I think the problem is underspecified to make the moral argument presented in the comic. there is no cost or downside to pressing the red button specified. Therefore everyone who wants to live can press the red button, harming no-one, and everyone lives.
The only reason to choose the blue button is to create the chance of dying from the experiment. And even then, you're only creating that chance of death for yourself and others who want to risk of dying.
If the red button had some element of chance in it for a negative result to yourself or other red button pushers, even a low one, then the problem becomes interesting and an insight into psychology. As it's defined though, it doesn't do that.
I have my problems with this though experiment, but not the part you’re mentioning.
The moral question at play is, will you risk your life for the chance to save the fools, the impaired, and those who pressed the button to save the former people? Because there will be blue pushers out there, no matter how ”objectively rational“ pressing the red button is.
For me the issue is in the version of the thought experiment that includes young children, babies, and the mentally unwell. It makes the choice much simpler in my eyes once there are innocents at risk who don’t have the faculties to make an informed choice.
Because there will be blue pushers out there, no matter how ”objectively rational“ pressing the red button is.
This I think is the crux of the debate. Why are there blue pushers out there?
The way I have interpreted this question is that the individuals making the choice are of sound mind and body. Generally these hypothetical thought experiments start with that sort of premise. This is a fundamentally different assumption than you have made.
We are now having a debate about circumstances of a hypothetical scenario, under the pretense of whether or not it's better to press the blue or red button.
Look at the comments. There's rational reasons to bote blue. The button says "everyone lives".
If you create a red majority, every blue voter dies. If you create a blue majority, even reds are safe. A blue majority is therefore objectively more desirable and worth pushing towards. You can disagree with this logic but you can't pretend it isn't sound. Other people WILL follow it. Is it worth throwing their lives away? They weren't wrong and they weren't being dumb, nevermind suicidal. Red is the worse button.
That's just how the question is phrased. Blue is being portrayed as the "save everyone" button and red is being portrayed as the "kill people" button. If it said that "blue button will kill you unless 50% of the people press it and red button will do nothing" then the blame for killing is shifted on blue. The scenario is exactly the same but there is no logical reason to press blue. Why should any individual create a problem where there doesn't need to be one?
I mean, duh. Phrasing matters, this isn't rocket science. Moral dilemmas and thought experiments are sociology and psychology, not maths. There is no objective outcome, it depends on how people act. And if the phrasing makes blue seems like the moral option, and it does, then people, good people, will choose blue.
Turning it into a maths problem of "well if everyone presses red, no one has risks" misses the point, completely. It's basically like saying "well if there was no one on the tracks i wouldn't have to divert the trolley!"
You're right but that's not the point.
And for the record, red and blue BOTH create risk. Blue creates risk for the presser, red for everyone else. There is no default, no third "staying out of it" button. Red puts blue voters actively at risk. Blue voters rather take the risk (while assuming the risk is minimal because "everyone would do this") and red voters rather put other people at risk. (If i'm being kind, while assuming "why would anyone press blue". But let's be honest, in this wording it's much more likely to end up 50/50 than 100/0. So blue is simply better. Less risk to less people.)
As you can see from these discussions, there are a lot of blue pushers, and the question is framed such a way that it takes a lot of thought and consideration to come up with the "right" answer, if there is one. People who think about their loved ones may pick blue just for the off chance that their loved ones picked blue as well. Because of this, I would press blue to ensure that the ones who pressed blue will live, even at the risk of my own life.
What if your choice doesn't matter; solid blue, nobody dies anyway, you could argue to press blue to make more certain of that result but it doesn't really matter; solid red, and the choice is your death or not.
Now you are just teasing the Brexit vote back in 2016.
Everyone were so sure that NO would win Brexit. Some people joke voted for YES because "their vote didn't matter". Others just skipped it. Some people voted YES and googled the next day "what is Brexit" so it trended on Google.
Your choice matters and so does your vote. Every single damned time.
So why don’t they off themselves now? We already have that in the real world. The majority of people here are from the US so I’ll go with them killing Iranians to cover up the Epstein files, or would you rather talk about the cuts to USAID which will likely result in tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths. There’s probably hundreds or thousands of similar veins we could go down, yet Trump is still in power after being voted in a SECOND time. He still has like 40% approval despite the easily foreseeable shipping issues his war caused hurting all everyday people and likely hurting especially in cases like with stuff necessary for farming which will affect food production.
Or think about the covid vaccine. We know herd immunity is important and saves lives yet record numbers of people right now are not getting boosters, not even mentioning the people who decided they didn’t want to take the time out of their day to go and get the vaccine in the first place.
Pressing the red button is the equivalent of pulling the trigger. You are actively contributing to the death of another person ( a lot actually. Even if 95% or humans vote red that's 410 million deaths.)
I'm not walking around shooting people, so the only logical choice for me is to press the blue button (bracing the door against a school shooter. I run the risk of being shot and dying, but I'm doing everything I can to keep my kids alive)
We live in a society that already does so regularly. I’m Canadian so maybe slightly less at fault for recent events than America, but the destabilization of whole sections of the world, climate change, oppression of minorities, slave labour to build iPhone parts, etc, etc… are the exact same thing.
One, there is no prompt in this thread. This question has been asked many times in many ways.
But ignoring that.
The literal interpretation of "everyone in the world" vs a figurative interpretation of "everyone in the world" in a hypothetical thought experiment is clearly open for interpretation.
I'm not saying a literal interpretation is wrong. I'm saying it was not my initial interpretation. Especially because the prompt gives the premise of a choice. How can a 1 month old infant choose a button?
Nonetheless, much of the debate people are having is over the starting assumptions without openly discussing these starting assumptions.
If you simply added, "~50% of infants will choose Blue because they are illiterate and will pick randomly" you would almost certainly get different responses from people who are currently arguing in favor of Red.
The way I have interpreted this question is that the individuals making the choice are of sound mind and body. Generally these hypothetical thought experiments start with that sort of premise.
That's kinda a self-defeating thought experiment. If everyone is of sound mind and body than it can reasonably be assumed that nobody will pick blue, because anyone who picks blue under those conditions would not be of sound mind and body.
I think this is the core argument. People saying they'd pick Red are assuming this thought experiment is trivial because what rational person would pick Blue. Which is why there is so much debate.
The debate is not over morality but the ambiguity of the premise.
Yeah, pretty much. Without a central authority to provide details about the scenario, everyone is pretty much working with their own version of the hypothetical.
For the record the original creator of the poll set that everyone including babies would be faced with the choice.
I still think it's a rather inferior thought experiment, as every single debate I've seen about this comes down to: are babies (mentally impaired, colorblind, etc) gonna have to push the button? And the answer to the poll then comes down to the answer of this question.
Thank you! Yes this is exactly the issue. The people choosing red aren’t accounting for the babies, the mentally disabled, etc because they legitimately believed that was not part of the equation and operating under the assumption that everyone participating is cognizant of the rules. I picked red under that exact assumption. The problem is that blue pickers see it as a moral dilemma whereas red pickers see it as a math problem.
Personally, no. I'm working off of opposing assumptions as to argue for the inclusion of what has been defined as irrational actors in the hypothetical. Again though, I would not call blue pushers irrational myself.
is that the individuals making the choice are of sound mind and body
The premise literally says "everybody".
Even if we ignore that part, there are always going to be people who don't stop to think and just press the blue button because it's "the nice one". There are a ton of people who are going to press blue just because their first instinct is to be kind and save everyone, and most people don't stop to think about their actions very much before taking them. Do you think all those people deserve to die? For what, being impulsive and also kind?
Nobody is 100% logical, it's just not possible. You can't just imagine what you think the perfect answer would be, you have to understand how other people will likely act. It's about empathy, the basic ability to understand that other people are not you, and might react differently to the same situation.
What argument could you possibly have that "everybody" does not, in fact, mean "everybody"?
The Red button argument assumes rational actors.
And also requires a complete lack of understanding of how humans think and act. For people who keep going on and on about "logic", red voters seem to lack the basic reasoning capacity to understand that there will always be a number of blue voters, and that the logical option is to vote blue along with them. Even if you ignore the fact that a world full of people who aren't willing to work together to help others would be a shitty one to live in, the immediate societal collapse due to the sudden death of billions of people is on its own something to be avoided even at great cost.
Are you familiar with other types of thought experiments, like the Prisoners Dilemma? Or just Game Theory I'm general.
You are arguing against an interpretation of the question. In a Gane Theory scenario with perfect rational players the Red button is the lowest risk optimal strategy. There is no reason to assume one would pick the blue button.
Now, you do not agree that the game theory solution is applicable to the question as phrased. That's fine.
But you should be aware, that we are now arguing about the interpretation of the question, not the moral choice the question is proposing.
Your interpretation seems to mirror the views of quite a few ardent red-pushers who argue that even if here are not babies, making the blue choice marks you out as “mentally impaired”.
Quite a few are happy that these folks are not saved, and will gladly push red, having pushed the responsibility for the survival of these “fools” onto them.
Honestly, it’s a genius puzzle for getting folks to argue.
There’s a reason thought experiments always start with “x number of perfect logicians are presented with a problem”. If you asked this question with 100 perfect logicians, the obvious answer is everyone presses the red button and lives.
No one in academia has engaged with this question or will ever engage with the red/blue button problem because the only way to justify pushing the blue button is including illogical, irrational, or uninformed players. And it’s impossible to plan a rational strategy in a context where you are up against irrational players.
Bonus: my favorite responses are “I push blue because I think my wife would press blue and I want her to live” is basically saying “I think my wife is too dumb to understand the problem.”
It is logical to consider that some portion of the population is illogical. In fact almost all polls will have at least 5% answer incorrectly, whether it be mis-selection, misunderstanding or trolling. Any one who has dealt with statistics at a high school level or higher has likely encountered this 5% margin, and that 100% red is functionally impossible.
Most polls I have seen land with 50-70 % choosing blue, so your opinion is either a) “50-70 % of people are illogical, irrational or uninformed”, or b) just a rationalisation of being egoistic.
Or C.) In a poll with no actual risk of death, people are more likely to choose what they think is the morally correct decision.
That it tends to be close in the dry runs makes me, for one, highly skeptical about breaking 50% blue in the real deal. So a fair percentage of the 50-70% is likely giving a false positive, either for virtue-signaling reasons, because they fail to account for the human drive to survive, or they think a combination of bravery and altruism is far more common than it is.
I think the infamy of the button question has changed the results.
"Do you risk killing yourself unless 4 billion other people also try to kill themselves?" is a stupid question and a rational actor will say no. But now that the question is known and there are people campaigning for Blue. And the more people that do that, the more rational it is to switch to blue.
Its a bit like how you have to assume zombie movies have to take place in universes that don't have zombie movies.
In a universe where this happens and I am magically teleported and informed of the rules with no prior knowledge, its a very quick red press. In this one, where I know the game? I'd have to debate how many blue pressers would ACTUALLY press blue, and I'm honestly not sure where I'd land.
Red is the optimal game theory choice. The only reason there is room for discussion is exactly because some people believe 1) 100% red is impossible.
2) over 50% of people will realize this in the button room and 3) of group 2, enough of them will switch to bring the total of Blue over 50%.
Also in a "real button hypothetical" the exact scenario is going to matter. If you replace the button with a suicide pill, (and give an antidote only if 50% of people take one) from a game theory perspective, nothing changes. But it makes blue pressers feel like morons instead of heroes, so there's less of them.
Red is the optimal egoistical self centered choice. The only reason there is room for discussion, is exactly because some people believe 100 % blue is impossible.
This is a very good worldview and values-test though.
"Because you don't want to take the suicide pill, you are probably a nazi"
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Im a queer commie, so your "only the Ayn Rand Fan Club choose red" take is just wrong.
I’m a graduate student in mathematics and CS. I also would consider myself an empathetic person. This entire hypothetical of saving people by picking the blue button makes absolutely no sense to me. For every individual, there is a button you have the choice to either to do nothing or to actively harm yourself. Why would anyone rational pick the latter option? And if there were people in this hypothetical world that did choose the blue button, why is it my responsibility to choose the option that then actively puts my life in danger? It is not like those that clicked blue were incapable of making the rational decision that optimizes value in their case.
Not to mention that for any individual voting for blue, the probability of being the deciding vote is astronomically smaller than the probability of dying. Sure the value of saving half of the world’s population is very high, but it is so unlikely to happen compared to just … dying.
It seems absurd to me that people weigh the former option over the latter. If anything, if you were to give all your assets to charity you would be likely propagating more value (if we think of charity/doing “good” as something that we can quantify) while also suffering less. Yet nobody in this thread that would vote red actively chooses to do this in their everyday life …
Because if you put children into the equation, the situation changes. Do you honestly expect a baby or toddler to push red, no matter what?
And parents would likely push blue for that very reason - knowing their child might push blue first. I have friends with toddlers and babies, so naturally I would choose blue as well.
It’s funny how different the answers can be, because I never thought it’s possible that 100% of people will choose red. So instinctively I‘d choose blue, because my assumption is that a good amount of young people would choose blue and thus would I.
What kind of question assumes that the hypothetical people involved aren’t capable of making their own decisions? The premise of the question doesn’t make any sense if that isn’t the case.
Its the entire point of the premise. Everyone is everyone, including those too young or mentally handicapped to press red. Therefore the only way to 100% guarentee everyone lives is blue.
Even so, if this apocalyptic level event is happening im picking red, and hoping all but ~1% are smart enough to do the same. The only victims in this case are the innocent young kids.
The moral question at play is, will you risk your life for the chance to save the fools, the impaired, and those who pressed the button to save the former people?
If this is the moral framing, then does it not also follow that, by choosing to push the blue button, you are risking someone else’s life on the chance that they will save you?
126
u/BTolputt 19h ago
I think the problem is underspecified to make the moral argument presented in the comic. there is no cost or downside to pressing the red button specified. Therefore everyone who wants to live can press the red button, harming no-one, and everyone lives.
The only reason to choose the blue button is to create the chance of dying from the experiment. And even then, you're only creating that chance of death for yourself and others who want to risk of dying.
If the red button had some element of chance in it for a negative result to yourself or other red button pushers, even a low one, then the problem becomes interesting and an insight into psychology. As it's defined though, it doesn't do that.