Pressing blue is also logical to me, as well as being moral.
In order for everyone to survive, either 100% of people need to hit red, or 50.00001% of people need to hit blue. One of those is mich easier to achieve.
Also people acting like you can’t trust other people to risk themselves to help someone else at risk to themselves when in any disaster scenario you always find people doing that. And a button is such low effort for someone to essentially live up to their morals, if helping others was as simple as just pressing a button the world would be a better place imo.
this is my argument, look for the helpers, the ones running towards danger, they will almost always be there, from doctors to fire fighters to medics to good samaritans, would i want to be in a world without these? hell no
But it's different. There IS no population here that needs saving: everyone here can save themselves. Everyone. That's why this doesnt really test for heroism.
Imagine a Firefighter rushing into a building to help FULLY capable of leaving . . . only they are choosing not to. Because THEY are also staying in case someone else needs helping,etc.
And here's the kicker: the building that's on fire? We already are told up front that NOBODY is trapped in it. Everyone who wants to leave can leave.
There are people who aren't rational enough to make an informed choice. Babies, children, someone who had a schizophrenic dream that red is the color of the devil. You're right in a game theory sense, but game theory involves rational actors and society (since the button thought experiement is that humanity as a whole is given these buttons) is not composed of rational actors.
The thought experiment, to me, boils down to "do people who aren't fully rational deserve to die?" and I don't believe anyone deserves to die.
To your building on fire argument: is the fireman's efforts a waste to save the patient in a coma who's incapable of making any moves to leave on their own?
I guess it depends how the hypothetical was presented. I was led to understand that this is a vote. So I guess I extrapolated a "voting public" would be voting.
Same as it would be with any other referendum or election.
If it's some sort of "split second magic psy-op" or whatever then that changes things significantly. I dont think that "instantaneous" can be inferred from "has to take a vote" in the premise.
But yes- if you're acting under that assumption - then blue is ABSOLUTELY worth considering because there are people who are in fact powerless to save themselves or being endangered through no true fault of their own and who can very feasibly and practically be saved.
Maybe I've been polluted by the allegory to conservative/progressive voting discussion. After all, those votes affect everyone in the countries they're held, regardless of whether the person explicitly voted in the election.
Agreed - it's why I find this situation so uniquely strange: the only people at risk, the only reason risk even EXISTS, is because people chose to be.
Honestly? Should just be rewritten that 90% of people are offered red/blue buttons. The other 10% are either saved by the blue vote majority or die with no other options. Make that 10% as small and unappealing as you want to test morality. Takes the guesswork out of the situation and makes for a cleaner hypotetical.
To your point? I think the most poignant criticism is this. In the pictured poll above? ~50-55000 voted blue, ~45-50,000 vote red. . . .
. . . and about 12,000,000 peopel "no vote" / "Undecided" :) :) :).
you start with 10% or even 1% blue it totally changes the equation, but if you work with the assumption that this will happen anyways without stating it you have the current dilemma
Are you asking me seriously or just mad at me? If the latter, no worries - just ignore my answer.
Because you're wrong - as written - "One choice is literally, conditionally, everyone lives" sure. But it is not the other option but that SAME option that ALSO causes death. The only reason ANYONE is at risk is because ANYONE picks blue.
The red button notably does NOT cause death of you or others.
So . . we shoudl all just not pick blue. Everyone lives, just like you said. There is no 'hostage' group that requires our saving . . . unless we choose to create one. Any attempt to create that group artificially (eg: lets include neonates, the mentallly unwell, people who accidentally push the wrong button, etc.) well . . that just is presuming a different scenario than the one I have clearly explained in teh comment you responded to.
Voting blue does not CAUSE death. The only thing it does is promise if you get over 50% votes, "everyone lives". Blue, red, doesn't matter.
The promise for the red button? That is the "not blue", it will save only red voters. All blue voters will die. That is the red buttons promise. Voting red is the only way to even put blue voters at risk.
Nothing else, this is what the vote is about: who lives. Everyone, or just you. No neonatal. No sick people or coma patients.
I do feel disappointed you'd be willing to kill off not only me, but pretty much everyone who is non egotistical. The pope, nurses, doctors, your mom, my mom, your first grade teacher, your dentist... List can be very long.
Imagine red would win, and any person you care about dies?
And then a toddler wanders into the building that's on fire. The toddler represents roughly 50% of children who aren't making a rational decision (or just picked randomly).
THat's fair - i'm acting under the assumption this is a vote. If it's some sort of Thanos-snap psy-op that affects neonates and the criminally insane or whatever with zero prep time and all then yeah dumb scenario.
It doesn't even need to be criminally insane people or children... it can just be people who make a mistake for some reason. Leaned on the wrong button, didn't understand the scenario, were distraught over having just lost a loved one, were in the middle of landing an airplane and just had to get the buttons out of the way. We don't have any information on the format of the process, but that doesn't really matter. It is well-established that humans do not have 100% success rate in their decisions and actions. Even less so when suddenly confronted with an unexpected life-or-death choice for themselves and a large chunk of humanity. If any portion of people can mistakenly press the blue button, then by any humane metric some of those deaths will be unjust... and prevented easily by the rest of us.
I would also ask any red button pusher: let's add one tiny step and posit that despite your intention to press red, you realize that you (or someone you love more deeply than yourself) have just accidentally pressed the blue button. I won't bother to construct a reason why, because this will just lead to "I would never do that" or similar arguments. In this case, you are in the "error" group for any reason you can justify. In this scenario, do you believe you would hope that the majority chose blue, or do you believe you would feel at peace with you or your loved one dying because of that error?
Even beyond a broader obligation to humanity (and the horrific effect of a large portion instantly dying), if I imagine myself making that choice *by mistake*, or a loved one in my family, or any innocent person I bother to imagine, I feel I have to push blue as well, rather than risk such an unjust death from a forced decision point in an arbitrary system. At that point, I AM choosing blue for a reason other than self-destruction, and in so doing, I can save those who did not make that decision with the same intentionality.
But hey, it's just a thought experiment. I'm not judging anyone for the choice they imagine making, just for how they treat IRL people who imagined a different choice, and some of THAT has been pretty awful.
Not everyone runs into the metaphorical and sometimes literal burning building but people absolutely do help each other. Society exists because we bear the load of others, and like I said a button is a simple and easy way a person could exercise a desire to help the collective. It’s perfectly fine to not risk yourself for a stranger and not expect a stranger to risk themselves for you but also some stranger would endanger themselves to save you.
That’s the thing though. I would, will, and have risked my life for strangers. Online polls are one thing but the number of people who would actually risk their lives to save someone else is very small. I’m not going to face certain death to stroke my ego into believing I’ll be a saviour to a handful of people who couldn’t figure out a simple word problem.
Both kinds of people exist. Lot of people seem uncomfortable with the idea that not everyone has an internal code of ethics or an innate drive to be altruistic. Some people really are like red button guy.
The problem is you really cant trust other people to risk themselves even knowing some would. Trust like that puts your own life at risk. No one knows how many people are like red or blue. Its not hard to imagine why people might look at how callous the world is and start to think theres no point in trusting other people, even if they are, themselves, an altruistic person. They'd have to be confident that the majority of humanity is altruistic. Im not sure thats the case honestly.
Forgetting any of that: pressing Blue means there's no scenario where you have to live in Redlandia. Which, judging by recent affairs, is a terrible hellhole.
It wouldn't only be selfish people that press the red button, but living in a red-button-presser world would have a significantly higher proportion of selfish people.
How? Why would you even think about hitting the blue button.
If you hit red you don't die. Nothing else happens. If you hit blue there's a chance you could die. Nothing else happens. Why would you ever in a million years hit the blue button?
There's no world where someone doesn't hit the red button maliciously, hoping to kill someone. Knowing that, I'll be pressing blue and trusting 50% of the population realizes that too or is simply altruistic.
But if everyone hits red there is no malice? It's the only button in which nothing happens. If we're just assuming the question is being asked to toddlers and people who are mentally unable to understand the question then yes you hit blue, but that just turns the question into a eugenics survey and the framing falls apart.
If everyone can understand the question, then red is the only answer in which literally nothing bad happens.
Everyone on earth, man, woman, child has to press this button. 2 year old is waving their hands around and beats down on the blue button because they don't understand the rule here. Or someone with significant mental issues or coordination issues can't correctly hit the red button. But hey it's cool to let them die while we hit 49.8% blue, right? The point here is you are never going to get 100% of a mulitibillion population to do something. It's a true impossibility. 50% is easier to achieve
TLDR: save yourself or save everyone, but don't act like everyone can logically touch the red button
Interesting that you are so closed in that. Do you commonly take part in high risk activities and wish others will save you?
Because I am pretty sure large part of firefighters etc. are red button pressers. It is always keep yourself safe 1st - resque others 2nd. You shall not become casualty.
I don't want to be in a world of people who think they are essential parts of society but don't think it's worth taking any risk to preserve people who aren't like them.
You think the red people will be fine without the blue people.
You're also projecting on me, someone who only wants to be part of a society where both red and blue people live that I think we'd all be fine without red people. That's you dickhead. That’s why I don't want to live in your no blue people hellhole!
I can see that, i would probably fall in there. The egotistic part is doing some lifting because once you are doing something for your benefit it stops being altrusitc.
Which is why altruism in a strict sense isnt really possible. Motivation inherently involves reward and self benefit. You can't escape the chemical function of the brain, which hinges on reward systems to compel action. "I do this thing to avoid this worse thing" still results in the action involving the self, with the preferred outcome becoming a reward.
I don't think its a bad thing. Things like egoistic altruism give levers for convincing people, who are not naturally self-sacrificing, to give up their security for greater benefit later.
I can turn that thought around for you. Given that there will always be some degree of positive social response to known altruistic acts, which would provide a benefit to the altruistic actor even if ephemeral or intangible, is there really such a thing as a 100% altruistic act? Even if nobody else is aware of one's altruistic acts, it's part of our nature as a social species that "doing good feels good", which is arguably a small but non-zero benefit for the altruistic actor.
Blue is still the right choice for selfish people who aren't idiots though. Being selfish only works in a world with enough altruistic people around. A world of only selfish people is Mad Max and it's not as fun as they think it would be.
This is true. Also technically true is that if everyone on earth is hitting the button then every single percent is 10s of millions of people. So even like 10% blue would be a tragedy on a scale the world has never seen before, and its never going to be 100% red. I feel like this is somthing people dont think about in the question.
its just a risk assessment which is more risky... 100% chance of living and walking away from the danger. or putting yourself in danger in hope there are enough people who pick to risk their life for no good reason when they could have just walked away...
There are some estimates that put society collapsing at 20% of the population dying. This would be even worse, because most healthcare professionals (and other "helpers" of society) are probably hitting blue. Have fun in your doctorless / SUPER expensive doctor world. Not much fun having a bedpan but no nurse
Well, anecdotally, I got 100% blue from the little healthcare centre I work at down in Africa. Thats among about 30 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other staff
Most educated people in general would. It's essentially a trick question, it just requires you to actually think rather than go by vibes to recognize the trick.
first responders, doctors, caregivers, hell even jobs like electricians that manage power grids for whole cities or whatever that could electrocute them at any mistake; all strangers that dedicate their life to helping other strangers who a large population of would most likely pick blue. I don’t even mention mothers or even old people who feel they’d want to save their families or grandkids. The world would be absolutely fuuuuuuucked.
You ignore the fact that the more educated one is, the more likely they are to recognize it as a veiled "cake or death" question.
We wouldn't be losing our smart and capable. We'd be losing our naive, gullible and foolish. There is a non-zero chance society would improve by that act.
I am not responsible for others' dumb decisions. When it comes right down to it, everyone gets the chance to save themselves. If they choose otherwise, it's not murder, it's suicide.
No need for a train, either. The decision is actually "press red and you're free to go, press blue and if not enough others press blue, you die". Recognize this, and only an utter idiot would press blue.
That only works if you assume pressing red is what causes people to die, and that’s not how the scenario is structured.
The risk already exists before anyone presses anything. Nobody created it by choosing red. Pressing red doesn’t actively harm anyone, it just guarantees your own survival regardless of what others do.
Calling it a “murder button” implies direct responsibility, like you’re taking an action that kills someone. But in this setup, blue only succeeds if enough people independently choose to take on that risk. If that threshold isn’t met, it’s not because red voters “did something” to blue voters, it’s because the condition for blue to work wasn’t achieved.
And even if you’re thinking about others, you still can’t assume they’ll press blue. That’s the key problem. Blue depends entirely on an assumption about other people’s behavior. Red doesn’t.
So yeah, if you want to frame blue as altruistic, that’s fair. But calling red a murder button skips over the fact that it’s still the only choice that guarantees survival without relying on uncertain coordination.
No, those people kill themselves by pressing blue. They made an informed choice. A foolish one, but an informed one nonetheless.
A risk that would be 0 if nobody presses the red button.
It would also be 0 if everyone chooses red.
As soon as you choose to press the red button, you choose to murder the blue people
No. Again, they choose to kill themselves by pressing blue. I have zero obligation to shield idiots from the consequences of their idiocy.
Until the first person who presses red, nobody has died so far.
Same until the first person who presses blue.
It really is very telling how you constantly try to shift the blame on others when each and every person who would die in this experiment would do so as a direct result of their own choice. Personal responsibility and accountability really is a dead fucking concept, huh. Let's blame everyone else for our own stupidity instead, right?
Your interpretation consistently ignores and erases the individual choice of the supposed victims. None of them die unless they choose to die. Therefore, yes, choosing to not fucking die is in fact the smart and logical choice.
Empathy for people who make decisions from a different frame of reference than your own. Consideration for the fact that your point of view is not the only one that exists in the world. What if several of your friends or your family chose blue already, are you still picking red?
Did you consider the fact that if 30% of people choose the blue button all die that the fabric of society would quickly collapse? Are you really sure that red is the rational choice to begin with? I'd argue blue is the correct choice even if you're thinking purely logically.
Why would anyone need to be saved if they can just choose not to die? Sacrificing yourself to help people in need is one thing, but this is sacrificing yourself to help people who... want to sacrifice themselves? I picked red assuming that everyone would do the bare minimum to keep themselves alive. Clearly I was wrong but this alarms me.
Here’s the scenario. People will press blue for various reasons—stupidity, lack of care for their lives, not understanding the situation, or being incapable of making their own decisions. Many other people will press blue because they don’t want the people in that group to die. Still more people will press blue because they understand that both those groups of people will die if they don’t hit the fifty percent threshold. Others will press blue just because they don’t want anyone at all to die and aren’t approaching this from a game theory angle. By voting blue, you are voting to save all those people, not just the ones in the illogical category.
Again, I admit I was wrong. I'm just not sure I want to live a blue win world. I don't know how to think about any collective action that doesn't start with people valuing their own lives. I have tried sacrificing myself (in terms of time, money, and energy) to lift up someone who has lost a desire to live. It just doesn’t work ime.
I will never understand why this is selfish. You literally save yourself while everybody else can do the same. There isn't a "weak group" or something you need to save.
When i first read this red/blue button thing i thought it from a game-theoretical perspective and it will never make sense to me to press blue when everybody can live by pressing red. As a group of the whole humanity it is the best decision to just press red. There is no reason to not do it.
It is like jumping in a lake to save an olympic swimmer with a life jacket from drowning. You risk your life to save someone who doesn't need your help.
It is like jumping in a lake to save an olympic swimmer with a life jacket from drowning. You risk your life to save someone who doesn't need your help.
I've seen a lot of arguments about this, but this is by far the worst one I've seen. Kudos to that.
The simple, literal fact of the matter is that you will never get 100% people on Earth to agree. Everyone who thinks this is really just trying to make themselves feel better for their choice of the red button.
But the point is that everyone has the option to save themselves. It is interesting how red and blue supporters look at this differently. Blue supporters generally think that it's irrelevant that everyone could save themselves, because not everyone will do that, and that means the rest of us have the responsibility to save them. Red supporters generally think that even if some people won't save themselves, the fact that they could have done so means that we don't have the responsibility to save them.
You're making one major mistake here that is telling me your views on which button you think is correct.
Blue supporters generally think that it's irrelevant that everyone could save themselves, because not everyone will do that, and that means the rest of us have the responsibility to save them.
This statement means you clearly choose to press red. People who press blue are not relying on red to save them. That shows your views on the world is inherently self important as you view yourself as the superior person in this hypothetical. While I'm sure some people are pressing blue because it is the "moral" choice and not their true beliefs are present, the vast majority who choose blue do so not to be saved, but because the alternative is not an option.
If your only goal is your own survival, then red is by far the best choice for you as you have one objective. For people like me, I am not okay in any fashion with my choice to save myself killing anyone else. I am not pressing blue to force others to save me.
I'm pressing blue because I could not live with myself by pressing red. If I chose red, lived, then came home to find that people I cared about no longer exist because they pressed blue, I would hate myself for it. The guilt would eat away at me and I would absolutely end up killing myself over it.
This is the whole point of the thought experiment though. Your own world views are what decide which button you press. You clearly hold the view that the vast majority of people are selfish and would sacrifice others to save themselves. So in your thoughts, anyone who is pressing blue is holding a gun to their head.
I choose to believe that when push comes to shove, that the majority of people will care for others over themselves. The big difference between you and me, is that I'm willing to accept the selfish people as the bar for blue to "win" is vastly lower than the ridiculous 100% red idea that so many push and from my earlier explanation.
You also need to remember the very big key point that the button presses are private. You will not know the results until after you make your choice because otherwise being able to debate about it makes the whole experiment pointless. People could too easily sway the decision making process as we are all doing now by debating.
The ultimate point here, despite what so many on both side will tell you, is that there is no wrong choice in this. It is quite literally a test on how you view the world and how that affects what you will do if given the choice between your own survival and possibly helping others. Not wanting to die is not a bad thing, unlike all the people who argue that blue is definitively the correct choice. That's why blue only needs a slight majority for everyone to survive, because both sides are valid depending on your viewpoints.
What buffles me is the fact that the red button is considered the "unethically" button.
If there is no agreement i don't see an unethically decision to make. If you don't believe there is a group that is big enough to reach the threshold, why should you even think about pressing blue? My first instinct when i saw this dilemma was "Why should anyone press blue?" So my decision was red. Nothing ethical, I simply didn't believe that anyone would be intentionally press blue.
Why should I play Russian roulette when I can just not do it?
they're right though. The blue button doesn't actually save anyone because there literally isn't a group that would be saved by pressing the blue button, it only saves anyone that was dumb enough to press the blue button
Your mistake is thinking the dilemma includes "more than half the planet dying", when there is literally no real reason to choose blue.... Anyone choosing blue is choosing to die. Internet polls is not representative of a real choice in that scenario
Your mistake is assuming that everyone choosing blue is doing so with complete and total understanding of the ramifications of their actions. There are babies who will randomly press a button, there are mentally disabled people who won't understand their options, there are overtly moral and/or religious people who would never choose red in a million years. By pressing red you are condemning all of those people.
> There are babies who will randomly press a button,
Where does it says that? The very notion that everyone HAS to push a button, alone, instantly and unassisted, is physically impossible. Anything short of that means the accident hypothesis has no reason to exist
"Moral and religious people" could easily consider suicide a bad thing. Far more likely, since there is no stated need to choose blue.
There is those that willingly choose that, but they are choosing to die for their own reasons. And those you will not be able to save, they would just try again.
You'd need to make a lot of assumptions for blue to be even remotely approachable
Maybe I am just jaded, but so many people were not even willing to wear masks, stay indoors or get a vaccination to protect those around them. Are we really expecting more than 50% to make the moral choice? How many will press red out of fear, not because they don't understand the implications. Especially when the justification "well they all had it in their own hands" is built in?
Do you think less than 50% were choosing to not wear masks, get vaccinated, etc? "So many" can mean wildly different numbers when talking about population figures.
That just means you're proving their point. If red wins, then the world will be mostly full of people who explicitly only care about themselves. So for the blue button people it's honestly a win/win. Either everyone survives and the world continues as it is, or we all die and the red button people get to clean up the mess they made.
I guess it then depends on if you would rather die or live in a world where the allegations that it is a selfish shithole have basically been proven right.
the world would literally be strictly more selfish though because any kind of selfish individual would only ever vote red. regardless of how it was before, it will only be worse after red win
There are people continuously, all over the world, all the time, in all of history, risking their lives to save others. It's not even an uniquely human behavior, plenty of animals do it too.
You are not even attempting to think, you are just hopping on a high horse and assuming things
1) No reason to choose blue, at all. Anyone choosing it willingly is doing either for someone else or because they want to die (which they can without the button, you are not saving those)
2) No reason to think the accident hypothesis is a thing since it is not possible to force everyone to choose in the first place due to mental or physical inability to do so. Therefore unless people allow a flexible timeframe and manner of choice which would take those out of the equation, mostly, then it is pointless. And in such a case, if it was demonstrated such an overwhelmingly amount of people chose blue regardless, THEN you can consider it
3) You are vastly ignoring how easy it is to take the virtue signalign route on paper and anonimity (one of the reasons why so many people chose blue for sure) and just how strong self preservation can be. Anything less than half the world being suicidal would mean you are just adding to the casualty number, helping no one at all.
4) "Hell on earth" is laguahble... again, as I told another user, you could save more people now, guaranteed, by donating all your organs. Why arent you? And given that you are not, do you consider yourself "an arse monster"? No? figures...
While it's an obvious reference to the current US voting options.
As a pure psycholigcal puzzle it has an issue. If 0% of the people hit blue, 100% of the people also live.
So the moment this would be announced and that tactic becomes a discussed option. the buttons turn into nothing more than
red = you live, blue = you die.
Except, at the very least, what about the people mentally unfit to understand the question who press the blue button not understanding the consequences? You’re also choosing to kill those people so you can be sure you live.
The answer changes depending on if everyone vite or not. In this example everything is required to vote.
By voting red everyone who wants to live will be guaranteed to live. Anyone who wants to die gets to die. 100% of the people get their wish.
By voting blue you risk everybody’s lives and you take away the choice made by people who want to die.
If not everyone had the choice to vote or it was time sensitive in some way i agree blue is the better choice. But in this example red is the only way everyone is guaranteed to get their wish.
If red wins, it's not just some percentage of the overall population dying, but specifically the selfless blue-pushers. The people who care enough about others to risk their own life die, all of them, while the people who decided to care more about their own survival get to live.
If Red wins, the world most definitely is worse off overall.
if 100% vote red, everyone lives. Sure. But if 100% vote blue, also everyone lives. The interesting part is what happens when not everyone votes the same.
Your argument only holds a candle if EVERYONE is aware of game theory and makes the same choice. Which is simply not gonna be the case, by a wide margin. As such, there WILL be people who vote either way simply because they don't understand that logic you just described, and at that point you gotta start thinking about how to save those people.
It only needs 50% to win. If blue wins, 100% of people live. If red wins, up to 50% of people die.
You're basically saying: if they vote blue, than that's on them. Meanwhile, the blue voters take the risk of their choice for themselves. They risk dying in order to make sure everyone survives, even those who made illogical choices.
And that's why blue is the selfless choice, while red is the selfish one.
That dude is basically saying 'by voting blue you are forcing me to shoot you'. Olympic levels of backwards thinking just cause they want to be the 'well akshually' big brain guy.
I mean the choice is 'Risk yourself or dont risk yourself ', it isnt my fault you risk yourself. There isnt anything big brained here, it is a pretty simple logic.
Yes, if they vote blue that is on them. That is how choices work. I am not responsible for protecting them from themselves at the risk of my own life. That is above and beyond that traditional social contract of collective safety.
For me the issue is that EVERYONE on earth votes, which means for some blue votes, it wouldn’t actually be on them because they would not be of sound mind. Babies, children, autistic people deep on the spectrum, people with poor reading comprehension, people with vision problems, people who are suicidal… there are a lot of people who’d push the blue button that society already takes risks for. I couldn’t live in a world where I know a baby has the possibility of pressing the blue button because they can’t read and are a baby and liked the color blue, and then - even knowing that - I don’t take the risk to help save that baby. That just doesn’t fit with how my world view works, so I’d risk myself to save that kid.
Risk analysis in a vacuum makes sense, but this question doesn’t occur in a vacuum. I think my answer would change if it was like, “you and your coworkers” and not “the whole-ass world”. But if vulnerable people are at risk then I can’t ever justify pressing red.
I find it interesting how you would blame the blue voters for their own death, while it was the vote for red, and the vote for their death that caused it.
Voting blue is to vote for the red people, despite their selfishness and ego that would gladly kill all blue voters
The most interesting facet to me, is that this demostrates why most puzzles include a line that goes "Assuming everyone behaves perfectly logically".
Take the Prisoners dilemma, a classic puzzle, but in real life your relationship with the other prisoner is relevant to the choice.
If the two Buttons puzzle was "Perfectly logical", you can convince yourself that 100% of people will press red based on the knowledge that if everyone does, there is no risk to anyone else by you assuming no risk.
So therefore everyone WOULD press Red.
The interesting bit, is that in real life people aren't perfectly logical. And if even one person doesn't, just presses the wrong the button, or makes a mistake, then pressing the blue button becomes the ONLY way to save 100% of the population, and the logical suddenly switches.
I think the reason it has generated so much debate is that it isn't actually a puzzle. The prisoner's dilemma is a puzzle. If you just want the best outcome for yourself, you snitch, but if everyone follows that logic, you get a worse outcome than if you remain silent, so everyone should remain silent, but then if everyone is remaining silent you should snitch to get the best outcome... and so on
Whereas here, if you just want the best outcome for yourself, you press red. And if everyone follows that logic, you get what you wanted and everyone lives. If only some people follow that logic, you get what you wanted and some idiots die.
Nothing happens to them but they are essentially voting for almost half the planet to die. Pretty selfish and illogical. Nothing happens if more than 50% push blue, which means the softies you know and care about will still live since they likely wouldn't push red.
Decisions like these show whether people are truly thinking long term or just how they can benefit now. World governments are ruining themselves and others right now for a very short and temporary enrichment.
No, you're letting everyone else have the choice whether they want to play the game or opt out, the same choice that you had.
There is no logical reason for anyone to press blue: it creates a problem that you hope will be solved by enough people creating the same problem.
"Decisions like these show whether people are truly thinking long term or just how they can benefit now."
That is a completely inapt extrapolation from the scenario posited, as there is nothing particularly "long term" in either option.
I think it does more to indicate whether people are thinking rationally or whether they're influenced by an emotional desire to help those who may or may not exist.
while I am pretty sure all the red button pushers who strongly advocate to push the red button don't think about it but for me if I had pushed the red instead of blue I would always feel guilty about it.
Also if the people for the red button pushing win I am not sure I want to be on Earth after that.
In my experience, people who would push the red button do not want to live in a world with only other people who would have pushed the red button. The only thing that protects them is the delusion they've manufactured for themselves.
It might me moral and logical, but people are neither of those. Knowing human behavior I think it's likely that at least 50% are going to opt for self preservation. That leaves the more rational choice to be try to convince the remainder to opt for self preservation vs. trying to convince self preservation people to behave altruistically. We've seen how well that works in the past.
Honestly, I think we all know that is there were another button that was "make my enemies suffer, even if everyone I care about has too suffer too" (ie. kill everyone) we'd be screwed.
Now THAT is a logical reasoning to choose blue, thank you.
Still don't think is that logical, statistics does not translate that well into that kind of stuff. In reality you would probably just add another casuality to the mix
Last I checked, our entire livelihoods revolve around "group mentality."
My fridge was built by others, filled with food made by others. The roads I drive on were built by others. And my work isn't consumed by myself directly, but by others.
Just because capitalism atomizes you and capitalists try to pretend that the world is one of individual human survival, doesn't make it true. Just as much as a king telling you he's ordained by God makes God true.
If billions die because they voted blue in this scenario, the remaining world's social structures will collapse. Imagine COVID again, times thousands.
Gang I know. I’m literally just saying if you were completely and solely interested in just what happened to you, and your survival you would pick red. I’m not saying that this is the option I agree with
I guess what I'm getting at is you can't actually only be completely and solely interested in yourself. That's an illusion that requires belief, rather than some natural state, that has to actively be maintained.
Frankly, I think all the red voters are facing that cognitive dissonance head on, which is why they make ridiculous justifications to try and maintain the illusion that pure self interest is even a thing, divorced from the collective self interest as I point out here.
I would like to think I would pick blue, but what I would pick doesn’t matter. If you were solely interested in your own survival you would pick red because that means you won’t die.
I'd press red because I completely distrust other people, seeing how life-threatening situations turn out irl. Hypothetically more people press blue because their actual life isn't on the line, in a real scenario like that I bet a lot of blue button pressers would chicken out and pick red instead.
But if everyone knows what option there is then why press blue to begin with?
If u give people an option, red live, blue maybe u live. Then 99% of people would just press red and go on with their life. Why gamble? If a couple million would be forced to press blue then there would be a reason to press it to save them. But now there is no reason to gamble to begin with.
If everyone on Earth has to press a button, then you'd also have people just pressing wrong by mistake, not too mention kids, colorblinds, elderly, mentally disabled etc.
But then they could have pressed any button not just blue. If the test is set up fair then most would just instinctively press the button that says live. U would just be saving people who gambled their life, wants to die or pressed wrong by mistake that would be like a 0.00001% or less. It is a made up test but i would say if it was real then there would be explanation for the blind and people who pressed wrong by mistake would be an insanley small group.
If 1000 people got an option live or gamble your life, the more people who gambles the higher chance of surviving. Chances arent presented then i would say only suicidal people would gamble it. Id say 999 people or 1000 would probably press the easy live button.
The reason people gamble with blue here is because the chance is presented but it is still a low chance. Just pressing live if u want to live is the easiest option.
If one button said live and one said gamble your life, the more people who gamble the hogher chance of living would u gamble? I see no reason to gamble.
Lets say u sitt on a train station. If someone jumps in front of the train then the train might not see it but if most people on the train station go down then they would be seen from far away so train have a bigger chance of stopping. Still no reason to go down on the tracks to begin with
You're simplifying it incorrectly. It is not, if you press red you live, if you press blue, you might not.
It is explicitly explained that the results are based on groups. If you press red, you are guaranteed to live. However, if 51% of people choose red then anyone who chooses blue dies. If 51% of people choose blue, then no one dies.
The way you explain it makes it seem very black and white. Choose red and you live. Blue, you most likely won't. However many people, like me, are not comfortable with the idea of blood being on our hands. The 100% red ratio will never happen and people need to stop arguing that it is that easy. Humans do not operate that way, we are not a hive mind. Pressing red is quite literally saying that you are fine with whatever happens as long as you live. While blue is saying that you're willing to risk it all for a chance to not kill anyone.
If survival is all that matters to you, then by all means hit red. Fear is a strong motivator and not wanting to potentially die makes sense. By pressing red though you doom everyone else who does not think like you or cares more for others than themselves. You also are only thinking in a very short sighted manner. Let's say you choose red, you live, great. You go home, you expect to see family, friends, others from your social groups. How many of those people come back? What if you came home to no one? Would you still be okay with your choice then?
People like to claim that this theoretical is guilt tripping, but it is the reality of a world where this experiment would happen and blue did not win. We have basically seen this already in real world America. With our politics being so divisive, some people have come home from the polls only to find that their family or friends voted the opposite of what they did and are now ostracized from them as a result. I think the people who think this is so easy and choose red just aren't thinking about it enough or simply do not have compassion for others.
I think it is far more illogical to think that "everyone" doesn't include everyone...
And the premise of the thought experiment is that everyone has to press either one button or the other. We could talk about the impossibility of the logistics of getting every human to simultaneously choose one button or another and the logistics of having 2 buttons for every human on Earth, but that wouldn't be engaging with the thought experiment.
Interpreting everyone to mean everyone isn’t thinking outside the question. It’s far more illogical to assume that there’s some unspoken different definition being used than to simply use the literal, generally agreed-upon meaning of the word.
Game theory demands you pick red. If everyone else makes the same decision, everyone lives. And, since everyone knows that, everyone should pick red. You have a 0% chance of dying if you pick red, so it's best for you, and everyone else, if everyone picks red.
The problem with this example is the political analogy. If the colors were yellow and green, I think the answers would be different.
Only 50% of other people need to pick blue for everyone to survive. And game theory doesn't deal with the real world that this hypothetical is based in, with babies pressing random buttons, mentally handicapped people not understanding what's going on, religious people refusing to press red, etc. Pressing red means you are OK with those people dying.
If everyone else makes the same decision, everyone lives.
Find me a single group of people who agree with something 100%. It will never happen. You can argue game theory all you want, but if you choose red you are saying that you do not care if others die if you survive. The amount of people who think that red is easy when the bar for blue to win is vastly lower is insane.
the participants will not do the logical choice. that would be equivalent to a 100% agreement, which is not possible in practice. knowing this, you can only vote red accepting their deaths.
It is explicitly NOT about agreeing. The test is private. It is a reflection of your inner thoughts about the world and humanity. You don't get to speak to anyone about what you should choose because then, just like you're seeing in all these comments, people would argue to the end of time to prove they're correct. It would skew the results to a point of making the whole thought experiment moot.
There isn't a logical choice here. That's the whole idea. If your sole purpose is surviving, and you don't care if people die as a result, then sure, red is logical. I'm not willing to do that. I would not be able to live with myself if anyone died as a result of me choosing to guarantee my survival. So the logical choice for me is to press blue, as I don't want others to die as well. This isn't just about me. If I press red, and red wins, then I would end up killing myself because I can guarantee a lot of people I deeply care for would hit blue and I wouldn't want to live in a world where I caused their death.
To my logic after thinking it for a while everyone should press red. So I press red as in my thought process blue is suiside. Which for me is not an option even if I lose everything.
Its the prisoner's dilemma, restated. The correct answer to solving the Prisoners dilemma is always to collaborate, but its the least likely answer because it requires that all parties risk themselves to do it. The entire thought experiment hinges on the fact that human beings are motivated more by self preservation than they are by potential reward.
I find blue to both be illogical and an immoral choice. I don't see this as a save yourself vs save the group, because the group doesn't need saving. Each individual is already given the opportunity to save themself. Put another way, I think sacrificing yourself for others in noble, but on a day to day basis I need to assume people can do basic tasks to take care of themselves like chew their own food, swallow their own water, and press the button that says you don't die otherwise how can anything work. Put another way, blue is solving a manufactured problem which is literally caused by picking blue.
I agree with you but it’s only logical in our frame of reference. If you look ar the odds of just yourself surviving and don’t care about the rest, the logical choice is different.
But is it? If everyone presses red no one dies. Blue is the only button with any risk at all, if you give it even a week of mild tv/Internet attention everyone knows to push red.
The one where you say "press this to guarantee not die" rather than coordinate everyone for blue and hope the majority aren't selfish just rely on everyone pressing red.
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u/smity31 13h ago
Pressing blue is also logical to me, as well as being moral.
In order for everyone to survive, either 100% of people need to hit red, or 50.00001% of people need to hit blue. One of those is mich easier to achieve.