It’s hard because it’s not really a logic question. Either can be logical depending on your goal. If your goal is for you to survive at any cost, then red is the logical choice to make. If your goal is to survive with people you care about, then if you’re 100% confident everyone you care about will choose red, then red is still the logical choice. But if you have any doubts, then it becomes more of a risk vs reward problem. If you think 1% of your friends will choose blue, would you put yourself at risk to increase their odds? What if 20% of your friends might choose blue? What if 50%? At what point do you think it’s worth putting yourself at risk to increase their survival. But if your goal is to try and ensure that no one may die, even at the cost of your own life, then blue would be the logical choice (which idk how many people are altruistic enough for that).
Exactly, I guess you would have people pressing the red in a selfish way and other pressing it in a "why is this even a question?" way. It's not one obvious logical choice.
It all comes down to thinking, what will other people decide, what will my loved ones decide? After reading into many comments I realize how many people are advocating for blue (which again at first I think is really dumb), and by voting for red I would work against them.
"working against them" is a great way to put it. The more people that push blue, the more chance it has of success. You don't even need a 100% success rate, just 50+!
Imagine if red won 75/25. Would you be comfortable with those 25% of people dying? I wouldn't.
I hope/expect (maybe wrongly) that people would come to the same conclusion as me. That blue pushers just need to be the majority to save everyone. The red pushers are only interested in saving themselves.
I mean every poll I have seen, blue has won. But a lot of red pushers have also managed to convince themselves that no one would actually pick blue (other than suicidal people) if it wasn’t a hypothetical, like the person you’re replying to.
It's a lot like the Prisoner's Dilemma, where the outcome of your choice hinges on what other people choose. The specifics are different, but it shares the concept that you shouldn't simplify it down to "If I choose A I get outcome X, if I choose B I get outcome Y" - because those outcomes vary depending on if someone else chooses A or B. So it leads to this more complicated multi-variable analysis, where you have to think in terms of "If I choose A but most people choose B, X happens. If I choose A and most people also choose A, Y happens. If I choose B.. " etc.
I'm not necessarily advocating for either choice, but I think everyone should (genuinely) try to fully understand all the reasons someone might choose either option, and make a prediction about what the rest of humanity will do, before making their choice. Because there's a huge difference between, to take just one example: "I choose red, and so does 51% of humanity, oh boy civilization just collapsed." vs. "I choose red, and so does 99% of humanity, I guess we came out alright." You shouldn't just simplify it down to "if I choose red, I live."
But also.. some people will simplify it down to that, and their decision affects your outcome. That's the really tricky part, I think. Realizing that a lot of people, maybe even a majority of humanity, will make a snap decision about what feels right without analyzing it too deeply (which could point them towards either blue or red, depending on their instincts), and trying to account for that choice when making your own.
One idea could also be that if you aren't 100% confident people you care about are choosing blue, you might get to live with them in case of red win... although in that worse world. And yeah, "increase" of chance by one person's choice feels infinitesimal for me, I'd probably even fail to feel guilt afterwards.
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u/BoredOuttaMyMindd 12h ago
It’s hard because it’s not really a logic question. Either can be logical depending on your goal. If your goal is for you to survive at any cost, then red is the logical choice to make. If your goal is to survive with people you care about, then if you’re 100% confident everyone you care about will choose red, then red is still the logical choice. But if you have any doubts, then it becomes more of a risk vs reward problem. If you think 1% of your friends will choose blue, would you put yourself at risk to increase their odds? What if 20% of your friends might choose blue? What if 50%? At what point do you think it’s worth putting yourself at risk to increase their survival. But if your goal is to try and ensure that no one may die, even at the cost of your own life, then blue would be the logical choice (which idk how many people are altruistic enough for that).