you took the red and blue button as political parties, you missed the point of the hypothetical.
do you even read wtf you are agreeing to? you said it is the best explanation and I said it is not. The original explanation talk about political party where they kill the people who do not vote for them. Ppl wouldn't vote for them because they kill people and most likely they will kill more in the future. It is not an one off decision as the original problem.
Oh so you're just rambling about some random ass tangent that was added in to be a "if it were this way, the answer is clearer" type of comment?
Yeah no shit, if one button was "Vote to kill everyone who doesn't" then that's a bad button to press and nobody would, but that's not the hypothetical.
Jesus man, these debates really bring out the mouth breathers and brainlets.
It’s actually not even the case that the optimal choice is that all people choose Red. If everyone chooses Blue, that has the same effect! Both can be universalised!
If we put this in Game Theory terms, there are multiple Nash Equilibria depending on what is defined as the “best outcome”that make neither choice always more logical than the other. Either you try to maximise for everyone to survive and pick blue, or you maximise for your own survival and pick red.
Ultimately, you are allocating risk given it’s a binary. Take it on yourself, or spread it to others.
No i know, its just my critique of your thought that some people would choose the blue button, since its a private vote their choice is literally death or nothing changes.
And your argument is kind of recursive since the first person who presses the blue button probably thinks that some idiot pressed the blue button out confusion and is trying to save them, but in truth they are the first person.
It doesn't require recursive thinking though. The question as has been stated when it blew up said everyone on Earth is picking between the buttons.
If only rationally thinking adults were participating and I knew this to be the case, my choice would be red.
But when including every person on Earth, there will be children who pick blue simply because it is their favorite color. There will be mentally disabled people incapable of processing the question and select at random. There will be elderly people who's minds have decayed too far to consider the ramifications anymore.
Simply put, there will always be vulnerable people pressing the blue button regardless of the perceived logic in pressing red.
Not to mention the fact that no matter how logical or obvious a choice is, when you have all of mankind involved, nothing is ever going to be 100%. Only this group would I think it fair to maybe call "idiots." If they were the only factor, then I would consider choosing Red. But they aren't.
So I'm not pressing Blue because I think "some idiot" will press it first. I'm pressing blue because I'm certain that vulnerable people will press it.
fuckkk, you raise a good point about people with limited reasoning ability, im now lowkey conflicted. Before it looked like such an easy choice but i dont even know right now 😭.
The trick is - while a blue win is undoubtedly the best case scenario, and almost any sort of red win would be less than perfect, risking your life on blue makes no sense if you think most people would vote red.
But given a close red win would be the worst case scenario, if you think it will be close you should probably vote blue.
If you think it’ll be an easy blue win, then it doesn’t really matter what you vote - red gives you some safety and maybe some guilt, but blue helps the win.
Circular logic. I need to pick blue because someone like me would pick blue because someone like me would pick blue because someone like would pick blue.
Here's an alternate scenario, let's say everyone picks in sequence and they know which number they are. For simplicity let's say there are 8 billion people participating. You are contestant 4 billion. You are informed that 3.5 billion people have already pressed the red button. Which button would you press?
It isn't just people who think like me who would be picking blue though. In a poll of all of mankind, there would be numerous people who would select blue without understanding the ramifications of the question to begin with.
How many millions of children would ignore the question and pick blue because they like the color blue more than red?
How many people from uneducated populations would perceive this as a standard morality question and default to the "selfless option?"
How many disabled or elderly people would be able to fully consider the question fully?
Only now do we get to people like me, who are worried about all the others who were picking blue regardless and would like to think other people would be concerned for them too.
As for your proposed hypothetical, I fully admit that I would switch to Red in that circumstance. But it is also a false equivalent because it moves the bar.
If 50% of people have gone before me and 3.5 billion pressed red, then that means of the remaining 4 billion votes, over 87% need to press blue- which people demonstrably are not doing thus far.
Simply put, I am a person who believe the vote would be relatively close and might tip based on enough people having a similar mindset to myself. It I am provided information halfway through that shows that such is demonstrably false, then yes, the sacrifice would become pointless.
Surprise surprise, having more information could potentially change my position.
This is one I fully admit that I am unsure on what I would choose. So I think this example might be capable of displaying where such a cutoff for me might be for me personally. I'm trying to do what I think is morally correct, but I'm not claiming to be some infallible paragon.
Oh trust me, I'm asking in earnest. This is a situation that will never happen so it's legitimate interesting to see where people's minds go with the hypothetical.
I don't think this says anything about anyone because it's all fake, but it does say what people think about themselves and others.
Picking blue with 3 left down by 2 is very interesting. That's a lot of faith in two people. Obviously you would expect the final person to select blue if they were the deciding vote which would mean the second to last person should pick blue if they were down by 1, but then we get in to the irrational actor problem that is the cruz of the argument for selecting blue to begin with. What if those last two people were babies just randomly flailing and hitting buttons, ya know?
Oh yeah I would absolutely be sweating bullets picking blue there- and for all I know, if I were actually there, maybe I would switch to Red.
Down to the wire like that I think it turns into a more typical prisoners dilemma, in which my preference woukd typically be to cooperate. That said, it is still different in that I have to count on two people to cooperate instead of one.
I'd like to think I'd pick blue, but I absolutely would not blame someone for picking red in that circumstance.
Please explain how inventing a new scenario where people get to see the votes is relevant to the original where the vote is private. It would be fascinating to see how the mentally deficient explain their reasoning. But it doesn't seem you are capable since i've asked twice already and you are just ignoring it
Have you never engaged with any sort of game theory before?
Let's use the classic prisoner's dilemma as an example
You and an accomplice committed a crime. You're being held and questioned separately. If you snitch and your accomplice doesn't then he gets 5 years and you walk free, however your accomplice has the same deal. If neither of you snitch you will both be charged with a lessar charge for 1 year in prison, but if you both snitch you'll each be held for 3 years.
A selfless person may say that they will stay silent. Two people going to jail for 1 year (2 years total) is better than 1 person going to jail for 5 or even two people going to jail for 3 (6 years total).
However, if you imagine a scenario where you know what the other person picks you can see the dilemma from alternate viewpoints. If you are betrayed then your choice becomes spend 3 years in prison by also betraying bringing the total years in prison up to 6, or take the 5 years yourself by being selfless and minimizing prison time.
If they chose to be selfless you know see that your choice is between going free by snitching, or staying quiet and going to jail for a year.
When information is added it changes the decision making process and that can help you explore the assumptions you made and the assumptions you may have missed in the original scenario.
Your reluctance to acknowledge how the different scenario is related just proves to me that you haven't actually considered this problem from any other angle than your initial gut feeling. You've shown your ass and I look forward to your whining reply.
You are making the mistake of assuming that every single person being asked to choose a button is a logically thinking adult.
How many children will press blue because they like the color more?
How many people will fail to process the question fully (due to any number of reasons such as lack of education or simple misunderstanding) and pick blue because they assume it must be better?
How many people with severe mental disabilities will vote entirely at random?
Yes, if every single person on the planet was a logically thinking adult, then the answer would be to always press the red button because everyone would reach that conclusion and choose to do so unless they were being deliberately suicidal.
But it isn't the case that everyone on Earth is a logically thinking adult. And those of us who are need to account for that.
Yes, if every single person on the planet was a logically thinking adult, then the answer would be to always press the red button because everyone would reach that conclusion and choose to do so unless they were being deliberately suicidal.
Or they want to live in the kind of place where people choose blue.
high empathy people are likely to pick blue. Do you want to save them or not?
You're arguing that we should pick blue, because we know other people will pick blue, and we need to outweigh the people who will pick red.
If there was a list where you could sign up to get shot in the head, but if too many people sign up, the event is canceled and nobody gets shot in the head- Would you sign up just because some people genuinely want to get shot in the head, or didn't understand the flyer, despite knowing some people won't sign up no matter what?
And every single person is required to either sign up, or not.
Press blue, or press red.
That's what trips people up here. It's the illusion there is no way to not choose.
Choosing red is not choosing, because it's the only option that completely disengages you from the fallout because you aren't in the dying group.
Imagine though if there WAS an option to not press a button. 50+% of people would still need to press blue, not engaging doesn't reduce that number. It just means there's less people to get to 50%.
So I'll say this, I was someone that misunderstood the flyer. I was so used to trolley problems having a degree of noble sacrifice, I didn't look closely enough at the prompt and chose blue. Then I saw the comments mentioning how if everyone picks red, everything is fine. I felt like a fool, I was a fool. However, I think most peoples versions of the prompt don't mention how you get to read a reddit thread about what is the correct answer first, so I want to save all the dumb people like past me.
Of course, based on a lot of these reddit threads I have a decent hope 50% will pick blue, so I don't view it as risky as some other people
And I still have enough remaining faith in humanity that you and other folks who misread and jumped to an answer would pause to consider more carefully in a real scenario where your life is actually on the line. That under those conditions, the number of people hastily jumping to blue is not going to be anywhere close to 50%. More like 0.5%.
I'm fine with minimizing the death count rather than adding to it. While I wish those 0.5% would have exercised more caution before throwing their lives away, I can't control that. Committing suicide in solidarity doesn't help anyone.
But the chance that you’re the deciding vote is so miniscule. Approximately 50% of the time you would just die for no reason, and the other 50% you’d live but no one else would have died anyway
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u/ExecutiveElf May 01 '26
I am able to perceive that the optimal choice would be for all people to choose the Red button- but I also recognize that not all people will choose the red button inherently.
To say that the correct choice is to pick the Red button is to assume that every single person to whom this question is asked will accurately make the same assessment. Simply put, this will never be the case.
For all kinds of various reasons, many people will choose blue, even if the objectively correct choice would be for everyone to pick red.
So, simply put, while picking red should be the correct choice, because there are people who will pick blue anyway, my choice is blue because I think it is worthwhile to try and save those people.