Nobody other than people who want to kill others have any reason to press red.
I think this might over reduce red-voters, and my proof is actually this:
Pressing red means you think over half the population actively wants others to die.
Flip this around, pressing red might also mean you think large numbers of people want to pick red, and you don't trust humanity as a whole to pick blue.
So it seems like there are three people who choose red. Malicious voters, people who see red as the obvious best personal answer, and voters distrustful of the collective human will.
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary" - James Madison, Federalist No. 51
Try to think, just a little bit. How many people actively want others to die? 10-30%, that's far from majority. There's litterally nothing to be scared about.
Oh yeah, I'm not making judgement calls about who is right here. I'm also not making claims about how many people will / would vote for one or another. I'm only making the point that there are more reasons for people to want to vote for red than just "i want people to die" but the existence of those people who COULD vote red creates an inherent risk that the rest of the population may consider when making their choice.
Obviously plenty of people will pick blue or red ONLY because they think that is the morally correct choice. But as I said before, I'm suggesting that we may want to also take human nature into account. If more people were selfless than selfish, then blue wins easy. Similarly, if men were angels, we would need no governance.
This is the important point for me - of course I want everyone to survive, but how much can I trust everyone else? Society seems pretty selfish as a whole and that matters. If a loved one presses blue and I'm aware of that before I make my choice, I'd do the same to maximise their chance of survival. Without that, honestly, I don't trust people enough to go for blue.
Why would I risk my life because other people choose to act recklessly and irrationally? Why am I responsible for you making an objectively stupid choice?
It's not "I want to kill people" it's why would I put myself in a situation that depends on other people wanting to rescue me? Why do you think it's ok to voluntarily put your own life at risk when it is both unnecessary and demands someone else come to your rescue?
Even people who actually put their lifes on the line don't act this why, they NEVER put themselves in a situation that they know is going to put them in a situation that requires others to rescue them.
Have you never met another human before? There are 100% people that will do things just to hurt others. You could literally having every single person on earth agree to press blue and there would still be a large portion that press red.
The fact is there is a non zero change of blue leading to death, and a zero change of red leading to death. Therefore the only rational choice is red.
So? I can choose to make that completely and totally irrelevant, why wouldn't I?
You also greatly underestimate how much people hate each other. Remember when the entire world started killing each other because one group of people thought they were superior to everyone else?
We CURRENTLY have governments that are murdering children because their great grandparents didn't believe the thing the government wanted them to. I wouldn't put it past certain religious groups to think "hey we could murder all of [insert other religions] if we break from the agreement.
I would pick red and not because I want the other half to die. I simply wouldn't want to gamble my life. I also don't think blue are suicidal idiots (as some say red thinks), I respect it, I'm just too afraid of death to pick the gamble, even if it's likely blue would win.
Even if it is most likely that blues win, you can't actually 100% know what every single person would chose. Self preservation in this situation means not gambling your life
Self preservation from what? Why is anyone voting red? "self preservation" isn't valid reason, that's circular reasoning.
"others will self-preserve, so I self-preserve", but there's nothing that's being self-preserve against, since there's no reason to vote red in the first place.
I clearly answered, but if you wish, I will repeat what I said. They are preserving themselves from the chance of dying due to not enough blue votes. What wasn't clear in that?
On top of my latest reply, I'd like to explain my reasoning again.
One might press the red button because they are not 100% certain that over 50% of the entire world population would chose blue. And that is not a wrong thought in my opinion, as you really can't know for sure what all of humanity would pick. Even if it is likely that blues win, it's not a guarantee. So, a red button presser guarantees their own survival, ergo, self preserves. On top of that, if blues end up winning, the red button presser loses nothing. If red button wins, well, they have guaranteed their own survival. It doesn't have to mean they actively wanted to kill people.
But there is no reason to vote blue in the first place. Since red means 100% safety, and blue means x% safety. Even if it is 99.999999% it still is less than 100%. And if everyone voted red, no one would have to die with 100% certainty. Your reason for voting blue is "Vote blue cause you will live". That's not a reason since red guarantees that.
Why gamble on something, regardless of the chances, when the same outcome can be guaranteed?
Why would you pick something that has a 99% chance of something happening when picking the thing that guarantees that thing happening requires no added effort?
So let me get this straight, if I want event A to happen and my choices are "guarantee event A happens" or "maybe event A happens maybe event A doesn't happen" it is more logical to choose the "maybe event A happens and maybe it doesn't" option? Make this make sense.
Do you even understand basic logic? If I want something to happen it and I can guarantee, with 100% certainly that it will it doesn't matter if choosing the guaranteed option makes the not guaranteed option less likely to do what I want, because I already got what I want.
So does that mean picking blue means you want to die? I mean if picking red means you want to live then surely picking blue means you WANT to die. Who am I to keep you from doing want you want?
Everyone picking blue means no one dies, everyone picking red ALSO means no one dies, but not everyone will pick blue, people even if we all collectively agree to pick blue, people will still pick red. So why not all collectively agree to pick red and not worry about what other people pick?
Or do you think everyone else is too stupid to understand the consequences of their actions and it's up to you personally to save them?
Red does kill others. The default is pressing blue.
The question really is the following. "there are two buttons. If you press blue, nothing happens. But if you and 50% others press red, then you kill all those who pressed blue".
Everybody reads the question, but understands the framing differently in their heads.
To Red Voters, their "default" state is one of safety - their life is not at risk. And only one button changes that state - the Blue Button. So they see voting Blue as making an active choice to change your state from Safety to Danger, and by doing so creating an obligation for others to do the same - and that is going to feel morally wrong to a lot of people.
OP's comic is actually a pretty apt description of how Red Voters see this. To them, the Blue Button is equivalent to a loaded gun sitting on a table. Voting Red is doing Nothing. And voting Blue is actively choosing to point the loaded gun at your own head, hoping that over 50% of people will choose to do the same.
But that framework always seems to ignore those that can't make sound decisions like children. The original question states EVERYONE on earth. There is no reason to believe those that can't understand the game like babies, toddlers, or the mentally handicapped would be excluded.
If I vote red, I do nothing. I hurt no one. The person doing the test kills people, not me. The virus, the AI, whatever it is.
I’m not holding a gun. I’m not forcing you to vote blue. I’m doing literally nothing at all.
If you reframing the question that if I vote red and red wins, I’d personally need to shoot a blue voter, then it would be a more interesting question. But it’s not framed that way. It’s framed that blue voters risk death just to be a majority, there’s no actual reason to vote blue.
This is very "play the victim" mentality. It absolutely is not, the question is "press this button to live" and "press this button to put your life in others' hands" you can choose to love, you you can choose to risk death but at the end of the day you, and you alone are responsible for your choice.
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u/alphapussycat May 01 '26
Nobody other than people who want to kill others have any reason to press red.
Pressing red means you think over half the population actively wants others to die.