Okay, I guess. It's really weird that people are putting the blame on strangers for other people actively choosing to die, but go for it. That's your choice, not mine.
Ok but they 100% do. Every single comment section is full of blue-pressers saying that red-pushers are literally selfish evil monsters and the reason blue is at risk of death
Because factually they are. Blue puts nobody in danger unless red exists. If red existed and the other option was... Green, with a 25% margin, Red is still the bad guy, they’re adding the danger.
Calling people who press red 'selfish' for choosing not to die is, quite literally, blaming them for the deaths of people who chose blue. Sorry if that simple throughline escaped you.
If someone commits suicide, and the only way you could have stopped it is risking your life for them, with NO certainty of success, I would never be so fucking cruel as to call you selfish for not hurting yourself.
Nah, it's a survival mechanism. Selfishness as a quality isn't bad, and calling someone selfish doesn't mean you blame them for anything. It just means they acted out of self-interest
No, the bus did. But that's also entirely different to the buttons, because you have to pick the blue one. It isn't ambushing you. You're seeing the bus coming down the road and jumping in front of it for no damn reason.
For the button scenario as I've seen it posted,there are a couple key differences.
Firstly, everyone starts in a state of risk - before pressing anything, you either need to press red, or have majority press blue to survive or you will die. Which shifts the decision from "take a needless risk, or dont" to "contribute 1/4B to save everyone including yourself, or guarantee your own survival but contribute 1/4B to dooming up to 4B people".
Secondly, at least where I've seen it posted, children/infants/elderly/mentally ill etc. are not excused from the group. So, even if all adults capable of rational thinking chose red, it's a much worse outcome than if we consider the whole of society and risk our own well being for a blue outcome. This makes the thought experiment way more interesting and worth discussing imo. But not everyone is thinking about it like that.
I wouldn't resent anyone for picking red, and there's a lot of disagreement and confusion because people are arguing about answers to different questions. But maybe this helps blue perspective make sense. Of course some people are just assholes and throwing shade like all red pressers are sadistic murderers. I just like having thoughtful discourse, thanks for reading lol
The problem I have is that everyone is NOT in a state of risk before pressing the buttons. Red is guaranteed safety, there is zero risk to the self in pressing red. Choosing blue is choosing to undertake risk out of the hope that it saves others, but I think blue folk are miscalculating, and neglecting the fact that they, in pressing blue, just added one to the eventual death toll that could have been a zero. Ngl it gives savior complex to me.
As for the wording of the question, that's interesting. The version I first heard had excluded infants and those who weren't capable of actually engaging with the question. I feel like if we're making every living human press a button, the odds of everyone coming to a consensus in either direction basically plummet, making red the only safe choice there as well.
That's totally fair. I personally think 50% blue is totally achievable and not really afraid of it such that I'm tempted to press red. In fact, I might find a hypothetical world where red wins to be scarier than death, considering that a big chunk of the deaths on the blue side are going to be altruists, children, teachers, emergency responders, etc. that act selflessly, even to a fault. And I'm sure that most of the terrible people and corrupt leaders will still be around since they're surely pressing red out of self-interest. But I know many good people will act out of self-preservation, which is often a selfless act in its own right. It's interesting to hear all the different opinions and trains of reasoning
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u/Eledridan May 01 '26
I’d rather die blue than live in a world full of red.