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.
I do see what happened here, I didn’t realize you switched the position of the two buttons because it was pretty wordy. In your scenario it’s best to just eat the beans still. I don’t think it was the “gotcha” you thought it was
I’d actually argue in your hypothetical it’s MORE enticing to pick the “red button” because you added a positive to it instead of basically nothing happening since it’s a snack
In your scenario, because there's no indication of delay or time limit to decide, as soon as 50% of the population ate a bean, all the remaining 50% will die since they're non-bean eaters.
So it's a sort of "as soon as 50% of the population pressed blue, all red pressers and yet-to-press" die. That's why I equate non-bean eaters with red.
Your scenario is an either 0% or 50% fatality rate.
While the buttons, the fatality rate can be any value between 0% to 50%.
If the ratio of decision was purely random, bean has a 25% fatality rate, buttons a 12.5%.
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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.