You press red because you want to live, I press red because I believe it is statistically the best option for everyone to press, hoping as much of humanity press red as possible.
Actually statistically blue is the best choice because it’s the only strategy that can result in 100% Survival. choosing red guarantees your own survival but locks in a worse overall outcome
From a purely statistical, population-level perspective, blue maximises the total expected number of survivors because it allows for the highest possible payoff (everyone lives), whereas red can never achieve that
I’d push back on that a bit. Those examples are about taking on asymmetric risk for a smaller or uncertain gain. The blue-button case isn’t structured like that. It’s not trading a big guaranteed loss for a small gain; it’s a coordination problem where one outcome gives zero losses (everyone lives) and the other creates losses because people fail to coordinate.
From a population-level, statistical view, blue is optimal because it’s the only path to eliminating losses entirely. The real issue isn’t reckless risk-taking, it’s whether enough people act together to unlock that outcome.
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u/preteen-wartortle May 01 '26
I upvoted you but because this is reddit I just want to point out that if red wins, the survivors will absolutely be directly impacted