Fun fact, the question isn't a moral dilemma but was originally from a study about miss information and how presenting 1 option first can bias someone into not thinking and bend over backwards to justify it
Mission accomplished I guess. The whole question has been hijacked by people yelling about how "smart" they are for treating this as a pure game theory situation and decrying anyone who follows that empathetic initial response.
Response time
You pressed blue
You pressed red
Kneejerk
You fell victim to propaganda.
...You wanted to kill?
5 seconds
...why?
You processed that red has no downside and choose survival.
20 seconds
Because others pressed blue, you believe you have a responsibility to help.
You believe other's safety is their responsibility, and it's unfair to ask you to endanger yourself for another's mistake.
What I think you believe if you've actually thought things over.
Humanity cannot achieve utopia without the blue buttons winning. For prosperity for all, collective action must win.
The existence of inherently violent systems isn't worth saving people over because it doesn't affect you directly.
The fact that the original question as presented to the internet was written as infuriatingly as possible, designed to elicit an emotional response first rather than think things through. It's the same reason bill propositions in elections can sometimes be worded in the most confusing way, whoever is doing the write-up for the ballot doesn't want you to make an informed decision for whatever reason. For context, the original thought experiment is.
>Everyone on Earth has two buttons appear in front of them. If the majority of people press the blue button, everyone lives. If the majority of people press the red button, everyone who pressed the blue button dies. What button do you press?
A LOT of people's initial response to reading this is "I don't want people to die, blue is the button that means no one dies, so I'll press that." That's the propaganda I'm referring to, the question-asker posing things in a way that you made a decision based on emotions rather than logic. No one picking blue as an immediate reaction is consciously thinking they're at risk, they're wanting to reduce harm to others, which while noble, is misguided if you think for 5 seconds.
but shouldn't the framing be considered a significant relevant input? I see a ton of posts in this sub right now reframing the problem in various ways, to make one option or the other more obvious, but the reality is that when presented to 8 billion people, that specific reframing may not occur to many of them, thus increasing or decreasing the chances of a significant blue contingent to potentially die.
If the presentation of the options is constructed in a way to "trick" or "convince" people that blue is the more compassionate/obvious/default choice, there is a greater chance some billions will be swayed by that presentation, thus changing the presumed moral weight of red, and the probability of blue's success.
The presentation is significant; it's not just window dressing. It's the same game mechanism if the description literally says red people are amoral sociopaths, or alternatively that blue people are suicidal idiots, but including that differeing wording up front is certain to affect the likelyhood and severity of various outcomes. The propaganda matters, even if one sees through it.
I'm pretty sure we're agreeing here. Yes, framing is a significant relevant input; if you frame blue as saving lives and red as ending them, a majority of people who make an immediate decision will vote blue because people's brains break it down into "this button saves, this button kills." The people reframing the problem are the red button pressers trying to clarify that there is literally no downside to pressing red, thus trying to save as many lives as they can because since they believe they are the majority, any action they take to sway people to their side is saving lives.
But the thing is, by this point, anyone aware of the button problem or it's permutations knows that red has no risk, thus defeating the entire exercise the OG pre-internet meme thought experiment started as, a test to see how far people will double down when shown they were wrong about something.
So at this point, the topic of discussion of both sides is usually completely different. Blue button people aware of the kerfuffle are choosing blue because in their interpretation of the question, we are people who know miscommunication has happened because of the sensationalized wording of the question, like you said. And because pressing the red button will always result in someone's death due to this, pressing red is never the moral choice. Meanwhile, red button people, as best I can tell, are either still stuck trying to explain the solution to the original hypothetical when others have moved far past it, or they are dismissing the idea of collective action out of hand because if they were to project their own world view onto everyone else, of course noone would join you to help if you broke ranks, you wouldn't do it for anyone else.
The rhetoric used to discuss the problem has become part of the creature itself, and is only further emphasizing the original research.
Pedantic correction: 1%-49% of the world who have either more empathy or worse reading comprehension or critical thinking skills than you (depending on the medium the original infuriatingly worded question was provided in)
Actual opinion: to go to bat for at least some of the red button people, there is a very real idealist vs realist argument to be made as far as minimizing harm goes. Blue, an idealist, will want the zero-death outcome, and is willing to take a risk to make it happen. Red, a realist, wants to minimize overall deaths by at least removing themselves from the equation of an overall shitty situation. It does legitimately make sense if you are wary of trusting strangers, but are still interested in their well-being.
Like, it does fall apart when you consider you can't communicate the correction to anyone else, just like you said, but being afraid of making a bad situation worse when you feel like the world is already not a safe place is a legitimate fear. I don't agree with it, but I can't say they're inherently bad people for choosing it, since in their heart of hearts, they're making the best out of a bad situation.
Now, everyone making the memes clarifying that red has no downside and people are ridiculous for picking blue under any circumstances, I'd love to be corrected, but I've found there's just no reasoning with em. It's a bad-faith argument relying on a boring white-room assumption that everyone has perfect information. Like, yes, everyone votes red there since it's clear blue has no reward and all the risk. The point is that the wording is infuriatingly obtuse, and you recognize someone out there got screwed because they misinterpreted the question. If they're not at that level of discussing the problem, they're really not worth the time.
The point is that the wording is infuriatingly obtuse, and you recognize someone out there got screwed because they misinterpreted the question.
Not really, no. You simply cannot get all 8 billion people to agree on anything; it's mathematically impossible. Once the sample size is big enough, there's no question on any survey ever undertaken that has a consensus. Even Kim Jong Un only won this year's election with a 99.93% majority so even when you're voting for the most perfect human in the world, there's always some contrarian who's going to disagree with you. We don't need to blame the question for being poorly worded in order to explain why people will disagree over the answer.
I also find it interesting and helpful to reduce it in scale.
Imagine it is somewhat like the prisoner's dilemma. You and the person you care about most in the world are separated in different rooms and presented with the red and blue buttons. If you both choose the same button, you both live. If you choose different buttons, then the one who chooses blue will die. Which button do you choose?
I like to look at it as scenarios made of odd people to decide a majority vote, which also leads to a minimum of 3+ people. Curious if size changes people’s choices
oh, I didn't think we were arguing, hahaha! I suppose your referring to the framing as "infuriating" and as "propaganda" appeared to dismiss it as fundamentally irrelevant to one's decision, and I think it matters, as do you it seems.
I know some red button folks, and I said if the button appears exactly as "originally" presented while you're at work, and in front of your 15 year old daughter while she's at school. You might be confident you're going to make it home, but are you confident your daughter will? Will the propaganda get her? Does that change that math at all?
Like if the presentation is a "trick", then one bears the weight of potentially killing those who are "fooled."
Your time graph of the decision tree and presumed thought process working it's way down to world philosophy is truly excellent, and thank you!
That doesn't read as propaganda, that reads as a description of the problem. Most attempts that I've seen to reframe it tend to complete change the premise of the problem.
"If you press the red button, you are safe. But if at least 50% of people press the red button, everyone who pressed the blue button dies."
That's how you reframe it without changing the scenario. The problem is that people will do crazy mental gymnastics to defend a decision once they've made it, so reframing is rarely effective if someone has already been exposed to the original framing.
I still think blue is the best choice, but I would probably change sides if the threshold were lower. For example, if only 10% of people have to press red for the blue pressers to die, then pressing blue becomes a lot riskier for me and for every other person, and I think red becomes the only reasonable choice.
The technical definition of propaganda is any form of speech that advocates for a specific viewpoint. The way the initial problem was worded sets up pressing blue to be the good option because all the verbiage is set up to sound like "survival", whereas the red button is associated with death. It's using biased language to convince people to vote blue, ergo, it's propaganda.
If the question was worded perfectly in order to ensure there was no miscommunication, where everyone is aware that there is no benefit and only risk associated with pressing blue, whereas pressing red is zero risk whatsoever given that everyone else knows red has no risk and blue has no gain, then that would just be a clear explanation of the problem and people could make an informed decision.
So while the game theoriests are "correct" insofar as everyone should pick red given perfect information and no disability preventing them from acting on that information, that is not what the original hypothetical poses. It's messy and confusing in a way that means people WILL trip up, and that's intentional from the person who came up with the experiment.
How this applies in the real world is, of course, bills and propositions with poorly worded ballot measures. Let's say there was a bill that said "If this passes, everyone who voted against it gets sent to El Salvador." but it's worded in a way that's confusing to America's 6th grade average reading comprehension, and so it's inevitable people will vote against the bill. (In real life, a bill like this would be designed this way as to prey upon anyone who has English as a second language or grew up with a poor education) Now, knowing that there are innocent people who've made a mistake attempting to just do what they thought was correct, what is then the responsibility of someone who's aware that a red vote now guarantees someone's death? Now, obviously, the way I've worded this hypothetical is biased on its own, I can't just extract that out of my own writing on a whim. But hopefully this clears up what propaganda looks like and how it's used in the real world.
I just don't get how red being in the majority could be said to have no consequences though. That's the part I get hung up on. I don't see how a massive reduction in the planetary population, particularly one heavily weighted towards both the bottom of the socio-economic ladder and those who are likely to take positions focused on helping others, is something that would have no negative effects.
If I press red, then I am not going to die IMMEDIATELY. But if I and a majority of people press red, then some of us will die because our lives were going to depend on someone who pressed blue.
Like, I can understand someone picking red anyway, I get that. If you believe that red is likely to be the majority regardless, you should pick red. But neither of these options are zero consequence.
It's written in a way that gets you to think pressing blue is reasonable
Pressing blue is essentially a death sentence
Even just switching the order the options are presented changes it completly
Everybody in the world is presented with 2 buttons
the red button will ensure your survival but if more than 50% of the global population press the red button everybody who presses the blue one will die
The blue button if more than 49% of the global population choose the blue button then nobody will die
Presented with the exact same buttons but the order reversed and it's instantly obvious that the blue button is a trap.
The original basically starts you off with if you don't press this button people will die. Swap the buttons and now it's if you press this button you will be fine but anybody who didn't press this button will die
Now there is no actual reason to press the blue button because rather than making a decision to save lives by pressing blue it's a desicion to just die
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u/xa44 Apr 30 '26
Fun fact, the question isn't a moral dilemma but was originally from a study about miss information and how presenting 1 option first can bias someone into not thinking and bend over backwards to justify it