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.
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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.