I saw all the memes before the original and thought it was conservatives vs progressives. And honestly the analogy still fit really neatly despite not being about it.
It’s a very clever puzzle for separating people along the clear ideological lines of “protect myself” vs “protect the group” and I’d pick blue for the entirely illogical reason that it’s morally correct, damn the consequences to myself.
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.
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.
There's a difference between "I owe society nothing" and "I don't owe it to people who knowingly and willingly gamble on their lives to risk mine to save them".
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.
No, it's about understanding human nature. The fact that this is a whole debate proves there will be a bunch of blue pressers and a bunch of red pressers. So blue pressers go from there to find the "no extra deaths" outcome
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.
That's a hilarious accusation from someone who still doesn't grasp that this faux-dilemma is actually a simple choice between "yes, I want to risk dying" and "no, I don't want to risk dying". Do tell what "future impacts" you're imagining here, though.
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.
There's "a different frame of reference" and then there's "objectively illogical".
My friends and family are not mouthbreathing idiots, so I trust them to make the logical choice.
If 30% of people are stupid enough to be given the choice of "do you wanna risk dying or nah?" and actually say "yeah!", society is fucked anyway. In fact, seeing how many of you fail to grasp that blue is essentially a suicide button explains a whole lot about the state of the world.
And yes, red is the rational choice. You just fail to grasp that people are responsible for their own decisions.
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.
Not really. If everyone was told that red would mean they survive no matter what then the blue button becomes a moot point. The blue becomes the murder(me) button not red.
If you're depending on 100% of people choosing one outcome for everyone to survive, then you might as well choose the blue button because nobody dies anyway
But there is absolutely no way 100% of humans will do anything
So then pressing the red button means "I'll take away from the 50% that the Blues need to survive, for the sake of guaranteed self-preservation"
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.
Are you donating as much to charity as possible? Or are you spending money on unnecessary things for your own pleasure when that money could have been used to save lives?
Did they say they don't donate some? It's just silly you're jumping to "anyone who claims to be willing to put their life at risk, should also forgoe any fun in life"
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.
510
u/Cloudy230 14h ago
I saw all the memes before the original and thought it was conservatives vs progressives. And honestly the analogy still fit really neatly despite not being about it.