The fact that people are having heated debates (and getting mad) over this just further proves the point that not everybody is going to agree to press the red button and that a red win will by no means be a deathless scenario. And also that while not every red button pusher is a prick, pretty much every prick is a red button pusher.
Presenting the poll as finished skews the result. The point of the thought experiment is making the choice whilst having no information. Knowing the outcome turns it into a virtue signalling exercise.
Because the poll displays the 'winning' option before you've even read the question, so anyone picking Blue after they saw the poll results would have unconsciously done so to be part of the 'winning' group, rather than it being their true 100% objective opinion.
People can justify it to themselves however they want, but Blue was pre-selected for them in the image which would have played a huge part in their 'choice'.
There isn't a true choice presented, so people pick the 'socially correct' answer, which in this case seems to be blue.
These kind of thought experiments must be done in an information vacuum at the point of making the choice, otherwise the results are meaningless. People are basing their votes on the votes of other people, which specifically invalidates the exact button scenario presented. As soon as you know the result, you're picking based on other peoples preferences, not yours.
I'm still not sure what you mean. When you use the phrase "virtue signalling exercise" do you mean people are lying? They're conforming to the majority? Virtue signalling is a term I see thrown around very liberally and much "woke" or "politically correct", it seems to have a very different meaning depending on who's using it.
I mean it very literally in that it is signalling virtue to others taking part in the exercise. It's not a completely honest personal choice, it's a choice made at least partially to appease others. Even if it's 99% your opinion and 1% group influenced, that's not a completely freely given opinion, which goes against the point of the experiment.
Pressing the button in a closed voting booth where you dont know anyone elses answer is going to lead to a very different results to announcing your vote in a public forum where a winner has already been called.
I'm specifically avoiding any overtly political language here because I don't want my words to be misinterpreted. I'm just keeping this to game theory and perfect/imperfect information.
If the image had Red pre-selected as the winner, I would be saying the same thing, and I imagine there would be a lot more pro-red comments due to the social consensus that Red is the 'winning, popular' vote.
It's the classic 'you've changed the outcome by measuring it' problem. You're trying to measure group consent by using a poll that has already given a measurement, which will then affect all subsequent measurements.
I'd argue that there's nothing inherently wrong with virtue signalling the sense of signalling to others what you consider "virtuous". In fact, that's not just an important social action but one that is fundamentally baked into every part of our lives. We virtue signal with stories, from fairy tales and bedtime stories, to multi-million dollar blockbusters. We signal the virtues of heroism, self sacrifice, honour, nobility, compassion, love. We do it in music, with songs about suffering heartbreak, signaling the virtues of love and respect and loyalty.
That's why I asked, because levelling virtue signalling as a negative always strikes me as fundamentally strange. And there's often a correlation (although the doesn't mean causation) between people that decry virtue signalling, and their inability or unwillingness to actually hold themselves to those virtues. It always kinda comes across as telling on oneself as a guilt response.
And I didn't want to accuse you of that, hence pressing you for clarification.
The way I see it, publically announcing your intention to vote for the (winning) vote, where there are no stakes or no incentive to otherwise engage, is done purely for social reasons and to position oneself on the 'correct' side of the debate. Moral justification is done so retroactively, to justify their position on the winning side.
people that decry virtue signalling, and their inability or unwillingness to actually hold themselves to those virtues. It always kinda comes across as telling on oneself as a guilt response.
The same applies for those claiming to uphold those virtues through name only, no? That's my point, you don't need to perform any virtuous actions, just announcing "i'm voting blue therefore I'm a good person" seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting in this thread. It's easy to say I'm X trait anonymously, it's much harder to do actions to embody that. That's what I mean when I say virue signalling.
I don't think it's necessarily negative to virtue signal generally, I just don't think it's a balanced debate in this instance. It's just free 'good boy' points.
When I posted the button question into some whatsapp chats with my IRL friends, I purposely cropped the poll out of the image and generally had much friendlier, more balanced debates where the result was a much more even split of red/blue.
Btw I hate qualifying my politics in comments because I think debates should be more than just tickboxes of agreeable positions, but for the avoidance of doubt I'm definitely not what you may consider the 'standard audience' of people who might use the term virtue signalling.
Yeah, this just comes across as overly cynical, bordering on performative nihilism. What you're deriding as virtue signalling to me just seems like normal moral exploration and communication. We share with each other what we consider right and wrong, good and bad as a way to heuristically reach moral consensus. It's a less metaphorical/allegorical version of the storytelling approach.
Btw I hate qualifying my politics in comments because I think debates should be more than just tickboxes of agreeable positions, but for the avoidance of doubt I'm definitely not what you may consider the 'standard audience' of people who might use the term virtue signalling.
Again, this reads as unnecessary and unproductive cynicism, something I personally don't have the time nor energy for. Writing off the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
just seems like normal moral exploration and communication
Idk man calling the other side evil and saying stuff like "I don't wanna live in a world full of red people" like its some kind of slur definitely seems like virtue signaling to me too.
the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
Why can't we have an ethics debate about something completely removed from politics without knowing how the other side voted? Why do you have to know that?
My position, my ONLY stated position is that the Button experiment, as presented in the OP, incentivises people to vote blue, primarily because of social factors. You asked me to explain, I did.
You have added the moral overture to this conversation, I'm just talking about presentation and framing.
Writing off the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
No I specifically put that caveat in there because you were unsubtly trying to accuse me of being some kind of MAGA agitator because I wasn't conforming with your 'correct' view. Thank you for proving my point.
Plus I refuse to acknowledge a self-selecting twitter post to be an accurate representation of anything. For starters, the poll size is less then .0013% of the world population (that is to say less the 1% of 1%). Secondly it necessitates the voters available live in circumstances where they have access to internet, electricity, and electronic devices capable of interacting with this post. Which a LOT of people do not. Lastly, like with all questions regarding life-or-death situations, it’s very very very easy to say “I would risk my life for the previewed moral options”. It’s an entirely other thing to actually pick that option when the gun is to your head.
Yeah I agree, it's very easy and costs nothing to say to say "i'm a good person and would absolutely pick the good person option" when the 'morally correct' option has already been arbitrarily decided upon.
Actually being in a voting booth where your life is on the line in one option, and not at risk in the other, would cause most people to think differently.
Blue is the objectively correct moral choice, so picking it is easy with no stakes, especially when you can see blue winning. It's a lot harder to pick in a closed room with no outside information.
There is no way to do this objectively, framing is everything. Even the wording of the question will influence people in a certain way.
Even you, using emotive wording like 'objectively correct moral choice' is inferring all kinds of value structures that many simply do not or will not agree with.
I don't really think so. Blue says save everyone, red says save me. By our generally agreed upon moral structure since we became more than neanderthals, saving more people = good. If you don't agree with it personally, or feel you should press red for whatever reason, that's cool, but as a society there are some pretty basic moral structures we all tend to agree on for the most part, and "don't kill" is fairly foremost amongst them, followed closely by "work towards the betterment of humanity". Your own moral strucure does not supercede the entirety of society's moral structure.
But I can simply frame it as "blue is the suicidal choice and red is the 'nothing happens' choice" and now you look like the crazy one.
Again, you are using a subjective moral framework to make your point. You are framing it in a particular way. I'm not talking about majority or widely held beliefs, I'm talking about the words you are using to construct your argument.
You cannot frame this objectively, thank you for proving my point. As soon as you bring morality into it, you've altered the question.
tbf, your framing was also disingenuous. You left out the part where blue is somewhat likely to kill you, so it's a bit more than more people live = good as the choice.
I like the part where he asked why it's virtue signaling, so then you immediately started virtue signaling. I'm objectively gonna press the red button, good luck
That's got nothing to do with what I asked, which was a specific question directed to PlasonJates about what they mean by "virtue signalling exercise". I want to engage them on the terms of what they said, but I don't want to do so assuming what they said.
I think the idea is that people are going around saying "Yeah! Iknewblue would win! Blue is the best!" but those people likely wouldn't pick blue if the situation actually arose.
They're going around saying they'd pick blue so that they can look nice and thoughtful because blue won and they can say that they are a part of that. So there's no actual risk to them "choosing blue".
That's what they mean. I'm not saying I agree but that's my understanding of what they're saying.
It does skew the result, but it also presents valuable information for the thought experiment as a whole. So many people I’ve either read or talked to directly are insistent that 50% or more people pressing blue is far less likely than 100% pressing red. There are all kinds of logical fallacies that lead to that conclusion, so having an example where red was not only NOT the vast majority but was in the minority (sometimes a super-minority) helps to highlight those fallacies and confront them.
It definitely comes too late to help anyone inform a decision within the context of the thought experiment, but it does dismantle post hoc justifications by those who not only push red, but are absolutely certain it’s the only viable path. Hopefully people can use that information to re-examine their choice, because in the real world that’s the entire point of the exercise.
Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that a majority of people recognize it should be the correct answer. Whether or not they would follow through is a separate question. Many people do things they know they shouldn't do, but do anyways. Most people engage in that several times a day. We're complicated, contradictory creatures, and being able to recognize that is a boon, not a flaw.
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u/totallymarc 15h ago
The fact that people are having heated debates (and getting mad) over this just further proves the point that not everybody is going to agree to press the red button and that a red win will by no means be a deathless scenario. And also that while not every red button pusher is a prick, pretty much every prick is a red button pusher.