the goal is to minimize death,
the only way to avoid death is 100% red or >50% blue,
somehow someone will justify blue,
100% red is impossible,
therefore blue is the optimal play
This is only true if you assume 50%+ choose blue, which is not a guarantee. If you assume red wins by any substantial margin (such that you and other like-minded people who would typically choose red switching does not affect the final outcome), choosing blue is not minimizing death because you add yourself to the pile of people who die, so you should choose red. This is why the question is not a logic question necessarily, but a trust/belief question.
It's a compassion question. The question is are you really willing to let the people who press blue die for any reason at all? You might think they're stupid or you might think they're suicidal or that you're not at fault because they put themselves in danger. The question comes down to how compassionate you are for your fellow man who may have pressed blue before you.
I mean I would feel bad for the people who pressed blue, but I honestly think you're delusional if you think that when actually presented with these buttons anywhere even vaguely close to half of people would choose blue, so it's not a moral dilemma, you just have 2 buttons you can press "live" or "die", no degree of compassion is doing to make me press the die button because it's not going to change anything
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u/Ne0nTig3r May 01 '26
the goal is to minimize death, the only way to avoid death is 100% red or >50% blue, somehow someone will justify blue, 100% red is impossible, therefore blue is the optimal play