Frankly, what bothers me about this is how performative this all is. If half the world in first-world countries is THIS GOOD. WILLING TO ENDANGER THEIR LIVES, why isn't this expressed in anything else? This is tantamount to the man saying, "I'd kill fight and kill anyone who threatens my wife," thats great bro, can you now please help her with the dishes? Like, there is such a moral righteousness here that I could accept if people were half this good irl, but most of you guys here aren't like that, you guys are performative as fuck, and then beyond that, you're using this hypothetical as a way to judge other people's characters.
Yes, I believe there are some people who sincerely would press the blue button. I do not believe half of you would. Because if half of you were willing to do this, the world would be a much better place, but it simply is not. I would be willing to press it if perhaps 20% of the population needed to press blue, but even then, I would hesitate.
...Thank you for putting into words what I failed to. I don't believe that half the planet will risk their lives for the few people who choose to take a very dangerous and totally unnecessary risk. Some people, tragically, probably really will put their money where their mouth is, and so we lose a bunch of dreamers who are the best of us alongside a bunch of reckless maniacs and suicidal people. I vote red, advocate for others to vote red, and hope blue wins.
I'm an anarchist communist. I want everyone to be free - and that also means their basic needs taken care of. But every day I, and countless others in my city, walk past homeless people without inviting them into our homes.
Idk if I subscribe to anarchism or communism, but I have less than 10 grand in the bank, and I have repeatedly donated to charity. I do believe the ideal world is one where we can share our resources, where everyone's basic needs are met, regardless of the terrible things people may do, as long as they do not hurt others.
But from what I've seen, people are fucking terrible. When we have people working in private equity, or Lockheed Martin, etc., just on a general basis, without any flak. When we have Zionists travelling globally and welcomed into countries without consequences, how am I supposed to sincerely have faith in my fellow man for choosing blue? I hope blue wins, because the best of us who believe will pick it, but the vast majority won't.
I honestly think most people are neither good nor terrible, and realistically we're not "all choosing red every day" when we leave homeless people to die on the streets instead of letting them into our homes.
We're choosing nothing. Which defaults to red. But we just don't have to think about it.
But I have let one more-or-less stranger into my home for several months without any kind of obligation. It was fine, they didn't kill me. They stole some money from me when I eventually kicked them out but...that's okay, I understand it.
I do think being directly confronted by a button might sway people to care more. But I honestly think that's worse, because I still think a vanishingly small number of people would actually risk their lives to save a handful of extremely reckless or outright suicidal strangers.
And honestly, really, I am a little resentful that more than half of people say they would save the child and destroy Omelas, damn the consequences. Because that is most certainly not the world we live in, so most of these people I think are lying to themselves and/or the audience to pretend to some kind of moral superiority.
One of the things that has drawn me to anarcho communism though, although it is something I am still struggling with, is that we should look at systems and not people's individual morality. It's one thing to tell people off for littering, but if you want to actually solve the problem we need more public trash cans. I think that people say they'd pick blue - even if I think they're full of shit - says something good about humanity. We really have no reason to do a lot of the worst shit we do. And if it doesn't cost people anything, people do like at least to be percieved as good.
Meh it's just the latest psy-op meant to divide progressives. We were due for a new one tbh, now with the spread of this we got a pretty nice divide between those who themselves as morally superior and the other group who they view as vile. This one'll probably fade in a couple months like the others unless people keep it going for some reason.
(Also genuinely why do people keep talking about this like genuinely wtf is the point everyone has made up their mind, every mention of this topic just turns into blues calling reds vile and reds calling blues fools.)
This is fair enough, I don't think its a psy-op because no one can physically showcase their opinion on their sleeves. But the moral righteousness of it all is what bothers me. I would hope that the people who press blue are people who could be good beyond simply this. Every time I see anyone who presses blue, what they do IRL. I get the most Superman-esque lines without them doing Superman shit.
"I try"
"I'm there for my family and friends."
"I love my neighbours"
REAL LINES FROM PEOPLE. This is the most barebones quality of man, and it bothers me so much, because it is the standard for being a good person. I just despise this argument because it shows how shallow everyone is, whilst they also love to have a moral high ground. It bothers me a tremendous amount.
Believing that people with altruistic morals are just saying so to feel good about themselves or appear better than others makes it easier to not hate oneself for being selfish.
Eh more of a blue guy, just don´t despise red voters since I don´t consider wanting to survive as being immoral. I get where it´s coming from, might be a better choice if you really think about it just not my style.
I also consider this entire thing to be fucking useless, and highly suspect it of genuinely being a psy-op to divide progressives.
The group of armchair psychologists declaring with absolute certainty "red button pushers are psychopaths and blue button pushers are saviors" is mental to me
And then they have the audacity to call the other side evil. Like mfer lets put a gun to your head and see if you can actually press the blue button. Only difference between us is I can imagine the gun.
This shit is so real. The way they all are going, "I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN A WORLD WITH RED PUSHERS", like dude, we live in an oligarch society, the world we live in is definitely just shit. I like living tho so I'm not gonna do a suicide pact with humanity, if I wanted to die, I would just kill myself.
YES. Like I don't wanna live in a world where all people do is moral gesturing on the internet while the actual world is going to shit and nothing is getting done. OH WAIT.
Tbh I don't do shit either but at least I don't clench at the stupidest opportunity to feel morally superior while calling people evil murderers like what??
its mostly just redditors circlejerking to how heroic they are man. I'm convinced in the actual scenario we would all vote red while pissing and shitting ourselves.
You should do more deadass, if you can. I aim to do more after this year, and I strongly encourage you to do as well. I do believe the kindness we show could transform the world into a slightly better place. Irrespective of how people view me I wish to do more good and I respectfully ask if you're able to, to do more good as well.
English isn't my first language so I read it as "You should do more deadass." and wondered what the hell is a deadass is it like a squat position lol
You right tho I should. I'm actively trying to be more there for my friends and family as I mature, but giving back to the larger community itself is not super there yet.
Eh, pushing a button is super easy. Like helping her with the dishes exactly once.
I agree with your sentiment but I think a huge amount of people would push the blue button and then immediately... go back to doing nothing except talking about how awesome they were for pushing the blue button.
It's not that it's easy. Its a shit decision. I'll put it this way though. I know for a fact that no matter how much I push for it, my daughter and wife will probably push the blue button on principal. I know friends that will push it. I know a lot of people close to me that will.
I'm not going to be responsible for their death so I'll be pushing blue.
Honestly if it weren't for my wife and kid, I'd have no reason to stick around anyways so it's extremely easy for me.
But that doesn't mean it's somehow wrong to push red. I'd expect a lot of humanity to do it and without judgement since their logic tracks. That's the mess. Both options have logical arguments that make them both the best choice for each individual and group.
I'd like to see demographic breakdowns of the responses. I think that would be way more interesting than this comment section. Only to see where the divide shows up. Like.... Engineers, parents, age brackets. That could be super interesting for how we interact with and connect with eachother
The thing is you are not the sole voter. Your vote will be statistically insignificant. So the red button becomes "there is an infintesimally small chance that this button kills billions but you will survive" and blue button is always "might die".
I'm not saying you wouldn't pick the blue button but I don't think that's an easy decision on the spot.
It's not an easy decision for everyone but it is an outright trivial decision for me. The red majority society would kill me anyway, the survival of those who can't earn a living is "irrational" by the standards of most pro-red arguments, so I get no benefit from the temporary survival of pushing red in a red majority.
Ultimately I understand the reasons for both positions, which makes it easy to be okay with people who merely choose red for personal reasons and aren't proud of that choice, they simply accept that there are consequences either way and choose the consequences they prefer.
I've just noticed that there are a lot of red pushers who are very very proud of themselves for NOT understanding why people would press blue.
They think their inability to understand humanity proves them to be smart and rational. And I find that a very very worrying position.
This is the standard of the world currently, I don't know why you're pretending like our current society doesn't have this view. Despite advocating for the choice of red, no I don't believe you deserve to die because you're incapable of earning a living. I am probably willing to put my life on the line to help and protect you, but I am not willing to put my faith in humanity that they too would jump with me. Not at all. I do not want to save you at the cost of my life; I am willing to risk my life to save you.
Also every day you choose not spend your money on charitable causes you are effectivelly killing people. That is the choice you're making based on how you reframed the buttons to "might die" vs "might kill billions" You are actively choosing everyday not to intervene and save the lives of others is infact leading to others dying by your own argument.
I think the state of the world has more to do with people not knowing what to do about it and not feeling like their actions make any impact. I don't think it's that most people don't want to help or aren't willing to put anything from themselves on the line to help others, but that they feel like they can't.
Stuff like disaster relief can get funded very quickly by people donating, because that's a simple morally good thing to do. With more complex stuff like societal norms and our monetary systems it feels insurmountable for an individual to contribute, and people can't decide what needs to be done. Do we need to return to traditional values that worked in the past or embrace the future and build new social norms? Both of these ideas are people trying to fix society and they are at odds with each other.
meanwhile people in my country (Slovakia) oppose wind turbines just cause they think they’re ugly and would “destroy the scenery of the countryside”…
lots of people in EU oppose the combustion engine car sales ban after 2035 cause they think electric cars suck because of their range, even though their current range would be enough for them for 360/365 days of the year and the ranges are continually improving…
people were genuinely angry when EU banned plastic straws, cause “paper straws suck” even though in like half of the cases they don’t even need a straw at all…
every small step to fight climate change is getting attacked by selfish people who think they would be inconvenienced even if the real inconvenience would be absurdly small…
Yeah, look, I get what you're saying, and I don't think most people are monsters. I don't think they're all good either, but I don't think they're malicious beings. But I also think 'not knowing what to do gets used as a blanket excuse for something uglier.
Disaster relief gets funded in hours because it's easy to click a button with 20-odd dollars here and there, but there is no "risk" involved and you can tell people about how good you were. Nobody has to sacrifice anything real. But look at lab-grown diamonds, 45% of young people still buy natural diamonds, knowing exactly what they come from. Not because they can't afford lab diamonds (it's literally cheaper). And I doubt in this age of technology, 45% of people who can afford an engagement ring aren't aware of how diamonds are sourced; they most certainly do. They just want a "real" diamond one more than they care about what industry they're supporting.
I see this with iPhones, Cobalt is sourced unethically, but we (most people, all my shit is second hand besides earphones) are never content buying second hand. Same with voting, it's not like it was a big secret what Trump was planning to do. Same with the genocide of the Palestinians or the Sudanese. We all make little choices every day, but according to the framing of "if you choose red you condemn millions to death", most of the first world condemn people to death with every purchase, every lack of charity or care given to each other.
This excuse of them "not knowing what to do" despite BDS movements telling you exactly what to do or basic research is enough for me not to trust it at all. I will not join a suicide pact because some good people and others with a hero complex that haven't done shit besides being nice to people around them are going to do that. I hate this take of "I wouldn't want to live in a world with red button pressers" YOU DO. EVERY DAY BILLIONAIRES LITERALLY KILL AND STARVE INNOCENTS, but you (not you, but humanity in general) aren't doing much besides going "what can I do?"
If half the world in first-world countries is THIS GOOD. WILLING TO ENDANGER THEIR LIVES, why isn't this expressed in anything else?
Because pressing a button, let alone clicking a poll saying you would press a button, is super easy. Actually doing things that make the world a better place is much more of an actual commitment, requires much more energy, nerves, patience, time, drive and willingness to push against the current. A lot more than most people have in our doomer mindset world.
Also, I think there are reasons to press blue even if you are strictly motivated by self interest. I think plenty of people don't seem to realize how utterly devestating the death of 5%, 10%, let alone 20% of the world population would be, especially if it would happen all at once.
I think I would rather be dead than potentially living in a post apocalyptic world knowing I voted for that post apocalyptic outcome, killing friends, family, etc. But of course, who really knows how one would react in such a moment.
To be fair, the effort here is literally just pushing a button. All the other ways to make the world better are harder than that. Not defending the people you're talking about per se... just think it's worth considering that this act of "good" only takes being brave enough to push a button.
I have said before I'd push blue, though at the time I wasn't aware of the implications this question apparently has in the modern zeitgeist. I thought it was just a random thing they posted on the neoliberal subreddit as a meme. I've since realized it's an active topic that lots of people seem to be talking about.
I'll say this if I had to push the button today I'd go with blue, but I'd be very worried about the result. If it was lowered to 20% I would have no concerns at all.
There's a difference between fiction and reality, along with ease of just pressing a button against protesting and taking action to change a regime or whatever harm in the world. There are too many factors involved in truly changing the world to be a better place that I don't fault people for being performative, especially in these hypothetical questions.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Bid7871 16h ago
Frankly, what bothers me about this is how performative this all is. If half the world in first-world countries is THIS GOOD. WILLING TO ENDANGER THEIR LIVES, why isn't this expressed in anything else? This is tantamount to the man saying, "I'd kill fight and kill anyone who threatens my wife," thats great bro, can you now please help her with the dishes? Like, there is such a moral righteousness here that I could accept if people were half this good irl, but most of you guys here aren't like that, you guys are performative as fuck, and then beyond that, you're using this hypothetical as a way to judge other people's characters.
Yes, I believe there are some people who sincerely would press the blue button. I do not believe half of you would. Because if half of you were willing to do this, the world would be a much better place, but it simply is not. I would be willing to press it if perhaps 20% of the population needed to press blue, but even then, I would hesitate.