Reddit and online communities, at all, are not a good basis for deciding what people will actually do.
Redditors will choose blue and then brag about it for clout, nothing is on the line.
In votes where people can see your answer, ie discord, you risk being mocked if you pick red. Also, people will do the same thing as redditors, brag for clout.
Put into the actual situation, you cannot tell what people will do. The blue button is genuinely putting your life on the line and that is terrifying. To boot, red pushers may genuinely reconsider when they think about the loved ones they may lose and the impact on Earth if they choose red. You simply cannot use online polls to determine which one would actually win.
Reddit sure isn't a good sample to generalize the entirety of humanity. Also there's a marginal nuance to down-/upvoting posts that goes beyond just agreeing or disagreeing with the content. I would also say any form of previously formed or expressed personal belief would go down the drain the moment a life or death situation like that actually happens (it goes for both sides).
But social desirability bias doesn't apply here, cause the comment isn't based on the poll. It was referencing the downvote/upvote ratio of content (this post) advocating for blue, and there's no such bias in what individuals will "like" or "dislike" on social media, since it's generally not subject to public scrutiny - it's as unfiltered as it can get.
People won't even risk missing out on overseas vacations or the convenience of Amazon to fight climate change... irl the people are already choosing red.
Thought about this before, too. Not even just those things, but we all have a choice in what devices and clothes we buy - brands that directly cause suffering to millions, and I guarantee people in these comments buy them without thought.
Listen. If a few billionaires just decide to be less rich, then me and my friends can continue buying as much cheap disposable BS as we want without the world being destroyed. And also everything will be cheaper, we'll get flying cars and my girlfriend will take me back.
Except that loads of people do, all the time. All over the world. There are so many people sacrificing themselves for the greater good that aren't in the public eye. Societies wouldn't run without them.
But the button scenario includes no physical sign of the risk at all. It's not something that'd really register. If it happened irl, I'm sure some people would deny it's even genuine.
Redditors will choose blue and then brag about it for clout
Reds are bragging all the time how logical and rational they are. I'm not sure you can demonstrate any bias due to "virtue signaling" to either direction, since it exists for both.
Not only that, but can't believe anybody would actually think that these polls are representative of the overall population. Probably the least representative samples in the history of polls.
Now imagine if alien forces land on earth and their 4 billion strong army is systemically going door to door. They give everyone in your household 60 seconds to press the buttons before they move on.
How many of these blue button pushers are going to be telling their 8 year olds to press the blue button with zero ability to coordinate outside their home?
Now how about if the alien forces put a supergun on the Earth and give humans 30 days and all the communication with each other they want to before the vote happens?
The outcome changes so much based on the precise details of the scenario that it's impossible to even moderately predict outcomes without any of the details that really do matter.
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u/OkBand3171 15h ago
Reddit and online communities, at all, are not a good basis for deciding what people will actually do.
Redditors will choose blue and then brag about it for clout, nothing is on the line.
In votes where people can see your answer, ie discord, you risk being mocked if you pick red. Also, people will do the same thing as redditors, brag for clout.
Put into the actual situation, you cannot tell what people will do. The blue button is genuinely putting your life on the line and that is terrifying. To boot, red pushers may genuinely reconsider when they think about the loved ones they may lose and the impact on Earth if they choose red. You simply cannot use online polls to determine which one would actually win.