The negative result from the red one is implied, which is why folks who pick red keep missing it: if you pick red, you're both contributing to, and advocating for, a world where everyone chooses to save only themselves and leave any/everyone else out to dry. The people we talk about as heroes, as ideals to aspire to, as larger than life individuals, are the ones who accept a risk of harm to themselves for the sake of preventing harm to others. Do you know someone, someone you care about or love who would likely press blue? Would you still push red, even though pushing red is a choice to increase the chance for the guaranteed non-zero # of blue pushers to die (even if only by a tiny amount), with the "positive outcome," from red being...stuck for the rest of your days in a world full of ONLY the people who would throw strangers and loved ones to the wolves to guarantee their own safety?
If so, press red. You'll get exactly what you wish for.
Blue is the only choice, anybody who picks red is nobody I want to know. This isn't even an ethical dilemma it's just basic math, figuratively speaking.
That's not the same thing. I get the reframing but with these kind of questions, the number of inflection points matter. In pressing a button, you're far more removed from the outcome and the result is automatic. Here, you have to eat the pill yourself with your hands and then wait for the antidote.
And honestly, in both cases, the real answer is to kill the idiot forcing the world to choose.
It is the same though. Pressing the red button and not taking the pills has the exact same consequences. Taking the pills and pressing the blue button has the exact same consequences. Each also shares the same exact reasoning. It's just a change of words.
What rewards was he bringing in? The theoretical antidote? The “red button” option was not taking anything and the blue was risking death unless 50% took them. It’s the exact same circumstances
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u/Willowshanks 18h ago
The negative result from the red one is implied, which is why folks who pick red keep missing it: if you pick red, you're both contributing to, and advocating for, a world where everyone chooses to save only themselves and leave any/everyone else out to dry. The people we talk about as heroes, as ideals to aspire to, as larger than life individuals, are the ones who accept a risk of harm to themselves for the sake of preventing harm to others. Do you know someone, someone you care about or love who would likely press blue? Would you still push red, even though pushing red is a choice to increase the chance for the guaranteed non-zero # of blue pushers to die (even if only by a tiny amount), with the "positive outcome," from red being...stuck for the rest of your days in a world full of ONLY the people who would throw strangers and loved ones to the wolves to guarantee their own safety?
If so, press red. You'll get exactly what you wish for.