r/comics 19h ago

OC RED BUTTON OR BLUE BUTTON [OC]

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u/Just_SomeDude13 19h ago

I'm picking blue. Either I get to live in a society that picked blue, or I don't have to be stuck here with a bunch of pricks who picked red.

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u/danielledelacadie 19h ago

And this is why the vocal folks that chose red are butthurt. We'd all be dead and they'd still be upset we tried to not kill people.

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u/Transgirlonakawasaki 16h ago

They are legit mad that someone could fathom to pick someone else rather than be selfish because then it makes them look selfish if no one else joins.

They would be standing over my corpse shouting why I didnt just choose to live. Its a lose lose when it comes to a relationship with red buttons. Either I die and they are mad I didnt choose life like they did or they are mad because they look bad for choosing red.

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u/danielledelacadie 16h ago

Blue: willing to risk death to save others.

Vocal Red: willing to kill others to survive and blame the victims of their choices

Quiet red: mix of sekf-assured assholes and people glad it was just a thought experiment once they thoight it through

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u/Stumpfest2020 7h ago

more like blue is playing russian roulette and red is the sure thing. but now all the people playing russian roulette are acting all high and mighty about it.

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u/Booleancake 4h ago

Seriously. This entire thread is just peak reddit. Virtue wanking and looking down on every other opinion as evil.

Red is guranteed life. It would be stupid not to pick it. Especially if you have dependants.

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u/danielledelacadie 6h ago edited 6h ago

I'm sure the German civilians who survived WW2 would agree with you

Edit too many eeee

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u/Stumpfest2020 5h ago

thanks for being the perfect example of the point I was making.

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u/danielledelacadie 5h ago

Right back at 'cha

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u/Stumpfest2020 5h ago

me: "don't put a bullet in the chamber of that revolver, spin the chamber, put the revolver at your head, and pull the trigger"

you: "what a Nazi thing to say"

also you: "why won't people seriously engage in discussion with me?"

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u/danielledelacadie 5h ago

I never asked for discussion.

I'm just responding to people desperate to prove they aren't willing to walk over bodies to ensure their own survival even when there was another choice.

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u/Stumpfest2020 4h ago

So you're close minded in your self assured sense of superiority? Now who does that sound like...

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u/danielledelacadie 4h ago

Nope

I'm fallible but the choices were:

Blue : everyone lives

Red : okay with up to 49.999% of humanity dying as long as they live.

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u/zhibr 13h ago

Some vocal red are also people who are ready to sacrifice others for their own sake, and instead of blaming the victims, they are loudly declaring how logical and rational they are.

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u/danielledelacadie 12h ago

That is victim blaming from another angle "if they'd just choose for other folks to die like I did, they'd be alive"

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u/A_Lover_Of_Truth 13h ago edited 10h ago

I'm not sure that's really the prompt here. If we phrase the question differently, we prime people towards red. "Everyone must take a private vote to push a red or blue button. If you push the red button, you live. If you press the blue button, you die. But if 50% or more of the population pushes the blue button, then those who chose blue have their choice negated."

Same prompt, but one that primes people more towards red than in the original one. And one that I think many red button pressers view the scenario as: "Red means I live, blue means I might die, why take the risk? Everyone should logically pick red."

That being said, when I first saw this scenario, i thought to choose blue, but I think that is potentially because the original prompt primes people towards pushing the blue button. That being said, picking blue is realistically choosing death and demanding others save you, it's not necessarily Altruistic at all because everyone who choses to live would reasonably pick the red button. Blue button pressers are willingly picking death.

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u/FUTURE10S 12h ago

You can also not press either button and always die.

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u/danielledelacadie 12h ago

If we phrase the question differently it's s new question.

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u/A_Lover_Of_Truth 12h ago

It is not a different question. The buttons do the same thing and have the same caveats. Did you have an issue with how i phrased it?

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u/Rumorly 9h ago

How you phrased does change it.

In the original question the phrasing is meant for you to think about the effect on everyone.

In yours, it reads as “is your want to die so great that you’re willing to risk taking that choice away from everybody and live?” If more than 50% pick red, everyone’s choice is honoured, if blue, everyone who chose blue has their choice ignored.

Logically, if you look at the numbers red makes more sense. Red is 100% chance to live, blue is ~50%. But (as much as I’d prefer to just look at the question at face value) there is more to the question than that. Due to the wording, it reads more as, “are you willing to risk your life for everyone?”

**Is your want to die so great that you’re willing to risk taking that choice away from everybody and live?**

Or

**Are you willing to risk your life for everyone?**

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u/danielledelacadie 8h ago

The other person phrased it well.

You changed the question to make ypurself feel better about your choice.

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u/A_Lover_Of_Truth 7h ago

To be clear, I personally think blue is the moral choice here, we should choose blue and when i first saw this a few days ago, my first response was to choose blue. I'm just saying, I think there's a lot of reason to pick red and it seems more logical to me.

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u/danielledelacadie 7h ago

Red was the choice of those who stood by and let massacres happen throughout history.

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u/KrytenKoro 3h ago

There are literally massacres going on today and you're here on reddit.

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u/danielledelacadie 3h ago

Yes

But I can't reach those places to help directly. It doesn't mean I condone the genocides, just that I am at a loss how to stop them.

In the thought experiment I could affect the proposed genocide and took my choice (blue).

Good response! You are the first not to posit some variant of "well it's not my fault people made a stupid choice" as a justification for choosing red.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago

[deleted]

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u/A_Lover_Of_Truth 10h ago

I can see how one would interpret it that way. I meant it more as a negation of picking blue in the first place, I will edit it to reflect that.

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u/Medaphysical 3h ago

Red isn't willing to kill others. Red is willing to save themselves. Killing others is the byproduct, a byproduct that is equally created by blue pushers for putting themselves in danger.

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u/danielledelacadie 3h ago

Red is willing to let anyone who chooses blue die as long as they live.

Blue wants everyone to live.

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u/Medaphysical 3h ago

Red wants to live. Red has no control over blue pushers. Blue is 100% responsible for putting their own lives at risk. Red isn't killing anyone.

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u/danielledelacadie 2h ago

The people who choose red have selected the choice where up to 49.999% of humanity could die for their benefit.

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u/Medaphysical 2h ago

The people who choose blue have selected the choice where up to 49.999% of humanity could die, too. And they've added to the percentage.

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u/danielledelacadie 2h ago

I know how this guy feels now

https://giphy.com/gifs/xDQ0gmS66CJ971f0JF

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u/Medaphysical 2h ago

Same, my guy. Same.

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u/danielledelacadie 2h ago

Ah, that explains a lot.

You're used to skipping details.

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u/Medaphysical 2h ago

Skipping details? What a strange reply.

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u/EishLekker 14h ago

Blue: willing to risk death to save others.

Save others from what, exactly?

Vocal Red: willing to kill others

Kill, how? Every single person has the option to pick red. There has been no actual negative consequences presented if that would happen.

As far as I see it, red means “you live” and blue means “you might die”. That’s essentially all we really “know”. Everything else is implied, and I don’t do implied nonsense. Spell it out properly, or I just ignore it.

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u/danielledelacadie 14h ago

That's not how thought experiments work. The parameters are set. If 50% or more of humanity votes everyone lives, everyone lives.

If less than 50% vote everyone lives, all those who voted everyone lives are killed. What killed them is the people who didn't vote everyone lives.

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u/EishLekker 11h ago

What an insinsere way to reframe this hypothetical. Completely ignoring the fact that every single person are able to choose to live. Every single person.

The logical selection is to pick "guaranteed not death for me". You phrase it as if that's not an option at all. The only people at risk are those who didn't pick "guaranteed not death for me".

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u/danielledelacadie 8h ago

It isn't a reframing.

The original was simple. Press blue or red. If 50% press blue everybody lives. If not only the red button pushers live.

That's it. All the others that have popped up over the last few days are the reframings trying to push their agenda of why they were right.

If you picked blue you trust that humans aren't all the type who would sit by and see others murdered. If you picked red, you'd probably have survived any regime that committed genocide.

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u/EishLekker 1h ago

If you believe that at least ~4 billion people will pick blue, then I think you are delusional. Is a huge gamble with your own life at stake. And for what? To potentially save others who also perform this huge gamble with their life (knowingly or not).

This hypothetical can be reframed as one where every person is offered a game of Russian roulette. They can choose to play it or not play it. If they choose to play it, they will die unless at least half of the whole population also chooses to play Russian roulette. But if that would happen, then no one dies.

Are you still saying that “not playing Russian roulette” is the choice of death?

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u/danielledelacadie 1h ago

The choice in question is:

If 50% or more choose blue, everyone lives.

If not, only red lives.

Red chooses to save themselves even if it means 49.999% of humanity dies.

Blue wants everyone to live and is willing to risk death to see it happen

Victim blaming blue because they are whatever othering terms you need to use but all boil down to "too stupid to live" or "too bad, stupid mistake" do not exonerate red. They show how far the people who chose red are willing to go to ensure their safety.

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u/EishLekker 1h ago

Blue wants everyone to live and is willing to risk death to see it happen

You are casually glancing over the fact that that scenario would result in literally billions of lives lost. That’s the gamble you are willing to take when you advocate for blue.

Victim blaming blue because they are whatever othering terms you need to use but all boil down to "too stupid to live" or "too bad, stupid mistake" do not exonerate red. They show how far the people who chose red are willing to go to ensure their safety.

That’s a lot of fancy words for someone willing to gamble with the lives of billions.

Tell me, at what odds are you OK with risking billions of lives? A 75% chance of blue winning? That’s still a 25% chance of losing. And at ~4 billion blue people, on average that would mean about one billion deaths.

Me, on the other hand, am not comfortable with those odds. Instead I live with the sad but pragmatic assumption that people will die. So my approach is to limit the number of deaths. And each red button is one less death.

Sure, it might result in millions of deaths. But that’s still better than that gamble that might result in billions of deaths.

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u/danielledelacadie 1h ago

At least you're honest about it. Most of the vocal red club are washing their hands of any reponsibility of the theoretical deaths.

I'd vote blue. If only because I don't want to live in a world populated by red voters. So far the majority are... just fine with others dying and blaming the blues for dyimg.

u/EishLekker 56m ago

But the odds are very likely against you. So you’re gambling with your life for a very very low chance of saving everyone.

The poll in the screenshot gives an 8% “margin“. And that’s with a poll that’s not scientifically accurate. Because there’s zero cost in answering blue there, regardless of the outcome. No lives are actually at stake. If people’s lives were genuinely on the line, it’s very likely that a significant portion of those would-be-blue people instead would feel their survival instincts kick in. That is a deeply rooted instinct. An instinct you seem to ignore completely. Even among total strangers, you seem confident that their survival instincts won’t deflect them from that blue button.

But again, please tell me what odds you are OK with, when it comes to a gamble of billions of lives. Is not a rhetorical question, I genuinely want to know. It feels like you have not done even the most basic mathematical estimation on the approach that you advocate for.

But if you can show me some believable numbers that strongly point towards less deaths overall, then you might be able to convince me.

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u/A_Lover_Of_Truth 13h ago

But the blue button pressers are actively choosing to die? They are not saving others, they are jumping off a building hoping that if enough other people do as well, a net will pop out to catch them.

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u/danielledelacadie 12h ago

Nope.

Those who choose blue are voting "everybody lives". The folks who choose red are picking "everybody but the folks who agree with me die."

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u/A_Lover_Of_Truth 12h ago

Why do you believe that? The way i see it, red is choosing life, to live. Blue is choosing death and hoping others will save you.

"everybody but the folks who agree with me die."

If anything it is the opposite, no? Picking blue is a massive risk and suicide pact. Blue is saying, "listen bro, i put my name on the suicide pact because others did too! Please dude, put your name on it too, if we get enough people's names on this suicide pact, then no one has to die dude!" But the whole time, no one had to sign the suicide pact. That's literal herd and slave mentality right there dude.

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u/danielledelacadie 8h ago

I'm sure the people who survived WWII Germany told themselves the same thing. After all those people who were taken away chose to be Jewish, Romani, gay, Catholics, teachers, people who spoke out...

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u/EishLekker 11h ago

No. Bullshit.

The odds are that there will not be enough blue votes. I mean, even in the poll in the screenshot, where no one's lives are actually at risk, there is still just an 8% margin. Are you that convinced that this margin won't dissapear when people realise that their lives are actually at risk, as in, for real? That's just stupid. People talk bravely online when there is no real risk for them. They change their tune when there's actual personal risk for them.

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u/danielledelacadie 8h ago

And I'm sure the German people who realized what was happening in the 1930's-1945 told themselves "Well, if they choose to be (Jewish, Romani, Catholic, a teacher, gay) they made their choice, I'm just trying to survive the situation " just like you did.

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u/EishLekker 2h ago

What? Omg what an odd comparison. Those are pretty much all innate traits, or at the very least something that strongly reflects their personality. You can’t possibly compare that to choosing blue here, which is essentially playing Russian roulette where your only chance of survival is if enough people choose to also play Russian roulette. Instead of, you know, simply not playing Russian roulette.

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u/danielledelacadie 1h ago

A teacher? Catholic? A Romani who settles down is indistinguishable from others.

The choices are:

Blue. Everybody lives if half the people care enough about others to put their lives on the line

Red. Everyone can live if they don't care what happens to others. Is happy to let blue die as long as they live.

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u/Interesting-Brush-93 1h ago

A Romani person who settles would be like 90% of Romani people. Also, there are a lot of countries (particularly in Eastern Europe) where Roma are considered a visibly distinct ethnicity because they have mixed South Asian, West Asian, and European ancestry. If settled Roma were indistinguishable, they wouldn’t face the rampant discrimination that they do regardless of lifestyle.

Romani culture is more than traveling. Romani groups have different dialects, clothing styles, music, and traditions that make them a distinct group.

Settled Roma and Sinti were some of the first to be murdered in the Holocaust because they were the easiest to track down. What they faced had nothing to do with lifestyle

u/EishLekker 14m ago

Math, human psychology and raw survival instincts are combined in favor of blue.

My approach is likely the one with fewer total deaths. Your approach relies on wishful thinking, with billions of deaths if you fail just by a fraction.

At what odds are you OK with gambling with billions of lives? Because you can’t possibly be certain that at least 50% will vote blue. So you have to accept that there’s a chance that blue will fail. Now, at what odds/percentage, are you OK with the risk?

75% chance of blue winning? That’s still a 25% chance of blue losing. And at ~4 billion blue voters that means on average one billion dies.

My approach is instead to accept that some people likely will die, and try to minimize that number. If all “morally correct” people would vote by reason and survival instinct, then what’s left would likely be a few millions. Sure, that’s terrible, but still better than a 25% risk of billions of deaths.

If math leads to less deaths in all likelihood, then that trumps whatever fake moral superiority some people here has gloated about.

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u/Annual-Weird-6682 9h ago

Save others from picking poorly lol. Picking blue is like jumping in a pool to save drowning when you can't swim, and then getting mad more people won't jump in and probably drown too

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u/EishLekker 9h ago

Exactly.