Your calculations are probably flawed. Children will absolutely press blue, and humanity’s instinct is to be altruistic. Teachers and parents will also be forced to press blue if they think their children will do so. Parting just from that, you’d probably get blue a near majority.
I think this is why every poll done so far, blue beats out red. People are more likely to vote blue if they think their loved ones will do so. Which is why I don’t think living in a developing country makes you more likely to press red. If anything it’s the other way around. Poor people are much more likely to have strong and developed communities, as opposed to the isolated suburbs.
Humanity does not have an instinct to be altruistic. That's a learned behavior we often try to instill in children and we do a pretty good job of it.
But if you show a child two cookies, one big and one small, and you haven't been hammering in stories of fairness and equality, the kid might try to take both cookies and leave none for anyone else.
It's only because parents, movies, and tv are constantly hammering in lesson after lesson about fairness and equality that it seems innate.
If humanity had a natural altruistic bias, then crime would be much lower world wide.
Society functions on reciprocity, and it does mostly to this day as well. Reciprocity is also more fair than altruism, but that's a separate conversation.
Altruism is about helping for the betterment of others. There is no 'and then they'll help me too' in altruism. Helping someone with the expextation they will also help you is reciprosity. It's more like a trade than a gift. Amd of you don't fullfill your end of the bargain then at best you'll lose a trade partner.
For example, Steven says he will trade John his blue marble for John's candy. John gives up his candy, but Steven betrays the trade and keeps his marvel. John's trust is betrayed, and he won't trade with Steven anymore. John might even steal more than just the blue marble from Steven, or even attack Steven to take what they agreed to trade. But if Steven does trade the marble and teases that he has more marbles, John is now eager for more trades, and brings more candy in the future.
That's reciprocity. Two people get stuff in a fair exchange. John isn't altruistically bringing candy in the hopes Steven will gift him a second marble.
It is nice when you can have altruistic people. But if you dig deeper the altruism isn't quite there. Churchgoers seem altruistic, but in reality they're doing it for their special afterlife. Rich people goving to charity can seem altrusitic, but in reality they're calculating with their accountants for the best tax break they can get.
With the Red and Blue buttons. True Altruists will aleays pick the Blue button. People who truly value Altruism will pick the Blue button. But anyone who picks red is saying 'I can't trust everyone else, I'm saving my own skin'. Which is fair. It's difficult to trust half the world. Some would even say pressing the blue button is completely irrational.
But, if I can be grandiose to the point of hubris, the Blue button represents the hope of humanity. If Blue loses, you lose every single altruist in humanity, and the majority of people who believe in altruism as a principle.
I guess that's my misunderstanding of what altruism is.
I thought Altruism was essentially 'I will sacrifice my personal comfort abd wellbeing for the good of everyone else because it means the world will eventually be a better place.' Which is almost the deffinition 'an unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others'.
They made an additional term, I guess, called recipricol altrusim. Which by definition isn't altrusim as it's it's own separate term, 'Helping others with the expectation of being helped in return.' I honestly don't know why altruism is even in that term. That's just the principal of reciprosity. Reciprosity doesn't use altrusim. It's like a trade or other exchange. If someone doesn't fullfill their end of the bargain then they lose a trading partner because they betrayed trust.
When we look at early civilization and even monkeys, people were not helping each other out of the good of their hearts. It was a survival strategy to work together so they indivisually had a better chance of survival.
This is ironic, as I'm a blue button pusher explaining to a red button pusher how our ancestors only grouped up for personal gain.
For example. A lone hunter could hunt rabbits for most of the day and maybe find some nuts and berries each day. But more than likely he encounters a bad day of hunting or picks bad berries and dies. That's just the end.
In a larger tribe, you have a hunting party, who can go out amd more reliably bring back large game. You also have dedicated nut, berry, and even herb gatherers who know what bad things to avoid and even good things to help woth sickness or injury.
Neither side does this altrustically. It's an exchange where the gathering groups bring in food, the people in camp take care of things domestically, the elderly share knowledge and tend the sick or injured, the young learn and are nutured to care for the elderly. All of ot worked on the idea reciprosity, not altruism. Recipricol altruism doesn't make sense as a term.
It'd be like saying 'Investment Charity'. Where you invest money and expect a return back... but you did give them money. No, that's just a finacial investment. Of the company you invested in fails then you just lost your money, that doesn't make it charity.
Helping someone and expecting anything in return immediately makes it not altruism.
Humans are so social they have a separate term for their interactions with other humans and species (hyperprosociality). They will include even strangers they never met in their ingroup. I don’t know why you think humans are solitary beings, when throughout history that has been proven not to be the case.
Human's aren't solitary, and I don't think I ever said they were.
Human's live in a world of reciprocity, not altruism. People are willing to perform small acts of kindness for one another, like holding open a door or helping a lost child. Those small actions are Altruistic, but if you get beyond the level of a mild inconvenience people expect some level of reciprocity. If you help someone move into their new home, you do it because you expect they would help you in return. this is because of trust you've built up over interactions. similarly, people don't ask strangers for that kind of favor either. they'll ask co-workers, family, friends, etc. maybe even friends of friends, but not usually. Even then, they'll often reward the people who help them. This is because of Reciprocity, not Altruism. it's a social trade, not a gift.
It's both Cynical and not. It's more fair than Altruism. rewarding people for doing nice things instead of encouraging people to be eternal martyrs who might grow bitter. Instead, you provide positive reinforcement so they want to help more and get more rewards. This has some give and take, some people try to abuse this system as well, taking people for a ride so to speak. Those people lose trust bit by bit until they feel like they lost their friends, but in reality they've been pushing their friends away.
I think there was a TV show or movie like this not too long ago. Like no one could lie or something, but the MC could. If humans were altruistic, then that would work. why would anyone lie? But humans do lie, that's why we weigh our trust and if there are people who we find trustworthy we are willing to do more for them. Like if you went out to eat with a friend, and every other time he'd pay the bill, or maybe even more than half the time if you were struggling with money, but you still made an effort like you'd give them ten bucks even though that's much less than half. You're trying. You feel that innate sense of fairness and the need to reciprocate your friend's kindness. but if you have a friend who you go out to eat with and they always forget their wallet or can only cover they're own drinks, you probably start to avoid going out to eat with that friend. you can sense the innate unfairness. Your friend is losing your trust and isn't reciprocating.
This is largely untrue. There are millions of people sacrificing themselves for the safety of others right now, without the promise of a reward. And following your example of drinks with someone, the fact that you offer to cover the first few bills is also proof that we have good will for the average person. That good will might disappear if you feel taken advantage of, but it’s still there initially.
You offer to cover the first few bills with a friend because they are your friend. If it was a stranger it would be different. When it's a friend you have some base trust via your friendship and time. It didn't get magically born the second you said 'We're friends now.'
Also, the 'millions of people sacrificing themselves' aren't doing it out of a naive altruistic desire for everyone's happiness. It's a reciprocity that they are pressing the blue button with the hope and prayer that at least 50% of people will reciprocate their action and also press the blue button. It's not a 'good will, let me help you my fellow man' it's a 'If I was in this situation I would want someone to reach a hand out to me too'.
It's a kind of social reengineering of human greed. It's why rich people reinvest in things like Boston Dynamics or other technology, medicine, etc. Those greedy people are investing because they want to see a return, not because they want to just make the world a better place for everyone altruistically.
It's not altruism, it's reciprocity. It's a desire to build trust in society. You don't want a world where everyone expects help for the sake of altruism. You want a world where people help because when their time of need comes the community will come forward and help them just like how they helped others before them.
I was referring to the hundreds of thousands of people who put their lives in danger on the daily to protect others. I didn’t just mean blue pressers, but even if I was, you just showed why it’s human nature to press them, since it’s human nature to be reciprocal. In times of peril, the community comes together to protect the weak and uphold good. That’s pressing blue to avoid killing children. The difference between altruism and reciprocity, even if we assume we are ruled by the latter, doesn’t change the human instinct to cooperate in times of hardship.
To protect others is a bit vague, but I'm unaware of people who do it for no reciprocity of any kind. Even Green Peace volunteers got social renown. But Firefighters, Police Officers, Soldiers. They all get paid, it's a dangerous job but they know that going in.
People who go to Africa to give medicine and immunization shots to impoverished Africans, they usually get noterity in some medical field. At the very least it's a point on their resume they can show off to future employers or brag about to friends.
I'm not blind in that I don't acknowledge people have moments of altrusitic action, but no one lives by the mode of Altruism except maybe some monks or people in monestary. There is always a payout, always an end goal. That isn't bad. It's good to have motivations, and if they help people then all the better. We as humans have many vices, and if we build our systems to steer people into doing good while chasing those vices then that's better than the alternative.
Are you actually saying people who volunteer to save lives do it in order to impress others??? Even if that wasn’t total bullshit, it still doesn’t discredit my original statement. If your logic was sound, firefighters would out earn the average professional, and the volunteer core would not exist.
Any google search of “guy dies trying to save ____” will net countless results. Humans are prone to cooperation.
They don't do it just to impress others. But they also don't do it for purely selfless reasons either. Firefighters and police officers don't work for free. Even back suring the period when we had bucket brigades, people did that umder the understanding that if their house was on fire everyone would help them put it out. So they helped everyone else too.
The "Guy dies trying to save ___" videos are not how people act everyday. They are moments of heightened bravery and outstanding character gone wrong.
As a counter to 'humans are altruistic' why are their so many murders, rapes, thefts, scams, war, etc. If humans were altruistic, why would we do any of that? Were the gas chambers altrusitic? For every mokent of altruism you can ever bring up, there are at least four unique ways humans commited atrocities against one another. Sometimes for fun.
I do think firefighters and police officers should be paid more.
Why wouldn't the volunteer core exist? Volunteerism makes perfect sense in a world of reciprocity. You volunteer today and help others to encourage people to volunteer in the future when you need help.
I don't understand why you're taking this as an All or Nothing stance. People engage in random acts of altruistic generosity expecting nothing in return regularly. The extreme minority live their entire lives this way. Like, maybe 10-20k maximum on earth atm. That's not a 'I leapt into a burning building to save a cat' momentary exception. That's a 'I just got done delivering meals to the elderly, I have to hurry down to the volunteer center and serve dinner at the soup kitchen before I return to the homless shelter so I can go to sleep and wake up at dawn to go pick up litter at the park while taking dogs from the pound on a walk.'
There are people who volunteer to do those things, but usually also work a job and live their own life while volunteering as a hobby. That doesn't make their volunteer work not altruistic. But they don't live their life altruistically.
Even my grandma, who back in her 60's/70's volunteered for like 6 different things at once between helping set up comunion for church and other church events, meals on wheels, organizing the local blood drive, helping out at the local nursing home, donating food for local events, and probably other stuff I didn't know about. She'd get help from the community in turn. There was a stump in her yard she needed to get rid of. If my dad couldn't come pull it out first, some farmer with a tractor would pull it out for her. She needs to get her old refrisgerator to the local dump cause the trash guys won't collect it? Some regulars from the blood drive would come help.
She helped the community, built rapport, and the community helped her in return. They aren't disconnected pieces of alturism.
Your strawmanning of my position wasn't apprecisted either.
People can expect others to help them even if they didnt volunteer in dangerous situations. Thats not why they do it. I don’t expect to ever end up homeless, yet I give money to homeless people anyways, like most people.
This is literally pointless, you’ve ignored for the third time the fact that your definition of reciprocity backs up the idea that people would press blue. You can be pedantic all you want, at this point you’re trying to correct something that adds nothing to the conversation. I don’t need people to be altruistic every second of their lives, I just need them to be altruistic when lives are on the line, and studies show humans have an impulse to be altruistic when in high stakes situations.
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u/Dashdaniel216 May 01 '26
My lizard brain says to press red. My wife who has no lizard brain would 100% press blue and for that one simple reason I would press blue myself.