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If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

• alienbaby 5mo ago
  You might die if you press blue. Ok.. don't press blue.
• giardini 5mo ago
  Silly. Everyone will press the red button and everyone will survive.
  • zahlman 5mo ago
    Yes, that's (overly reductively stated) the point of TFA. Except for the part where it was highlighting a survey result to the contrary, and explaining why this is irrational and doesn't likely reflect what people would actually do. The idea behind claiming you'd choose the blue button is to appear noble and altruistic, I suppose; but I struggle to even understand that instinct. Risking one's own life to possibly save the lives of others who are demonstrably completely capable of saving themselves doesn't strike me as particularly noble.
    • deleted 5mo ago
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    • empthought 5mo ago
      > this is irrational and doesn’t likely reflect what people would actually do People are irrational. I guarantee it’s likely that a lot of people would actually do it. > The idea behind claiming you’d choose the blue button is to appear noble and altruistic. Not at all. If the majority of people can’t be bothered to press the button that says “nobody dies as long as half of the other people say nobody dies” rather than “you don’t die,” I’m happier not being around. It’s purely selfish and blue is a win-win.
      • zahlman 5mo ago
        > If the majority of people can’t be bothered to press the button It is not a matter of "can't be bothered". This is blatantly dishonest framing. > It’s purely selfish It costs nobody else anything. Literally all they have to do is also push red. I said the idea is to appear noble and altruistic. Writing off alternative options as "selfish" is, inherently, doing exactly that.
        • empthought 5mo ago
          You didn’t even bother reading what I wrote. For me, blue is the purely selfish choice. Because I have no interest in living in a world where red wins a majority on this one. It’s not even a tough call.
          • zahlman 5mo ago
            You aren't interested in living in a world where people are generally unwilling to risk their lives for no benefit beyond the possibility of contributing to saving the lives of people who don't need saving (as they can trivially save themselves)?
            • empthought 5mo ago
              Of course not.
              • zahlman 5mo ago
                What would you do if you found out that this world were such a world? Because I sincerely think it is such a world, no matter what a Twitter poll says.
                • empthought 5mo ago
                  The only way to find out would be for this thought experiment to actually occur, in which case I would do nothing, because I would be dead.
    • dodu_ 5mo ago
      Either I live with a restored faith in humanity, or I die and it's none of my concern.
  • deleted 5mo ago
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  • Jordan-117 5mo ago
    >Everyone will not just. If your solution to some problem relies on "If everyone would just..." then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they're not going to start now.
  • adverbly 5mo ago
    Good luck getting your 5 month old daughter to pick red when her favorite color is blue.
• rayiner 5mo ago
  I like this framing: > Every person in the world is provided a gun. If a person wants to, they can shoot themselves in the head. However, these guns are special so that if more than 50% people in the world shoot themselves in the head, the guns will all jam and everyone will survive. Or, the person can choose to set the gun down and walk away.
  • shiandow 5mo ago
    What makes this framing especially interesting is that it suddenly makes perfect sense to just lay down the gun. Until you remember the millions of children in the exact same scenario.
    • denkmoon 5mo ago
      I hope most children know that they shouldn't shoot themselves in the head.
  • morningsam 5mo ago
    This sounds like it only changes the framing, but in reality it would lead to completely different behavior, so the "leave the gun alone" option would likely lead to far fewer deaths than the red button option, simply by virtue of organisms including humans being generally biased in favor of "do nothing" (= leave the gun alone). You could do both experiments with dogs instead of humans and roughly 100% of dogs wouldn't manage to shoot themselves with the gun, whereas if you forced them to press one of the two buttons (e.g. keeping them in a room until they press one by chance), roughly 50% would press the red one. So the two experiments differ strongly w/r/t to how likely it is for a "non-thinking" organism to choose each option.
  • adverbly 5mo ago
    Thats not the same at all though? A baby or toddler is way less likely to randomly shoot themselves in the head of given a gun than they are to do nothing or shoot something else. The 2 buttons made it 50/50. The odds of random death are what is causing people to vote blue, and you just massively changed them in your thought experiment...
• deleted 5mo ago
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• eesmith 5mo ago
  These sorts of problems assume that actions have no consequences beyond the immediate decision. These tests, run in places which have higher long-term expectation of social connections, give different results than in the US. In the world where <50% press blue, you know that everyone alive (the red pushers) would save themselves rather than take a risk helping you or those who aren't clever at game theory problems. I don't want to live in that world, so blue for me. And it's the fault of everyone who pressed red should I die.
  • rayiner 5mo ago
    That knowledge isn't a "consequence" of the game. It's a symptom of a fact that's knowable a priori. Running the game doesn't make it true; running the game merely reveals something that was already true.
  • bennettnate5 5mo ago
    This doesn't seem to be a game that tries to be particularly clever--one button could kill you, the other certainly won't. Trusting that nearly everyone will avoid pressing the button that could kill them seems a reasonable assumption, and it's not necessarily an indication of a lack of altruism.
    • empthought 5mo ago
      One button could kill you — if and only if enough people press the other button. The other button certainly won’t kill you, but will kill everyone who pressed the first button — if and only if enough people besides you press it.
    • eesmith 5mo ago
      One button means you almost certainly contributed to homicide, since the odds of everyone pressing red is essentially 0%. The other one does not contribute to homicide. The right answer, by the way, is to not press either button. "The only winning move is not to play."
      • 5mo ago
• edu 5mo ago
  So a 100% presses red and everyone survives too.
  • bialpio 5mo ago
    Are you also forcing children to press a button or not? Because the answer to this question changes things *a lot*.
    • blululu 5mo ago
      What if you entertain the variant of the question where a percentage of red votes die in the event of a blue win? It makes pressing red less advantageous, but also it totally changes the moral balance depending on the percentage.
      • enoint 5mo ago
        I think this is already baked in. A world of red pressers must know they’ll adapt to a shortage of things produced by blue pressers. Many red pressers won’t survive.
    • wavemode 5mo ago
      Yes the inclusion of children does change things, in that it makes choosing red even more obvious. The problem is posed to the world. You have children, and they ask you what they should do. You tell them to pick red because you're their parent you can't bring yourself to have them risk their lives for some noble purpose. According to blue buttoners, this parent is an evil person, right?
      • bialpio 5mo ago
        Good luck forcing a child to actually press the red button though. Especially a small child.
  • renticulous 5mo ago
    Yup there are multiple ways to right answer and people are arguing why isnt the most ethical selfless version winning. Lol
• rbren 5mo ago
  Considerations: * many people (at least toddlers, people with dementia) are going to press blue roughly by accident. See the lizardman constant * other people will not want to be responsible for any deaths and will press blue out of a sense of moral imperative * many other people are going to take this into account and vote blue out of hopes we can save everyone You should vote blue.
  • blululu 5mo ago
    The first point is interesting. You could fork the question over this and have a few variants: 1.) The pure form where the button presses and restricted to legal agents (i.e. people with credible legal standing over their choices). 2.) The mixed form with the caveat listed here inclusive of all humans whether they are even physically capable of pushing a button. 3.) you could also go for a more expansive scenario that takes 2 to the extreme and includes animals as well. 1.) gets to the game theoretic form of the question. 2 muddies things, and 3 sets up a case for blue since the non agentic voters asymptote to 50-50 and a slim edge is morally preferable to killing half.
    • lukasgelbmann 5mo ago
      With 3, especially if the animals outnumber humans, you’d first want to do some research into animal psychology to see whether red or blue has an edge for animals.
    • ItsMonkk 5mo ago
      You don't even have to go that far from the original question. If instead of the entire world being a single game, if you have hundreds of millions of sub-games where 9 random people are placed within, what should you do? Surely some of those groups are going to be filled with selfish red pickers. Should the kind coordinating players still go blue? All the red pickers are going to lie that blue is sensible. I suspect that more coordinators will die in this way than the always blue pickers if every coordinating player went red. So now the full-world version only has the law of large numbers on their side, but they have no way of knowing just what percentage of the population is a selfish red picker. Going for team blue is the much riskier option that can yield catastrophe.
• Aperocky 5mo ago
  Immediate reaction after cursory read through: A fake scenario against virtue signaling feels like virtue signaling itself.
• wavemode 5mo ago
  This is like a prisoner's dilemma, but with no payoff for the risky option. In a prisoner's dilemma, you can choose a risky option (stay quiet), but the potential reward is that if the other prisoner also stays quiet then you both go completely free. But if one prisoner instead speaks up and accuses the other prisoner, the accuser gets a short sentence and the one who stayed quiet gets a max sentence. But in this scenario, there's no payoff whatsoever for the risky option (pressing the blue button). 100% of people choosing blue and 100% of people choosing red lead to the exact same outcome. So why would it ever be rational to choose blue? This "dilemma" would make more sense if getting over the 50% blue threshold caused some additional positive outcome, like world peace or a cure for cancer.
  • vmg12 5mo ago
    The dilemma is that a lot of people will press blue so if red gets above 50% a large number of selfless but not game-theory aware people will die.
    • chias 5mo ago
      but why would anybody choose blue? there is no moral benefit to doing so. If you altered the game to say that only some fraction of the population get the choice, and everyone who doesn't get the choice is assumed blue (or, is killed if less than 50% of voters choose blue) then there's some question to be explored here. But at it stands there is literally no reason to choose blue.
      • imoverclocked 5mo ago
        There will always be someone who chooses blue. Choosing red is choosing to kill them.
        • sunrunner 5mo ago
          Choosing red is choosing to survive knowing that there will always be people who choose blue, potentially an amount that would mean you don't survive if you didn't take explicit action against it.
• margalabargala 5mo ago
  Another way to frame the question is "how much effort should society as a whole put into saving the lives of individuals who endanger no one but themselves through unnecessary dangerous choices?" I feel like it's fine that wingsuiting off a mountain is legal. I don't feel a need to beg some stranger not to do it. Both myself and that stranger are perfectly aware there's a decent chance their choice will result in their death.
• stego-tech 5mo ago
  I honestly kind of hate these thought problems, because they attempt to distill a complex system into a single, momentary choice, and then maximize the outcome somehow. As if it’s the decision that somehow matters, as opposed to the systemic dysfunction and incentives that mandated the decision in the first place. I’m an increasingly reluctant blue pusher, because I am aware that societal incentives reward individual greed when traded against societal harms; that is, those who sacrifice others are rewarded proportionate to the amount of others they sacrificed. I want to cooperate, because historically that has been the source of our collective survival and growth as a species; however, at this specific moment in time, I would be greatly rewarded if I harmed as many people as possible, as thoroughly as possible, to enrich myself. If all you’re looking at is the binary decision, red makes sense. Except taken in the context of the wider whole, red pushers should be rightly vilified and excommunicated for prioritizing their own survival over the survival of the whole.
• gnfargbl 5mo ago
  Is there actually a real-world version of this game, that the author is alluding to buy not explicitly mentioning? Otherwise all I'm taking away from this article is that people don't think deeply about survey questions before answering them.
  • hx8 5mo ago
    This is a purely theoretical concept, but ties nicely into existing game-theory which has real world implications.
  • gwbas1c 5mo ago
    Feels like spending more money on environmentally-friendly technology.
  • userbinator 5mo ago
    Thinly veiled political post.
    • gnfargbl 5mo ago
      As a political post the formulation in the article is crass in the extreme, misrepresenting both the motivations of red and blue voters and also the and the long-term consequences of those parties' policies. There's no progress to be made in a conversation held so close to the surface.
      • swed420 5mo ago
        It's very inaccurate/loaded as a political post, but the choice of colors makes the intent fairly obvious. Politically speaking, in the US where everything is rigged by corporate media and a uniparty of capital interests with red/blue facades (where blue manufactures consent for red every step of the way), the only winning move is to not play.
        • krackers 5mo ago
          >the only winning move is to not play Interestingly there are variants of the question where "no one pushes any button" should also be a "winning condition". The original problem states "if less than 50% of people press the blue button only people who push red survive" which rules this out, but it could be changed to "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then only red pushers survive" (allowing for people to opt to be a non-pusher). Or it could be "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then only blue pushers die" (with the non-pushers also being spared). I think the latter is more interesting since now there's a moral consequence to voting vs abstaining. Or you could lean into the political framing. I bet if the vote were retaken with question phrased as "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then people who pressed blue die", you might end up with some switchers who vote purely out of spite. Or maybe that framing makes it feel like voting red has a more significant moral consequence (actively condemning people to death) that the original question doesn't, so it results in more people pressing blue. You could even add in a penalty if you press a button but are a non-majority, but then that's just the prisoners dilemma.
• rbren 5mo ago
  Some people seem to be convinced by logical reframings, like "if you jump into a woodchipper you die, but if 50% of people jump into the woodchipper they all survive" A logical reframing is not equivalent though! We know everyone else gets the same frame, and most of the problem is predicting what other people will do when presented with this particular two-button frame.
• empthought 5mo ago
  These types of analyses always treat voting red and ending up in the majority as preferable to voting blue and ending up in the minority. I don’t think that assumption is universally valid. In the first case you contend with living in a world after a catastrophic population loss — likely including at least some of your loved ones — knowing that had some of you and your fellow survivors voted differently, nothing bad would have happened. In the second case, you don’t care at all. Because you’re dead.
• hx8 5mo ago
  Hello, Blue Presser here. We learn something about humanity based on the results of the poll. It's naive to think that 100% of people will press the red button. Some people will die if red wins. I think pressing red is selfish and violent, in that it can result in the death of human life by their own unwillingness to cooperate. If we are not willing to work together in order to protect each other then I have a very pessimistic long-term view of our future. If every blue-presser dies, then our average cooperation level will only decrease, and the population will be over-saturated with defectors. I'd rather just go out now then deal the those consequences.
  • mahkoh 5mo ago
    You're a single parent. Through divine intervention you know that your 5 year old child has already pressed the red button. Are you going to press the blue button and risk your child becoming an orphan in a selfish and violent world? Or do you sacrifice the lives of billions to save your child from this inconvenience?
    • empthought 5mo ago
      That’s not the thought experiment.
      • Gloomily3819 5mo ago
        There can be only one thought experiment now? lmao
        • empthought 5mo ago
          You can make up different ones that no one cares about if you like. This thread is about a particular thought experiment that is nothing like the one you posted.
  • owenpalmer 5mo ago
    > It's naive to think that 100% of people will press the red button. Those who press the blue button are trying to save those who press the blue button. If they weren't trying to save each other, they wouldn't have to.
• tigerlily 5mo ago
  I imagine this making more sense if this were framed with the backdrop of living in an authoritarian state, with progressively worsening social conditions. You can choose to protest (blue button) and if over some threshold of people then conditions reset. Otherwise protestors are killed off, and red buttoners survive, but with increased oppression. Sorry for bringing the mood down with this topic. I'll go back to playing Papers Please! now.
  • summa_tech 5mo ago
    I'm sorry to bring the mood down somewhat further. But a lot of the successful protests just end up re-rolling the dice instead of improving the conditions, and you actually end up possibly worse off than before. "More like, under new management", as the meme goes. It takes a period of worldwide prosperity and, perhaps, substantial foreign entanglement to allow revolutions / coups to actually improve the situation of people living through them.
• onurcel 5mo ago
  That’s basically why dictatorships are so hard to overthrow. In real life the game is slightly different, if you choose red (don’t protest) you get a negative outcome. But if you choose blue (protest) you risk being jailed (a very negative outcome) unless enough people also choose blue, in which case the outcome can turn highly positive. That’s why dictators try to limit protests, not just because of the protests themselves but because they don’t want people to know how many others are willing to protest.
  • pessimizer 5mo ago
    That doesn't hold up in comparison to this experiment, in which the best outcome from pressing the blue button is that you're rewarded in exactly the same way as if you had pushed the red button. If the choice is between: a) continuing to live under bad conditions if you press the red button, but if more than half press the red button everyone who pressed the blue button dies, and b) if more than 50% press the blue button, everyone will live under good conditions, then the differences between living under red conditions and under blue conditions becomes a factor. If red conditions and blue conditions are identical, hide the blue button, it is evil.
• avalys 5mo ago
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• deleted 5mo ago
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• gwbas1c 5mo ago
  If you push red, you will survive. If you push blue, you might die. Just push red.
• tristanj 5mo ago
  This question has multiple layers of thinking: 1. People who can't read pick randomly. 2. People who can read, but are too dumb to model or care about other people pick red. 3. People with enough intelligence for basic cognitive empathy pick blue. 4. People a little smarter and think through game theory overall pick red, and think they are smart for doing so. 5. People smarter than #4 and capable of seeing the big picture realize they don't want to leave people who choose #1 and #3 dead, so they pick blue. 6. People who realize the game theory optimal strategy is to announce you're pressing blue and convince everyone else to press blue, but privately press red. There are probably more layers to this but the whole debate involves people getting upset at each other and accusing people of being in groups they are not. Red group #4 accuses blue group #5 of being #3 (not thinking beyond basic cognitive empathy). Blue group #5 accuses red group #4 of being group #2 (too dumb to model how others act). It's almost a perfect ragebait question. As for which camp I am in, I am pressing blue and think you should too.
  • aaron695 5mo ago
    [dead]
  • DetroitThrow 5mo ago
    Missing the layer where blue is my favorite color and therefore I will always choose blue. From this perspective, all other reasonings lack basic empathy and/or intelligence.
  • troglodytetrain 5mo ago
    Your entire logical chain, and your self importance, well, it explains why I'm always picking red. If you win and most pick blue, I'm safe, otherwise, I'm also safe. You get to feel intellectually superior choosing the only option that can lead you to die. The simple answer is everyone should pick red.
    • DetroitThrow 5mo ago
      >The simple answer is everyone should pick red. The simplest answer is that everyone should pick blue, actually. This is because choosing blue results in no consequences, but choosing red does result in consequences. Why not choose the simple option? It's literally the "no consequences" button. Seems like these reds are overcomplicating a simple question.
• deleted 5mo ago
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• imoverclocked 5mo ago
  The problem posted is being taken at face value by some and being interpreted outside of a vacuum for others. The reality is that we don’t live in a vacuum and the framing of red vs blue is almost certainly not an accidental alignment with political colors. If you are in the US, voting blue is also highly correlated with broader empathy characteristics. It’s telling that some folks think 100% voting one way is just as attainable as more than 50% voting a certain way. The strong irony here is that they themselves would likely not change their vote to help get to 100% no matter which direction that happened to be. This is also why we are roughly split in half with only a small percentage actually voting differently than their identity politics allow.
  • zahlman 5mo ago
    > is almost certainly not an accidental alignment with political colors. If you are in the US, Please keep in mind that the association of colour to political wing is radically different, even the exact opposite, in other countries. > It’s telling that some folks think 100% voting one way is just as attainable as more than 50% voting a certain way. I don't see anybody arguing this. The entire point of the red strategy is that it is not dependent on how many press red. There are people who predict that everyone will independently come to the same conclusion (it's wrong to assume the entire population will be rational). That is not the same thing. The argument, as far as I can tell, is that in the world where blue pressers failed to get a majority, red pressers are not responsible for those deaths. They were free to choose red, and had no real incentive not to choose red beyond sympathy for other blue pressers. But also, in the world where blue pressers do get a majority, red pressers don't suffer any consequences for the "betrayal", as described. It would have to literally be a fate worse than death for choosing blue to make any sense. (In the limit, if we imagine that blue pressers will, if successful, enact their revenge and kill all the reds, then the game merely becomes symmetric and the goal is just to be in the majority.)
    • imoverclocked 5mo ago
      > The entire point of the red strategy is that it is not dependent on how many press red. Yes, but depending on the specifics of the actual implementation of this problem there are extended consequences. What is missed by the red POV is, in some implementations of this, you are losing collaboration/collaborative populations. Society works because of both competition and collaboration. Some people can’t see anything but one side of that. > Please keep in mind that the association of colour to political wing is radically different, even the exact opposite, in other countries. Yup, that’s why I worded it the specific way I did. It doesn’t stop people from having a strong opinion on which color they would choose in this scenario. My point is that red vs blue is pre-charged.
• 0x_rs 5mo ago
  I don't like how the question is setup, both in wording and scenario. Saying "everyone will die unless >50% press blue" sounds more impactful. And pressing red is a free win in this scenario making it a nonchoice. Threshold not being announced or red having some condition would make it more interesting (and at the same time, boring).. unless the point of the question is not to make people discuss blue vs red, but why you should make an irrational decision.
• troglodytetrain 5mo ago
  If red pressers always survive then everyone should pick red. Its incredibly and obviously so and I'm concerned by the fact that so many commenters aren't aware of this.
  • cg5280 5mo ago
    Red is the obvious choice from a self-preservation perspective but not a moral one. You're seeing here in these comments that there are lots of blue pressers; they would all die. This creates a snowballing incentive to push blue: people dying is bad. There's several reasons why someone might make the "wrong" choice, and reaching 50% + 1 on blue is way easier than reaching 100% on red. And sure enough, the polls I've seen have shown blue with a majority every time.
    • troglodytetrain 5mo ago
      Its an interesting psychological test. Because, no, I don't agree, red is the moral choice and also the most rational. Those who think the population is too stupid to behave in regards to their own self preservation might choose blue in an attempt to 'save everyone' and kill themselves. Only one singular choice has zero risk of death, and its red. Everyone chooses red and we all survive.
      • enoint 5mo ago
        Red does have risk: you’d be left in a world without things produced by the blue pressers. I suspect that’s red's food, water and shelter. edit: specified who
        • throwaway173738 5mo ago
          If you think most farmers, construction workers, factory workers, and so on would press blue then you might want to actually get to know some of them and put them to this test. I don’t think many of them would willingly risk death on something so trivial as a button press. I’ve seen guys get rescued from falling off roofs but as written I don’t think many of the guys running to get their buddy out of his harness and on the ground are going to pick blue if you present it in a really clinical sense.
• 1659447091 5mo ago
  These are so intensely annoying. Besides the obvious choice of not pushing any button, so very rarely -- if at all -- are there only ever 2 options. The entire "thought experiment" leans into some fantastical unrealistic scenarios and plays on peoples "fast thinking" by saying here are 2 options I made up, tell me which of these 2 groups (us or them) shall I sort you into? Neither.
  • enoint 5mo ago
    I thought about the ternary choice. Unconscious people, conscientious objectors, etc. The wording is that blue needs to exceed 50%, so the doomsday machine defaults to red.
    • 1659447091 5mo ago
      The only winning move is not to play.
  • ajam1507 5mo ago
    I think you've missed the point of a thought experiment entirely.
    • 1659447091 5mo ago
      I get the point, I simply find the methods these types of thought experiments use hold no real psychological or philosophical value. I could see gaining insight/value by using the actions of creating, asking, or answering within the unrealistic bounds (or even my objection) of these fantastical hypotheticals designed to reveal basic human behaviour as some kind of party trick -- to be the real psychological/philosophical thought exercise though.
• troglodytetrain 5mo ago
  I would describe it like this. We are all standing on the edge of a cliff. You can choose the 'Red' option. That option means you don't jump off the cliff. Or you can choose the 'Blue' option. You jump off the cliff. If 50% of individuals choose also the 'Blue' option then there will be a net to catch you so you don't all die. So, now we agree? Red option it is every time.
  • empthought 5mo ago
    Yes, when you completely rephrase the problem you will have different sentiments. The thought experiment demands that the phrasing that was used actually be used, and you don’t get a chance to show the dumb blue people how smart you are before they pick their button.
    • troglodytetrain 5mo ago
      The problem isn't rephrased. Option Red = 0% chance of death, Option Blue = chance of death but maybe you can be the hero and save everyone. So we all choose option Red and you, the hero, chose Blue. Congratulations, we will write some nice words on your tombstone.
      • empthought 5mo ago
        It is rephrased. Any phrasing besides the original exists only in your head and not in anyone else’s. The only reason I’m in my tomb is because you and people like you voted to kill me instead of voting to do nothing. Luckily for me, I’m dead and don’t care. Congratulations! Enjoy your life with people who think like you.
        • troglodytetrain 5mo ago
          Well, that is one way to rationalize, as I guess there is an infinite number of ways to do so. The point remains, only one singular choice guarantees your own safety. And another has a Chance of death. Take the stupid choice because you think everyone else is also stupid? Thats your choice.
• astrocat 5mo ago
  The arguments made about wanting to protect the children/babies and those with cognitive impairments are well meaning, but I think misguided. The bottom line is that the world has been put in a shit situation and you can't fix it. Encouraging blue is encouraging an increase in the likelihood that all the truly nice and wonderful people that would would actually follow through on a blue vote for altruistic reasons wind up dead. And that doesn't seem like an altruistic position? It seems more like self-martyring. Well meaning, but actually making the likelihood of a bad outcome worse.
  • gpm 5mo ago
    You literally can fix it, you just need at least half the word to press blue to fix it.
    • pessimizer 5mo ago
      You literally can't fix it, you need half the world's help to do it. Things that I need billions of people's help for are on the top of the list of things that I literally can't do.
      • gpm 5mo ago
        By this logic I also can't fly across the ocean in a modern airplane, but I obviously can. We can get together and do great things. Whether that's science and industry or simply not murdering everyone who doesn't press red.
        • astrocat 5mo ago
          gpm's point is that it's a collective action issue. And even if one individual can't fix is, we can with a movement. And we SHOULD care about things like this. We're fairly familiar with these: big problem, only solved if enough people do a thing. But in general, almost all collective action problems we face are ones where either: a. every incremental actor improves the overall picture with their individual choice (however small, even if it takes a threshold to be "solved": think, recycling, vaccines) b. every individual actor actor's choice has no _direct_ impact until some threshold is met (maybe voting?) THIS situation, however is very different: every individual choice for blue makes things WORSE up until the threshold is met. And not just a little, but a LOT worse. That's not normal collective action territory, so we shouldn't be assuming the same kind of reasoning. The stakes of missing the threshold are not "aw shucks" or "keep trying, there's more chances later!" The stakes of missing the threshold are "everyone who cares about the threshold is dead." I can't think of anything IRL that falls into this category?
• rifty 5mo ago
  I assume most people are aware there will be some blue voters. I also assume that greater than 50% of the population are more socially minded than not as if it was otherwise, in the long run the society would fail to stay cohesive. It would be easy to self justify picking red as 'it's not unethical killing, it's self preservation' but I'd still bet on society being more socially minded than not, for betting otherwise would mean i think society as an idea of togetherness is a total illusion. If choosing red, after, it would be non existent. Though also to me the experience of life is starkly temporary; dying early or not doesn't really matter to me so i'm not surprised other's emotional conflict varies here. But as a result personally, losing the existence of something unique to experience (togetherness) in preference of something otherwise fleeting, even the self, isn't very interesting to me.
• oever 5mo ago
  I would be more interesting if the vote was public.
• BartjeD 5mo ago
  Its frankly shocking just how many people here aren't Christian (or don't understand love thy neighbor) and are on the evil spectrum of DnD, and bragging about it.
  • nathanmills 5mo ago
    wrong thread?
• adverbly 5mo ago
  Is this repeated or one time? Can you force people on red or not? Seems difficult to guarantee you don't kill a bunch of kids each button press cycle... Many people aren't old and developed enough to reason it out yet... If this is repeated I'd certainly be on the team of trying to convince people to go blue... Otherwise the chance of someone randomly pressing red every time before they get to the age of 5 or whatever seems too low to guarantee the long term survival of the species... I guess it depends on how often it happens?
  • gpm 5mo ago
    > Is this repeated or one time? I think it's meant to be one time. > Seems difficult to guarantee you don't kill a bunch of kids each button press cycle... Seems extremely easy to guarantee that I don't kill a bunch of kids, just press blue. It's only the red-pressers who might end up murdering kids. By pressing blue the only person I am putting at risk is myself.
    • revlsas 5mo ago
      If someone has parents and kids themselves should they convince them to press blue as well?
      • gpm 5mo ago
        I'd say so, I think encouraging your family to act morally (not murder people) is a good thing.
        • rayiner 5mo ago
          If you’d tell your kids to push blue and risk their lives, you’re not empathetic, you’re something else. More like one of those suicide cult leaders willing to sacrifice kids for an idea.
          • gpm 5mo ago
            Teaching kids not to participate in a conspiracy to commit mass murder of innocent people in order to increase their odds of survival is not at all like teaching them to commit suicide. Even kids aren't entitled to murder innocent people because it's personally beneficial.
• nvader 5mo ago
  Looking at this and the virality of Newcomb's Paradox, I have to wonder if Shari's Scissor[0] did in fact get invented. 0: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
• sirwhinesalot 5mo ago
  I love this thought experiment. If you pick red you survive. If you pick blue and at least 50% of people picked blue, you survive, otherwise you die. There's 0 advantage to picking blue, none what so ever, the only reason you'd pick blue is because you assume there's some subset of people that is so unbelievably stupid that they'll pick blue. You're sacrificing yourself in the hope of saving them. IMO, the reality is that everyone you think would pick blue would actually pick red. Very few people are that stupid, and even if they are they probably also have access to someone not as stupid who will tell them to press red. The only people you'd be saving are other suicidal white knights that pick blue to save those imaginary "blue pressers", and the outcome of that, since that blue pressing base doesn't actually exist, is that you're all just committing collective suicide for absolutely no reason. What "blue pressers vs red pressers" says about our society is best left to philosophers.
  • jquery 5mo ago
    Well said, this is what I came around to in the end. There would be a few "blue button true believers" very surprised to find out how lonely it is in blue button heaven.
• bradlys 5mo ago
  You never press the button. Therefore, the game is never finished. Everyone goes on with their life as is.
  • nathanmills 5mo ago
    [flagged]
• bashmelek 5mo ago
  It’s an amusing thought experiment to share with friends, but I’m finding the sort of conversation here a bit tiresome; kind of judgmental and dogmatic.
• meeton 5mo ago
  One extra consideration I haven't seen flagged: if you pick Red and the blue pressers die then everyone who's left alive definitely pressed Red. Then there will be a society-wide tacit agreement that this was a fine thing to do, blue pressers were all dumb and had it coming, and no-one needs to feel bad about it. So you won't even need to feel guilty.
  • hx8 5mo ago
    First they came for the blue button pressers, and I did not speak out. Red button pressing is killing people that didn't think/act like them. You don't need to feel guilty about it, because this type of thing happens all the time.
    • card_zero 5mo ago
      First they came for the ones waving their hands in the air and shouting "pick me!" Then, they stopped.
• bastawhiz 5mo ago
  The only reason to pick blue is to try to do the "morally correct" thing to "save" the other people who picked blue. If you're the first person in line to vote, picking blue is neither logical nor moral. There are no other blue choosers who you need to support. "But there will be people who vote after me" well that's their decision to make. "People will vote randomly" okay well if they can't take living or dying seriously, that's kind of on them. Choosing the zero risk option when everyone else has the exact same zero risk option isn't selfish. It's not selfish to choose red because everyone else has the choice to choose red. There's an unknowable risk with choosing blue. Choosing red only exposes blue choosers to the exact risk they decided to take. Reframe it to eliminate the silly savior complex and it sounds ridiculous: There's an infinitely long trolley track. You can let the trolley continue down the track, or you can divert it in your direction. You might get smooshed by the trolley by diverting it, but at least someone standing further down the track won't divert it and smoosh themselves.
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  • rbits 5mo ago
    Going to just copy and paste rbren's comment from above: > Some people seem to be convinced by logical reframings, like "if you jump into a woodchipper you die, but if 50% of people jump into the woodchipper they all survive" > A logical reframing is not equivalent though! We know everyone else gets the same frame, and most of the problem is predicting what other people will do when presented with this particular two-button frame.
• ttz 5mo ago
  if everyone were rational, and knew everyone else would act rationally, then obvious answer is to pick red, because everyone would pick red, and hence everyone would survive.
  • adverbly 5mo ago
    Agree. Question is super easy is everyone is rational. But that's not the question. The whole point is that it's about the whole world - not a set of rational actors.
    • ttz 5mo ago
      I realize my initial analysis is kind of wrong - everyone picking blue would also ensure everyone survives. So I think the color doesn't really matter if everyone is rational. So long as they are consistent. Blue is more tasteful here then. With the added bonus that if enough people do pick it, it's a win. What is interesting is if you believe most people are not rational and will pick red, but at least one person will pick blue. Do you choose certain death? For me, who has dependents, it would rest on what I think they would choose. A very interesting problem....
• pointlessone 5mo ago
  I feel like this is some sort of butchered metaphor because in a vacuum just picking a color that has no context or effect outside of the experiment framing is really easy. But it’s not that simple if there are some externalities. Say, red guarantees your survival but there’s 50% chance your pet will die. Or every red choice has a 10% flipping one red choice among your friends and family to blue. Now it’s not just a selfish choice but a choice with a known downside. This is a much more interesting game to play. Maybe even a more realistic one.
• robocat 5mo ago
  That would genetically remove altruists from the population (assuming altuism is heritable and assuming children also have to press button). The world would be a more selfish place in a generation after the experiment. Presumably parents press the button for their babies. As a family you would have to agree to all push the same colour otherwise you run the risk of only some of you dying. As a group decision I would think everyone would agree on red as the safe bet. Also making altruistic choices for children has two edges - and many parents would put their children's interests first not some strangers.
• deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
• davrosthedalek 5mo ago
  The correct response is not to press any button, but to find whoever set up this game, and remove their capability to harm anyone.
• happytoexplain 5mo ago
  I like this thought experiment, because it's not actually a dilemma, since the answer is obvious, but it creates the meta-thought-experiment conversation of trying to understand the reasoning of blue-pickers in the comments. Whereas most thought experiments try to balance two things equally, which creates a lot of debate, this one pushes the options as far apart as possible without quite going fully black-and-white (which would sound like, "If you press the red button, you live; if you press the blue button, you die."). This creates less disagreement, but maximizes the size of the disagreement that remains.
• rolph 5mo ago
  classic quasi paradoxical altruistic behavior and outcome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism#Scientific_viewpoints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism#Scientific_viewpoints evolutionary game theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory
• adverbly 5mo ago
  The number of people trying to use game theory here is frankly embarrassing. This is about predicting real people! People are not perfect rational actors. Good luck explaining your Nash equilibrium theory to your 6 month old niece and nephew who are good pick blue because it's their favorite color. You aren't gonna get an all red movement to succeed. There are a small minority who will vote red or blue regardless of the community sentiment - and some of those people will be kids who would probably grow up to be smarter than your game theorizing selves if they are given to opportunity to grow old enough to fully mature. Full propaganda team blue.
  • zahlman 5mo ago
    The entire point of the "press red" strategy is that it does not depend on what other people do. So there is no question of predicting them.
• oxag3n 5mo ago
  Make it more balanced: Blue: if >= 50% pressed, they survive, othervise die. Red: random 50% survival chance, independent for every Red.
• root_cause 5mo ago
  I would push red, and advise my family, friends, and anyone who would listen to do the same. I would not try to force anyone's choice. I believe some would choose blue: out of a desire to help others or as a mistake (they meant to push red but accidentally pushed blue). I do not view those who would choose to press blue as bad people, or as "stupid". Likewise, I do not view those who press red as selfish or immoral. I am bothered by comments in this thread which say that choosing blue, or choosing red, is the only moral choice. I believe that is wrong; as stated, I don't believe choosing red or choosing blue is immoral. I do believe it is immoral to consider someone who pushes the color other than the one you choose to be immoral or stupid. I am similarly concerned about those who claim that choosing blue would be "stupid". I think it is mean-spirited, if not outright wrong, to say someone choosing blue is "stupid". Likewise, I am bothered by comments in this thread which claim that choosing red is choosing to kill someone. To my mind, this is objectively and demonstrably false. When I choose red, that alone does not kill someone. Someone is only killed if I choose red and that person chooses blue. If you think I killed someone by choosing red, I am curious (genuinely) why you think a person choosing blue, out of their own free will and being sound of mind, is any less guilty than I am? After all, they are potentially choosing to kill someone: themselves.
• mrdw 5mo ago
  If everybody presses red button - everybody survives. Ez solution
• ndsipa_pomu 5mo ago
  If everyone has to press a button and is not allowed help to do so, then there's various people who may not be able to properly choose and presumably, half of them will hit the blue button. There's blind and colour-blind people as well as young babies or even people in a coma, which raises the question of whether a button is pressed on their behalf. One way round the dilemma is to make it optional as to whether to press a button and in that case, it would seem to be sociopathic to press the red button as that increases the chance that blue button pressers get killed. The best choice in that circumstance is to not play the game which is surely the moral choice too.
• jubalfh 5mo ago
  it's a neat test to find out how many people around us are fine with genocide.
  • jubalfh 5mo ago
    (when you strip the story to the fundamentals, the question posed is about acceptability of mass murder)
    • mostertoaster 5mo ago
      Even this subjective interpretation shows why the question is so good. Someone on the other side would say the fundamentals are completely different. It is meant to point out how many people say they would be willing to sacrifice even their very lives for a stranger, but in reality they only sacrifice if they already know others had to sacrifice and now they're forced to. Like if you took the combined wealth of every person who thinks we should tax people more to help the less fortunate - do they give anything freely? They want others to sacrifice first. I'll believe people would actually press blue in a majority, when I see people who claim we should pay more taxes, voluntarily paying more themselves. I'd love to live in a world where I was confident a vast majority of people would press blue. But I've literally seen people say they would press blue - then go on to say that in a communist revolution certainly we will have to end the lives of all the bourgeois. I would most definitely press red, because I don't believe anywhere near half the population are actually that good, and don't think I'm a good enough person to actually think I'd risk pressing blue. (Trump won the popular vote in America, and so based on the rhetoric I hear from my left leaning acquaintances, neither would they) Sad world really. Also why this question is so good.
  • jubalfh 5mo ago
    (considering the – entirely expected here – number of genocidal ghouls in this thread i'm surprised this one has a single downvote)
• renerick 5mo ago
  The divide between the "blue" and "red" sides lies in the conception of which button kills. The blues think that the red button kills the blues. The reds think that blue button kills the blues. I'm inclined to side with the latter
• notanastronaut 5mo ago
  The language of this discussion is interesting. For those arguing for red button pushing, the dominant register is intelligence and rationality. Terms such as "dumb", "idiots", "unintelligent", "naive", and "irrational", are used to describe the blue button pressers. White knight shows up more than once, as well, along side of "hero complex", "suicidal", "collective suicide", "suicidal empathy", "virtue signaling", and "gambling". Then there are terms for the red side such as "safety", "rational", "dominant", and an appeal to game-theory. Lastly, there is the accusatory angle, stating blue pressers brought it onto themselves, are psychotic, and "weaponized empathy". For those arguing for blue button pushing, the overall register is complicity and harm. "Murder" occurs a lot, "genocide", "mass murder", and "kill". All accusatory terms. Then we have "empathy", "mutual aid", "collective consciousness", "trust and cooperation". And end up with blues calling reds "sociopaths", "ultra-capitalists", "selfish", "violent", and "cynical". Blues repeatedly invoke the vision of a world with no empathic people left and that red pressers should be "vilified and excommunicated". There's also a strong hint of class and politics undertone in the red language that doesn't show up as much on the blue side. Religion, rural vs cosmopolitan, etc. To me, the only heroic action possible is to be a red presser intellectually but empathy pulls them to risk it all for the blue pressers. Everyone else is just entrenched in finger pointing and identity politics. Red pressers may be the majority. Are there enough of the heroic types of red pressers to save the blue? Who knows. But red pressers need to be keenly aware it is realistically impossible to get 100% of everyone to press the red button, so blue pressers will die without any aid. Which would you press knowing that?
• archagon 5mo ago
  This feels like some toxic-ass political subtweeting, though I can't definitively prove it.
• VasyaBaev 5mo ago
  [dead]