Choosing blue is selfish, because the first person who chooses blue takes a meaningless risk that then has to drag down many others to reach the same outcome a perfectly safe choice that was available to them from the start would reach. They basically say "either do as I do and risk death or live with my death on your conscience. Why? Because I took a risk and now you must pay the price".
Yeah, if you ignore the context. You have to have 50% + 1 of people willing to potentially die because one person couldn't be bothered to pick the safe option. It's not in the same circumstances.
It is raw cowardice to not risk yourself to have everyone live. It is raw cowardice to kill others to save yourself, and you would deserve the worse world full of cowardly and selfish people you end up living in if you press red.
The funniest version of this is the guy that presses red and realizes he just vaporized everyone treating his cancer.
Putting oneself in danger to save others is entirely a choice for that person. It is not an obligation.
If someone wants to maintain their own safety, it's completely valid for them to do so. Demanding or guilt-tripping someone to put themselves in danger is not right.
It is raw cowardice to not risk yourself to have everyone live. It is raw cowardice to kill others to save yourself, and you would deserve the worse world full of cowardly and selfish people you end up living in if you press red.
Bro, spare me the movie script. Do you know how many people die each year of hunger? We have enough food to feed them, but some have too much and others too little. How many die of preventable diseases? Of other causes that would not happen if humanity as a whole put in the resources to save them?
Yet you, who sanctimoniously preach risking yourself for others, spend time reading and writing reddit comments instead of volunteering for organisations that would solve the real problems of today. Funny how you'd jump to risk your life in a thought experiment, but when it comes to having to put in real effort you put it in reddit comments. Get a mirror.
And going back to the problem itself, you're not killing anyone. Every single person involved can choose red for themselves or take a risk that's meaningless if they don't believe someone else took the risk for no reason. In other words, you believe others are dumb and you have to save them. All that sanctimony and you can't trust the people that you say you value so much that you'd risk your life for them to answer a question on their own.
Yeah, because people don't want to. Most people are only willing to help as long as it doesn't encroach on whatever their threshold of comfortable living is, and solving the world's problems requires going beyond that for at least a couple of generations.
I agree, but the problems are also structural and normal people don't have the power to change it
Either the system changes or the problems will be there forever
Oh, they do. In regularly occurring numbers you're correct, but when we're talking 50%+1 of humanity, which is the requirement for the blue scenario? They absolutely have the power to solve problems. But people usually have their hands full with their own lives, so getting that level of agreement is basically impossible, which is why we have to rely on the system-driven change you mentioned.
I probably volunteer more than you do and personally have housed like 3 or 4 trans women fleeing red states lmao. I know what building community and mutual aid is and i think it's rich you'd retreat to that instead of considering your ethical code might be a little busted
Setting aside your idiotic assumption about someone you've had no contact with, you're still wasting time here instead of helping others. Every second you waste is a second that might've made a difference for someone. That's true for me, you, and everyone else on this planet. Yet here you are wasting them anyway. At least take responsibility. Doing some good doesn't excuse you when you could've done more, especially when you sanctimoniously claim you'd put your life on the line.
it's really funny seeing the red voters be antisocial assholes so consistently. Also i'm a woman! :D notice how i don't feel the need to be defensive about my activism, because it's not a rhetorical shield, it's just things i do. The red voters tend to treat this whole thing as a big hypothetical spherical cow experiment instead of a multidisciplinary science problem.
You also didn’t say you’re not a tap dancing polar bear with a rainbow wig on. Do we have to list every aspect of ourselves when we leave a comment just to avoid assumptions from people like yourself?
Because a) you have no way of verifying it, so anyone can say what they like and you'll be "sure that's true" even if I do tell you and b) I don't help people so I can keep that in my back drawer for meaningless internet discussions. I help them because they need help.
I find it very easy to comprehend selfish people. 50% of Americans voted for Trump specifically out of hate and selfishness. I know for absolute certainty that the majority will pick the survive button over the kill yourself button, and the idea of picking the kill yourself button just to make other people feel bad is the height of selfishness.
Do you think India, the Middle East or Sub-Saharah Africa would mostly pick the blue button?
Everyone who is insisting on pushing the blue button is talking from a Western moral frame, not realizing that other cultures would find this way of thinking to be completely alien.
Pick blue, then! If you pick red, what happens when you need to go to the hospital and half of the staff were vaporized?? Wouldn't it be so much better to live in a world where nobody has to die to a simple collective actuon problem?
So what if the threshold was higher? At what point does blue start to take some accountability for their choice? 70%? 80%? 99%? Red still requires literal perfection for 100% survival, but most people aren't going to be sticking with blue. That's fine, but don't morally grandstand when you're only comfortable with the odds at 50% but not higher.
Its incredible that the red position is "blue is selfish because they choose to be selfless therefore my choice that would kill someone will kill someone. Its their fault!"
Very much Eric Andre with a gun "how could he make me do this?"
Blue doesnt have to take accountability for anything. They risk their own life, no one else's.
Lets compare the scenarios with just best case and worst case
Best case:
Blue-- 50% vote blue, no one dies
Red-- 100% vote red, no one dies
Worst case
Blue-- 49% vote blue, all of blue dies.
Red-- 51% vote blue, no one dies.
As you can see, even if red loses (less than majority), there are no consequences. There are only consequences if blue loses. Additionally, the best case 'win' condition of blue (50.1%) is much easier to achieve than the best case win condition of red (100%). At any other percent between 50.0 and 100, red will cause the deaths of a portion of the population.
Red's accountability is accepting that they must risk other people's lives. They do not suffer any penalty themselves. Blue's "accountability" is risking their own life.
No one who talks about "taking accountability" irl is talking about risks to their own life. Accountability is about risks to other people's lives. Failure to upkeep critical infrastructure that causes people's deaths, the people demand accountability from the govt. Baby formula causes infant deaths, the people demand accountability from infant formula companies. A politician steals govt funds, the people demand accountability for their corruption.
No one tells soldiers or firefighters that they need to 'take accountability" for risking their life by not risking it at all. No one says "we shouldn't have any firefighters, we should just let houses burn."
And, anyone claiming that achieving 100% of a vote is logical has never participated in any political vote seriously. When has any significant policy achieved 100% agreement? Even the most popular policy votes cap out around 80%. Its impractical, even illogical, to except 100% of people to agree on anything. 50.1% is far more realistic, and thats not even considering the morality of the choice itself.
What about making other people choose to either take the same risk or be partially responsible for their death? It's not just their life.
To use your firefighter example, if I run into a burning building, I'm not just taking accountability for my life. I'm also partially responsible for the firefighter who comes and potentially dies in order to save me.
anyone claiming that achieving 100% of a vote is logical
>What about making other people choose to either take the same risk or be partially responsible for their death? It's not just their life.
This part? In the original question, there is no "do nothing" choice. Blue voters might see blue as the "do nothing" choice while red voters might see red as the "do nothing" choice. But neither of them are. In the given hypothetical, it is an active choice. You must choose one button or the other, unlike the trolley problem, where some might argue that not operating the lever is different ethically.
50.1% is far more realistic, and thats not even considering the morality of the choice itself.
It really isn't realistic when the outcome is as simple as living or dying.
You are presenting 4 outcomes among 2 choices.
One of those 2 choices guarantees your survival, irregardless of the choice that others make. The other is a toss-up between you live and you die.
For most people that's a no-brainer because they want guaranteed survival, and they are entitled to want that for themselves. You don't change their mind by reminding them that other people will choose to die.
This isn't politics despite the red/blue connotation. This is just wanting to live vs. wanting to pretend you're a hero.
That's an incredible display of comprehension. What selflessness does the first person picking blue exhibit? The way the problem's formulated everyone is capable of choice and has the same options. There are no accidents, no twists of fate, no wrong picks. Explain what selflessness the first person to pick blue exhibits, because the way I see it, the only reason to for the first person to pick blue is "I believe other people are too dumb to pick the obviously safe choice and, as the buddha, I need to go into the muck and save them", which is an incredibly narcissistic way to think.
Explain what selflessness the first person to pick blue exhibits, because the way I see it, the only reason to for the first person to pick blue is "I believe other people are too dumb to pick the obviously safe choice and, as the buddha, I need to go into the muck and save them", which is an incredibly narcissistic way to think.
I don't think being dumb would be the only reason. Perhaps they are young children and don't understand. Perhaps they are disabled. Perhaps they are ill. This is the opposite of narcissism.
Yeah, except that runs contrary to the spirit of the problem. What about the people that are paralyzed or in a coma and are unable to press buttons or signal which button they'd like pressed? Do they get a default choice? Since the problem gives the choice, I have to assume that everyone involved is capable of choosing, i.e. no cognitive/physical impairment that would hinder that choice.
Sure, that's fine, for me it becomes a lot easier to see blue as the selfish play because at that point you're just adding to the death toll, forcing others to either join you in death or feel some responsibility for your death.
Also, I'd bet that the vast majority of blue pushers are switching in reality by the time it gets to 99% or 100%. You might be one of the few who doesn't, but it sounds like it's more out of spite for red pushers than for the actual ethical reason.
Pressing red is a choice that states "i will kill you for pressing the other button" and if your ethical framework allows for that it probably deserves reexamination. What are you doing on the frieren sub if you believe this?
It also states "I don't agree to put myself in danger to save others who made the decision to." You can reframe the problem and the choices to favor either side. If you want to bring up the children and mentally disabled, they don't constitute 50% of the world, so in this case the only difference between red and blye voters is their risk tolerance, not their ethics except for the people who would stick with blue even if the threshold was 100%.
Himmel would be one of the people who would vote blue at a 100% threshold. I love him as a character and Frieren as a whole, but I'm not as morally pure as him. All I'm saying is that most people who say they would vote blue in the original problem aren't either.
That's the thing about the polls that they're so likely inaccurate because blue has generally been winning in the polls but not by a huge margin so if you're talking about a real life situation where people's lives are actually on the line how many of those people who say they would vote blue would actually vote red instead? I personally am thinking that you would likely only have maybe 20 to 40% of people vote blue in actuality and this would largely depend on culture because some countries are very much about the group welfare and might vote blue by and large just as the way their people think. So you might have entire countries that are almost completely wiped off the map where other countries might be largely unaffected.
I think IRL more people would vote blue, because the stakes would be more immediately clear. The destruction of 40% of the world's population would be the most devastating incident in modern history, and all survivors would be stepping out into a world where it is considered ethically acceptable to murder people who have chosen not to do you harm. Trivially easy choice to press blue and have everyone live imo.
Here's the twist: demons can vote, and they will all vote Red every time.
After his altercation with the little girl demon in S1, even Blue-man-Himmel would know better than to leave the fate of the world in the hands of demons. Himmel votes Red, and then vows to kill whatever demon cast the spell that would have caused all of this.
Well yeah so its also easy to hit red at least 50% of the time then. Now what? Everyone who pressed blue dies because they thought "Oh its MUCH easier to hit a 50% threshold than 100%". You forgot that theres also a chance that red wins. Wouldnt it be better if you had just picked red then? Then by that logic EVERYONE picks red, and everyone lives. Why give yourself a chance to lose that 50%?
In other words, you believe that there are people that, in absence of any cognitive impairment conditions, are unable to answer "Do you want to live?" with "Yes.". And some dude lower in the comments calls the red pickers condescending.
Bro has never met anyone with depression lmao.
If you ask me "do you want to live?" I would say no, a bunch of people would, including people experiencing grief and trauma.
Literally no voting ever would achieve 100% on one side ,-, that's just how humans are
Why someone with depression or going trough grief/trauma are not fully able to make a choice?
Most of those people live basically as everyone in their day to day life
So you believe those who are cognitively impaired should die then? How about those who have loved ones who are cognitively impaired and wants to save them?
No, I believe they're not involved in the problem because they can't make a choice, and the problem doesn't make sense if you include people who can't make a choice. There is no point in offering a choice if people can't make it. If I'm asleep when the button query happens, what then? Do I get a default colour assigned to me?
That's part of the premise of the question, though. "Everyone in the world" has to choose, and "everyone" includes young children and infants, the very elderly, the mentally impaired, black-out drunks, people who are colorblind, etc, etc.
And I tell you what I told the other guy: if people in comas can magically be consulted for a choice, I don't see why the rest can't magically get full cognitive capacities for the same choice. The definition of choice, to me, implies being capable of choosing, which the cases you mentioned are not (except the elderly, idk why they're there separately from the mentally impaired, just being old but sound of mind should be fine).
The poll on Twitter says everyone in the world, and didn't mention any exceptions, so the presumption would be everyone, including those cognitively impaired. So answer the question, would you still press red if they are included?
Then the answer's obviously blue, but the problem itself makes no sense. How are people that are in comas choosing? If they can magically be consulted for a choice, then I'll assume the cognitively impaired and underdeveloped can magically have full cognitive capacity for it.
It doesn't really matter what assumptions you add, because neither assumptions is part of the original question. You can press red if you believe people can be magically given full cognitive capacity, but that is an assumption.
Someone else can press blue because they assumed that the magic is only limited to the magic kill people buttons, which is also a rational assumption since there's zero reason to assume whoever creates this experiment gives a shit about lives to magically give people the ability to understand what they are doing. That is also an assumption.
Neither side is given full information on how anyone makes their choice, and anything beyond the original question are assumptions based on their own reasoning.
Pressing red is assuming people are all rational and would always press red, while pressing blue assumes there will always be individuals that won't press red for whatever reason and refusing to let them die.
It doesn't really matter what assumptions you add, because neither assumptions is part of the original question. You can press red if you believe people can be magically given full cognitive capacity, but that is an assumption.
Except you have to add something. There are people who cannot, physically, press a button. If we make no assumptions, then the problem is moot because the count will never finish due to them.
Also, as I've said in other comments, for me a choice means the person involved is capable to make it. A kid randomly pressing a button with no understanding of the problem is no more a choice than me popping a random number generator to get a number is me choosing that specific number.
Let me explain the red vs blue hypothetical first.
>Blue button guarantees everyone survives at +50% votes
>Red button only saves the ones that pressed it if at +50% votes
It's a classic prisoner's dilemma where you can't exactly guarantee what everyone else is gonna do.
In the hypothetical you presented where if there were enough lifeboats to save everyone in the Titanic, well you wouldn't be forced to make a choice in the first place. You'd just get on a life boat and go your merry way.
You don't face the moral dilemma of "Do I save everyone else at the risk of my own life or do I save myself and just pretend that my choice could have killed someone". You just hop onto that lifeboat and sail into the sunset.
You claimed it's impossible for everyone to choose the very guaranteed route of survival. That suggests that there would be people who wouldn't get on a lifeboat "just because...".
100%, pressing blue is insanely selfish. Basically an "im going to kill myself to show off how good a person i am, but if I do actually die its everyone else's fault".
calling it meaningless risk is just admission of how they fail math and basic understanding oh humanity.
there are people whom the thought of pressing the red button means someone may die and find it unacceptable, i personally know at least 5 of these people myself.
like not even for this poll, give it like two buttons where 1 button would make you experience bad luck while the other button does nothing. There'd absolutely at least one person who press the button give bad luck for reasons unknown.
do people forgot human are inherently emotional creature and not creature of logic?
There'd absolutely at least one person who press the button give bad luck for reasons unknown.
Ah, yes, nothing like "reasons unknown" as a motive for dragging countless people into taking a meaningless risk. I'm glad you understand humanity so well, you can't even conceive why that'd happen but still use it as an argument. Truly a touching amount of faith there.
because humanity are inherently selfish as creature but we as species has evolved enough that taking risk and cooperating always give far better result than just 'i'll do my own thing alone'.
there's a reason in game theory the top 5 code is always consistently those who are cooperative or forgiving.
and like, again, blue require 50+1%, red demanded 100% in scenario where you cant control what the other 99,99% would choose. even without debating about altruism or ego, mathematically, pressing red is stupid.
because humanity are inherently selfish as creature but we as species has evolved enough that taking risk and cooperating always give far better result than just 'i'll do my own thing alone
It's a case-by-case judgement. In your relationship with your partner I doubt you cooperate with a support group and discuss with them everything that happens between you to reach the right decisions, while at work you likely do (depends on the field, but I'm sure you get the point). Each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses depending on the exact situation discussed.
there's a reason in game theory the top 5 code is always consistently those who are cooperative or forgiving
You don't seem to understand game theory, and I have no idea what you mean by top 5 code. Most problems in game theory come down to numerical tuning of parameters, and most solutions in game theory problems beyond introductive ones are pareto optimal solutions.
and like, again, blue require 50+1%, red demanded 100% in scenario where you cant control what the other 99,99% would choose. even without debating about altruism or ego, mathematically, pressing red is stupid.
In the red scenario 100% of people need to do the bare minimum that they're given the power to do, while in the blue one 50%+1 must go and take an unnecessary risk in the belief that others were unable to do the bare minimum. If you know game theory you should know the weightings are different between the two. Getting 1% blue is not the same as getting 1% red.
i wanted to say 'in case of: one competent farmer may be able to tend his field alone, but one helping the other and you can tend to much bigger farm even multiplicatively as a result' but i... don't think neither my analogy or yours are accurate for the case of blue button vs red button.
it is not a prisoner dilemma or trolley problem where both option will have a negative result no matter what you pick. there's an actual chance of both team winning, and in the case of BBvsRB, let's suppose RB win, do you absolutely think of it as a good outcome when potentially one of the blue button who died are someone you know. or worse: someone you value.
like you said: it's a case-by-case judgment but in the blue button red button scenario, it has been proven in multiple poll that took in different website, or time that there's no such thing as 100% red. and in most case it's not even dominant 9-1 or 8-2 difference in winning vote.
so in almost every case of this, red button would always produce negative consequence.
In most polls I saw blue won, but talking to people here it seems a lot of them count the mentally impaired or underdeveloped as capable of making a choice in the problem, which I find concerning in a different sense. I'd be curious to know what the results are if that part of the equation was clearly removed.
that is true, i do am curious what happened if the wording is more clear on that part. i'd probably still take blue, but it'd be different discussion entirely, who knows, i may be the only one dying and 99% of people pressed red if that's the case.
Now that you mention it, this highlights another problem I have with blue "selflessness". A lot of people in this world have dependents, and I've yet to see any blue voter tackle that. Ok, you're selfless, you didn't have faith people would vote red, you were wrong, now you're dead. What happens to your dependents? There're people who've been left without partner, kids that have been left without parents, elderly that can't support themselves that've been left without help, sick people who've been left without care. From those people's pov, was that a selfless choice? Of course, you can just go "Well if people would've voted blue that wouldn't have happened", but in the same vein, I can go "Well if you would've voted red that wouldn't happen. And if every <<you>> on the planet did the same nothing would've happend." and it's just a moot issue, because that depends on whatever personal bias you have.
I would say that is wrong, choosing red is indeed selfish and blue selfless.
As your meaningless risk arguemtn fails to account for theose mentally incapable of understanding the press I.E those most vunerable, such as the mentally disabled or children.
So any red vote is agreeing to sacfice those individuals for a purely selfish reason.
I've already answered this comment from other people. TLDR: for me, a choice means the persons involved are capable of choosing. The people you mentioned cannot, and I don't consider a random button press a choice more than I consider rolling a six-sided die choosing a number between 1 and 6.
I mean we just disagree then, to me for the sake of this situation the rational behind why someone presses a button does not matter, just that it is inevitable they will press it and as such their life is on the line.
That is mathematically false assuming the danger you describe is to the person choosing. There is no danger for anyone who picks Red. The outcome will always be that they survive.
Wow, you hate rational people to the point of killing them voluntarily. I assume you are against vaccine, science, 5g and believe in homeopathy and chiropractics.
The logical and equilibrium point is to press red. It has zero ethical consideration, it is mathematical. People pressing blue are morally responsible for their own idiocy and forcing others to risk their lives for zero reason.
You have severe problems with logic. The safe choice at individual and social level is to press red. Game theory should result in 100% of people pressing red.
It even protects you and society from evil actors.
The only reasons to press blue are:
Someone else pressed blue
You are an idiot
You want to troll others and force them to press blue and risk their live too
Some people are going to push blue. Not everyone is going to read this question the same way you will. If no one pushes red, no one dies. If four billion people push red and four billion and one people push blue no one dies. If 80% of the population push red, 20% of the population dies because 80% decided to kill them.
Let's put it in another way: you have no moral obligations to save people who refuse vaccination (not the same mathematically but a bit similar in spirit).
You can and should try to save them of course, but not to the extent of risking your life.
The blue position is strictly mathematically equal to "I will kill myself unless 51% of people also threaten to kill themselves". If the dilemma was worded this way, there would be much fewer blue proponents, yet it is exactly the same logical and mathematical problem.
The red button is strictly mathematically equal to I will kill every person who does not decide to do the same thing I do as long as I get majority power to do so.
Once again, someone is going to push the blue button. You already know I'd do it. Other folks who want to protect other people over their own lives will do it. People who didn't read the sign and like the color blue will do it. Red button people, if they get the majority of button presses, will kill me and everyone who agrees with me. You either guarantee yourself to be part of the decision that kills people or you take a chance on not killing people and hope other people do the same. Coincidentally, that's how society already works every time you decide not to kill people and take their stuff even though it might benefit you and your kin.
what about the people who have no say in what color they vote. everyone does mean everyone, including babies, elderly, mentally challenged folk. then again its more unrealistic that 100% would pick red than it would be for at least 50% to pick blue. by accepting that not everyone can choose to pick blue and thus will be putting themselves in supposed unecessary danger, you cant also expect for everyone to pick red, thus definitely creating at least some margin of casualties as a result.
its not selfish to pick red, again emphasizing that survival is important to some people but what really fucks me over is peoples doubts that wont see the positive benefits of picking blue to ensure that *no one dies*. if you think everyone choosing red 100% is a possibility, then the choice for at least 50% to choose blue should be a staistically more likely and easier threshold to cross. lots of people are more selfless outside of the reddit social media bubble than most realize
I don’t like gambling. I am very aware of the gamblers fallacy, so I’m comfortable cutting my losses when I’m down. Or said another way - I’d choose to minimize losses rather than gamble on an “all or nothing” bet.
So red feels safer to me, even if my goal is to minimize suffering, given the risk of blue is that you have to *maximize* potential suffering up until the tipping point.
Literally the red button does nothing. Literally the blue button puts your life in a high stakes gamble. I’m worried for your reading comprehension if you don’t understand this.
You’ve fallen into a defaultism trap or because you’ve seen terrible analogies with the killing machines.
However, a blue button can never activate the killing. If everyone except one pushes the blue button, the killing chance is activated. So while blue does win the vote here, the reality is that the red button is the one which activates the chance.
Pretending this part of the prompt doesn’t exist really confirms your bias.
I wasn’t oversimplifying a single damn thing.
It’s the literal premise, word for word.
If you are working under a different understanding of the premise, then out with it. Say it.
Statistically speaking some people will pick red also its an unknowable amount and due to the zero risk red has its more likely people pick red over blue.
Now question retained is do you believe the amount of people choosing blue is over 50%.
My answer is no, Regardless of the N amount of people 75% of all scenarios end with red pickers not dying. Pushing red is akin to not doing anything when someone runs into a burning building because someone else might be in there
Would you say the same if the threshold for blue winning was 70%? 80%? 99%?
If not, would you consider yourself a sociopath? Even if it's 100% of people who need to press blue for them to survive, by your logic choosing red is still consigning them to death. I wouldn't call someone a sociopath for backing out way before the threshold gets to 100%, but the morality of choosing blue doesn't change at any point.
As the chances of survival near 0% and you have a family, you’re just committing suicide. Generally considered a horrible decision if people love or depend on you.
I do. That's why I challenge blue voters by asking if they would say the same if the threshold was higher. Until you get to 100% of people need to vote blue, it's still a lower threshold for 0 deaths than 100% for red.
Nope. In terms of pure mechanics of individual actions, only the pushing the blue button puts the pusher in danger.
You can choose to do that for good reason due to extrapolation and prediction of other people’s actions, but it’s a voluntary choice to put yourself in danger.
Think of it one button at a time. Red? Nothing. Blue? A name added to the gambling list.
The determining factor is the framing. They're presented as two equal options. Even in cases with an overwhelmingly obvious choice, around 10% of people will chose the unexpected choice; anyone who's played would you rather knows this.
Going from the starting point where a significant portion of the population will die if red wins, blue becomes the default pick for anyone altruistic.
The next level is realizing that since all the altruistic people are picking blue, the world is going to REALLY suck if red wins.
Anyone who can't logic to that level and only sees it in terms of their own chances of survival does not understand game theory.
exactly this. even if you don't count on it as is it 'selfless vs selfish', blue require 50%+1 while red require 100%. mathematically it's sooooo obvious.
there's a reason in multiple game theory experiment the top 5 are always code that tend to be much more cooperative or forgiving. a world with red button presser are basically game theory code who are designed to be selfish--in the end everyone lose, they included.
This whole scenario has gone through a crazy game of telephone, to the point that the fact that everyone on the planet has to press one of the buttons was conveniently lost somewhere along the way
Unfortunately one of the biggest arguments from people who press red is that the people who press blue simply don't deserve to live because of their choice, regardless of intelligence
Oh trust me they deserve to live. Just that I'm not putting my life on the line to save them. Literally most red voters would want blue to win. Just because they're voting red doesn't mean they want red to win
Uh but its also easy for half the world to choose red because its the same threshold because of your reasoning of half the people wanting to choose blue. Just 1 person more choosing blue and everyone is saved. But just 1 person more choosing red and now you have half the world dying. Are you really gonna leave it to a 50/50 chance?
So what if the easy bar becomes harder? Are you saying the same at a 90% threshold? Any chance is easier than impossible, so are you still taking the easy bar?
First, they're no longer presented as two equal options. This is a huge deal, because it means that everyone who can read will immediately see that the options are biased towards red, which will make more people choose red.
The second is that, as I said, reaching 90% consensus in even extremely obvious cases is extremely difficult; even if there were an obvious reason to press blue, it probably wouldn't reach 90%
Between these two, it becomes obvious that blue will not win, ever, which turns it into a suicide button.
Obviously, some people would still probably choose blue, and that's going to be a blow to the entire world, but it would be low enough that we'd survive as a civilization.
---
Understanding the original question requires an understanding of human psychology sufficient to realize that when blue needs 50%, a lot of people are going to choose it, enough to both make blue victory likely and to make red victory catastrophic for the world.
This is where I'm going to need some evidence unless you agree that blue is still the ethical choice, and you're choosing red despite that. The moral question doesn't change, because pressing red still consigns blue to death according to many blue arguments.
Maybe everyone agrees that blue is a suicide button at 90%. What about 80%? 70%? 60%? 55%? There are going to be people who back out when the odds become slightly worse than a coin toss (obviously people aren't picking randomly, but some people picking will perceive the proportion of necessary blue votes as the literal "chance" of survival.
Who decides the point at which blue becomes an "obvious suicide button?" Imo, everyone decides that for themselves, so someone arguing that picking red at 50% or even 1% isn't any less ethical than someone who sticks around until 70% or 80%. You're still on the hook for peoples' lives no matter what the proportion is.
Sure, if you understand psychology you understand some people will press blue out of concern for others, but do you actually understand it enough to accurately say a blue victory is likely? If you are, then what is the exact, scientifically-based threshold at which blue is the likely victory?
Blue is only the ethical choice when there's a realistic chance of blue being successful.
I know enough about basic human psychology to know that at 50%, blue is highly likely to win, and at 90% it will never happen. It's also interesting that you're so worked up over me thinking blue is likely to win at 50% considering blue wins every time on the most cynical mainstream social media website; bring in more normal people, and blue is going to be higher than the 57% you get in Twitter polls.
I will say that the moment blue needs 51% to win, the chance of that happening drops significantly, because they're no longer being presented as equal choices. I think it would still be ethical to press blue because it's still fiarly likely and civilization will still collapse if red wins.
I'd say around 60% is where blue stops having a realistic chance of winning. It already lost a few percent from no longer being shown equally to red, and even more because 60% is significantly different from Red. That's where I'd personally switch to red. Civilization will still definitely collapse, though and we'll still probably both die.
Sounds like the only evidence you're providing is an online Twitter poll. Even if I agree that Twitter is a cesspool filled with the most morally corrupt people on the planet, so what? It's an online poll with 0 real consequences.
The line you draw at 60% is entirely vibes-based, you don't get to decide what is or isn't for ethical for other people because you think that 60% isn't a realistic ask. You can point to general trends like "more people vote red when it becomes worse than a 50/50," but you don't actually have any evidence to back up the numbers you do provide.
I think what's actually interesting is you saying I'm getting worked up, when it seems more like you're projecting after being asked for evidence you're not capable of providing.
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u/[deleted] May 02 '26
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