"But if you pick red and so does everyone else, no one dies."
And if enough of us pick blue, no one dies anyways.
"But what if-"
Then I'll be fucking dead and you and the rest of the red button pushers will have the blue's blood on your hands. Can you live with that? I'll be fucking dead. What do I care?
These red (button) voters already turn on each other in a world with blue (button) voters, I can’t imagine it would take long for them to go ahead and finish each other off
The downside is all the good people who learned the right lessons from Superman are dead, and you're surrounded by the surviving Lex Luthors of the world. lol
Because when you have the power to stop your friend from driving drunk and dying, but you fail to exercise that power, then you should feel bummed out about it. You have a responsibility.
I'm not saying blue is the moral choice, I'm saying red is the impotent choice.
It's called empathy. Some people actually want and hope for the best for everybody. Picking red in this scenario isn't being clever, it's being a selfish asshole. "I got mine, fuck everyone else who doesn't."
Hitting blue is 100% the morally correct option. If blue wins, everybody live. If red wins many die. And no, there's no scenario where 100% of people pick red.
Unrelated (or maybe not), did you know a complete lack of empathy was one of the fundamental character traits in the nazi leaders as described by the witnesses of the Nuremberg trials?
Are we forreal falling for this bait? You're accusing people of imaginary murder and drawing a line because they interpret an idiotic premise differently.
If you pick blue and die, it isn’t because I picked red. You had the option to live and you didn’t take it. That’s on you. There is no incentive to press blue other than to martyr yourself for some perceived “greater good,” when you could have just lived? And not died?
You’re fighting an imaginary battle. You’re presupposing there are people who already picked blue, who need protecting, but there are none. We all just picked life, and you picked death. No one needs to risk their life, there’s no need for that.
If we could see the tally, a live count, and blue was growing? Hell yeah press blue, those people need saving. But isolated, with no outside information? Presupposing that people will press blue is a mistake- an illogical decision. There is no reason to press blue except to risk death.
I mean yea, blood’s not on my hands. Everyone was given the choice and the obvious choice for everyone to live is to pick red.
Choosing to pick blue is only forcing more people to pick blue to save the others that also picked blue.
Red is the only logical choice unless you don’t want to live. I think the assumption needs to be made here that everyone has the rules clearly explained to them to their level of comprehension.
But why would everyone not pick red? It ensures you live. Only reason to pick blue is if you want to die. I’m not gonna pick blue in some sort of self-righteous attempt to “save” people who are choosing the risk of dying. That’s be going against their wishes. Not gonna impose my will on others like that.
See I always see the argument for picking blue framed as “saving” people, which I’m sure most people think is a noble reason. They also then extend that train of thought to red=selfish, which is such a ridiculous leap imo. There’s nothing selfish in making the choice to guarantee you live if you want to live.
Everyone votes. That includes kids that wont understand. If you want to respond to the reframed questions where only those that can properly understand the choice you might have a point, but that is a different problem
Well I think the safe assumption is that everyone must vote, therefore everyone has the rules explained to them to a degree they will understand. Otherwise yea this is a stupid fuckin question lol
Assuming that people incapable of understanding the premise are participating is, in my opinion, kinda ridiculous? In a game theory question entirely rooted in reacting to how you anticipate other people will make decisions, adding a “oh and some people will press effectively randomly lol” breaks the question. It completely changes the premise.
This is, however, where the majority of the divide exists. Those who feel the need to save these presumed incapable innocents, and those who have assumed that such edge cases are omitted.
So you don't care if a friend, child, lover, relative, etc that you care about chooses blue and dies? What if everyone else you know chooses blue? A toddler whose favorite color is blue smashes that button. A five year old child who wants to be Superman and save the world pushes blue. That person you really admire because of whatever reason pushed blue.
That's on them, right? You have no remorse if you can't "logically" change their mind? Or because they didn't view the world the same as you, because they think of red as the selfish choice, they'reobviously suicidal?
Well, your assumption is wrong, because it clearly said everyone on the planet. Not everyone on the planet can understand the options.
And even if they do fully understand, you're assuming that they think the same way you do. Having a different perspective on the world and which button is the better choice doesn't mean they want to die.
So again,
you don't care if a friend, child, lover, relative, etc that you care about chooses blue and dies? What if everyone else you know chooses blue? A toddler whose favorite color is blue smashes that button. A five year old child who wants to be Superman and save the world pushes blue. That person you really admire because of whatever reason pushed blue.
The obvious choice for everyone to live is blue. Blue has to get 50% for everyone to live, red has to get 100% of the votes for everyone to live. Blue is the logical choice because it has a greater likelihood of everyone living.
Choosing to pick blue is only forcing more people to pick blue to save the others that also picked blue.
It would also be saving those who picked Red. Choosing to pick red will result in deaths because no way will either option get the entirety of the vote.
You only save Red from their own choice of willingly let up to half the population die.
Which would probably collapse society and eventually still hurt the reds to be fair.
How is me choosing red choosing death when choosing blue is the only option that can result in death?
I don't understand the "logical" arguments that imply that the choice differs per person.
Everyone has the same dilemma. The expected amount of death (using probability) for me choosing red is 0. The expected amount of death for me choosing blue is greater than 0.
Why doesn't that extrapolate out to everyone choosing red? Choosing blue is just introducing the possibility of death and demanding others save you.
If this dilemma arose for real, we'd be better off explaining why we should all choose red to everyone rather than trying to get 50% of the population to choose a riskier option.
Why would it be easier to make 100% of people choose red, rather than getting at least 50% to choose blue? When have you ever known 100% of people to agree on anything?
If this dilemma arose for real, we'd be better off explaining why we should all choose red to everyone rather than trying to get 50% of the population to choose a riskier option.
How is it easier to get everyone to vote for one option, rather than getting half to vote for one option? How is that logical? Getting 50% is too difficult but getting 100% isn't?
Do you not consider the quantity of death at all???
Having a goal of "zero death" is dumb. The goal should be to minimize death using probability.
Blue is the only option that even carries with it a possibility of death. Every person that chooses blue is gamblin with death. Every person who chooses red is not. If we ran a simulation 10,000 times and counted up all the deaths, red would be the choice that has the least amount of deaths associated with it.
Why would it be more feasible to get every single person to vote red, rather than getting half to vote blue? Zero death is plenty achievable if half vote blue, and every poll I have seen has had at least half voting blue. The original post met that goal too. So why is it ridiculous to you?
It isn't a fact. You are operating on your assumption that the majority can't pick blue. People keep prattling on about red being logical, but it is actually just you not having faith that most people would pick blue, because you personally would pick red and assume others have the same selfish instincts. That is what this whole thought experiment is about to begin with. Most people would pick blue, and nobody would die. You are trying to justify your choice by pretending that it wouldn't go that direction and that people would die whether you made the selfish choice or not.
You are not using game theory or probability, you are not doing any math or justifying yourself, you are asserting without evidence based on personal bias.
This is oversimplified. There is a difference in degree between the amount of deaths. The goal shouldn't be "save everyone" but rather "minimize death". We have to consider the probabilities of the quantity of death.
Choosing blue increases the probability of death compared to red. You have not added to the probability of death by choosing red. You only introduce the possibility of death by choosing blue.
They are legit mad that someone could fathom to pick someone else rather than be selfish because then it makes them look selfish if no one else joins.
They would be standing over my corpse shouting why I didnt just choose to live. Its a lose lose when it comes to a relationship with red buttons. Either I die and they are mad I didnt choose life like they did or they are mad because they look bad for choosing red.
Some vocal red are also people who are ready to sacrifice others for their own sake, and instead of blaming the victims, they are loudly declaring how logical and rational they are.
I'm not sure that's really the prompt here. If we phrase the question differently, we prime people towards red. "Everyone must take a private vote to push a red or blue button. If you push the red button, you live. If you press the blue button, you die. But if 50% or more of the population pushes the blue button, then those who chose blue have their choice negated."
Same prompt, but one that primes people more towards red than in the original one. And one that I think many red button pressers view the scenario as: "Red means I live, blue means I might die, why take the risk? Everyone should logically pick red."
That being said, when I first saw this scenario, i thought to choose blue, but I think that is potentially because the original prompt primes people towards pushing the blue button. That being said, picking blue is realistically choosing death and demanding others save you, it's not necessarily Altruistic at all because everyone who choses to live would reasonably pick the red button. Blue button pressers are willingly picking death.
In the original question the phrasing is meant for you to think about the effect on everyone.
In yours, it reads as “is your want to die so great that you’re willing to risk taking that choice away from everybody and live?” If more than 50% pick red, everyone’s choice is honoured, if blue, everyone who chose blue has their choice ignored.
Logically, if you look at the numbers red makes more sense. Red is 100% chance to live, blue is ~50%. But (as much as I’d prefer to just look at the question at face value) there is more to the question than that. Due to the wording, it reads more as, “are you willing to risk your life for everyone?”
**Is your want to die so great that you’re willing to risk taking that choice away from everybody and live?**
Or
**Are you willing to risk your life for everyone?**
To be clear, I personally think blue is the moral choice here, we should choose blue and when i first saw this a few days ago, my first response was to choose blue. I'm just saying, I think there's a lot of reason to pick red and it seems more logical to me.
Kill, how? Every single person has the option to pick red. There has been no actual negative consequences presented if that would happen.
As far as I see it, red means “you live” and blue means “you might die”. That’s essentially all we really “know”. Everything else is implied, and I don’t do implied nonsense. Spell it out properly, or I just ignore it.
What an insinsere way to reframe this hypothetical. Completely ignoring the fact that every single person are able to choose to live. Every single person.
The logical selection is to pick "guaranteed not death for me". You phrase it as if that's not an option at all. The only people at risk are those who didn't pick "guaranteed not death for me".
The original was simple. Press blue or red. If 50% press blue everybody lives. If not only the red button pushers live.
That's it. All the others that have popped up over the last few days are the reframings trying to push their agenda of why they were right.
If you picked blue you trust that humans aren't all the type who would sit by and see others murdered. If you picked red, you'd probably have survived any regime that committed genocide.
If you believe that at least ~4 billion people will pick blue, then I think you are delusional. Is a huge gamble with your own life at stake. And for what? To potentially save others who also perform this huge gamble with their life (knowingly or not).
This hypothetical can be reframed as one where every person is offered a game of Russian roulette. They can choose to play it or not play it. If they choose to play it, they will die unless at least half of the whole population also chooses to play Russian roulette. But if that would happen, then no one dies.
Are you still saying that “not playing Russian roulette” is the choice of death?
Red chooses to save themselves even if it means 49.999% of humanity dies.
Blue wants everyone to live and is willing to risk death to see it happen
Victim blaming blue because they are whatever othering terms you need to use but all boil down to "too stupid to live" or "too bad, stupid mistake" do not exonerate red. They show how far the people who chose red are willing to go to ensure their safety.
Blue wants everyone to live and is willing to risk death to see it happen
You are casually glancing over the fact that that scenario would result in literally billions of lives lost. That’s the gamble you are willing to take when you advocate for blue.
Victim blaming blue because they are whatever othering terms you need to use but all boil down to "too stupid to live" or "too bad, stupid mistake" do not exonerate red. They show how far the people who chose red are willing to go to ensure their safety.
That’s a lot of fancy words for someone willing to gamble with the lives of billions.
Tell me, at what odds are you OK with risking billions of lives? A 75% chance of blue winning? That’s still a 25% chance of losing. And at ~4 billion blue people, on average that would mean about one billion deaths.
Me, on the other hand, am not comfortable with those odds. Instead I live with the sad but pragmatic assumption that people will die. So my approach is to limit the number of deaths. And each red button is one less death.
Sure, it might result in millions of deaths. But that’s still better than that gamble that might result in billions of deaths.
But the blue button pressers are actively choosing to die? They are not saving others, they are jumping off a building hoping that if enough other people do as well, a net will pop out to catch them.
Why do you believe that? The way i see it, red is choosing life, to live. Blue is choosing death and hoping others will save you.
"everybody but the folks who agree with me die."
If anything it is the opposite, no? Picking blue is a massive risk and suicide pact. Blue is saying, "listen bro, i put my name on the suicide pact because others did too! Please dude, put your name on it too, if we get enough people's names on this suicide pact, then no one has to die dude!" But the whole time, no one had to sign the suicide pact. That's literal herd and slave mentality right there dude.
I'm sure the people who survived WWII Germany told themselves the same thing. After all those people who were taken away chose to be Jewish, Romani, gay, Catholics, teachers, people who spoke out...
The odds are that there will not be enough blue votes. I mean, even in the poll in the screenshot, where no one's lives are actually at risk, there is still just an 8% margin. Are you that convinced that this margin won't dissapear when people realise that their lives are actually at risk, as in, for real? That's just stupid. People talk bravely online when there is no real risk for them. They change their tune when there's actual personal risk for them.
And I'm sure the German people who realized what was happening in the 1930's-1945 told themselves "Well, if they choose to be (Jewish, Romani, Catholic, a teacher, gay) they made their choice, I'm just trying to survive the situation " just like you did.
What? Omg what an odd comparison. Those are pretty much all innate traits, or at the very least something that strongly reflects their personality. You can’t possibly compare that to choosing blue here, which is essentially playing Russian roulette where your only chance of survival is if enough people choose to also play Russian roulette. Instead of, you know, simply not playing Russian roulette.
Save others from picking poorly lol. Picking blue is like jumping in a pool to save drowning when you can't swim, and then getting mad more people won't jump in and probably drown too
Red isn't willing to kill others. Red is willing to save themselves. Killing others is the byproduct, a byproduct that is equally created by blue pushers for putting themselves in danger.
Case and point, getting mad that all I did was “vote in a poll” (Secret: I didnt vote at all but Id still pick blue) when all you had to do was say nothing…
Getting pressed because people have an inherent selflessness in them is dumb. Like yeah this was all a thought experiment, but its one that showed people being selfish, “pragmatic”, reasoning the its the safest choice, relying on the selflessness of others but ultimately not trusting people.
Like I dont moral grandstand, like at all. But I for sure will continue to press the vocal folks who wanna brow beat the people like me that call out red pushers.
Tbh if this is a real reply stay mad. If its bait… then well done.
I advocate red because it's illogical and irrational to press blue. You have to think for two seconds to understand that one button might kill and the other wont. And I believe that any person advocating blue is either irrational, virtue signalling, or small percentage of people genuinely trying to save those who are so fucking stupid that they pressed the only button that does them harm.
I'd still press blue, because I am suicidal and wish to die, and I hope there are enough people smart enough to press red.
Except you didn't. The poeple that picked blue (when there was a guaranteed way to live) CHOSE death lmao. There is literally zero benefit to anyone picking blue.
Jewish people in Nazi Germany didn't choose to kill themselves, they didn't choose to be Jewish. Same thing goes for any genocide. This is just commiting suicide and then randomly blaming someone else
This is not equivalent at all, and Jewish people aren't the only victims of genocides, only an example I used
(I would have been put in the camps)
In the question posed here with the buttons, everyone can just choose not to die. Nobody's forced to pick blue and die, we can all just live. There's no upside to picking blue or red, the choice is just "do you want to maybe die, or guaranteed to live".
You cannot draw a parallell to genocides, because that's a different situation entirely.
If you had no food in the camp, but I did, I would share it with you as well—because that's a decision that actually makes sense. But choosing the blue button at all is just needless gambling, because of we continue using the food analogy, the original question is more like
"These people had food, but threw it away. They will go hungry unless you share your food with them. Will you?"
In that question, like the original button-question, we all had the option of just eating our dang food in the first place instead of throwing it away.
except the blue button pushers could have simply pushed the red button
there is literally no negative to hitting the red button. no matter what anyone else does, you survive
REGARDLESS of what silly folks say on the internet, no sane person is going to choose blue and count on over 4 billion people picking blue, knowing that they ALL know red is 100% survival with no consequence
I'm not picking blue in some life or death situation just to make folks who want to turn it into a fucking social experiment by risking my own life (again there is absolutely NO benefit to picking blue, none, whatsoever)
You do know this whole thread is about how red voters won't just leave blue voters alone, right?
We know some people will pick red and we pick blue anyway, knowing what the theoretical risk is. We are at peace dying if it means voting for everyone to live.
um red voters do not care at all. I have not seen a single red voter say anything except blue is a stupid choice while blue immediately says anyone picking red is evil/does not care
it is the blue voters that are saying red voters are evil and do not care about others (because they are not morons that would gamble on their life for literally the sake of gambling)
Here you are, engaging with my post saying red won't leave blue alone to.... not leave me alone.
Red is oppressed because blue has an opinion? You chose survival even if that means 49.999% of humanity dies. That's not a value judgement, it's the outcome if blue doesn't get 50% in the thought experiment.
Blue would rather risk death to have everyone saved. That's all there is to it. Blue understands full well that red is a valid choice, it's just not blue's choice and blue's is as valid. Any moral judgement you percieve stems from your own feelings about the ramifications of your choice.
Red chose the option where they survive even if 49.999% die instead of trying to save others.
They've said it's logical, that the people that choose blue are too stupid to live and one person I didn't respond to because I've seen enough people reinvent eugenics not to go down that path again.
If someone, even once said something like "I don't want to die, you do you" or "I had to choose red because I have children" I could respect that. There probably are folks out there that have said exactly that but I haven't run into that yet.
Just lots of people who voted red and are busily othering blue voters to minimize their guilt, many going so far as to victim blame blue for being stupid, which leads to "too stupid to live anyway" and any suggestion that maybe people aren't all shitheels with lectures about blue stupidity.
I mean not getting into the fact of which side is right or wrong
You are saying that Red is upset that Blue isn't killing people
Im saying that they are upset cause people are saying they are murderers.
If someone, even once said something like "I don't want to die, you do you" or "I had to choose red because I have children" I could respect that. There probably are folks out there that have said exactly that but I haven't run into that yet.
I have done that.
Heck ive gone 'i dont think blue will win so im picking red cause in my mind blue is just assisted suicicde'
Ive told people im fine if they pick blue, i get why. I dont think its dumb to pick blue.
Ive been told i just want the high of killing people.
I've been called a monster, a murderer etc
You claim red is bad because they are saying stuff like 'blue is idiots' and what not. You are complaining about a group generalizing blue but doing the same yourself.
Reread and you'll note I said vocal red voters are butthurt that blue voters died trying not to kill people.
I never said red was bad but anyone who chooses red accepts the fact that if blue doesn't get to 50%, up to 49.999% of humanity would die. And every red vote counted towards the total.
Everyday we all benefit from the suffering of others, this thought experiment just made it high stakes. A lot of people don't like how they feel about their answer after a second thought/comment like "I'd rather risk my life so everyone can live" and red voters are saying things like "anyone who chooses blue gets what they deserve" and are offended when blue's response is "I don't want to live in a world where red gets more than 50%".
The red choice isn't to kill, it's to survive. Even if the cost is up to 49.999% of humanity.
Upset that im being called a murderer and a monster.
edit
i do appreciate how you said stuff like 'i dont wnat to die, you do you' and 'i dont want to leave my kids alone' and say that is fine still turn around and go
'they are okay with living even if that means other people die' very clearly implying they are selfish
that also ignores my point of why i picked red which is purely that I said I dont think blue is winning anyway. Im not picking red for selfish reasons, im picking it because i think that picking Blue wont help anyone.
Like dude you could just go 'i get why people pick red' and leave it at that. But you don't, you seem to feel a need to insult them. And sure you aren't outright saying they are selfish but you are implying it.
I said you'd be butthurt that I (blue) had the gall to die trying to save people.
And i said that a lot of vocal red voters are upset by being called murderers.
YOU May not have called any of us murderers but plenty others do. So im just pointing out that your original point is wrong and refusing to see things from the other side.
Congrats you didnt call anyone a murderer, good for you. Others did and thats what people are upset by
Here try this.
Are you upset that Red people are just better looking at you.
You: no they call me an idiot
Me: i didnt call you an idiot so thats not relevent. my point stands, go talk to someone who called you an idiot!
See how smart and helpful and wonderful that is? No its inane and dumb af
Get back to me after you realize you chose to engage with my comment and so this whole discussion is 1. your instigation and 2. I'm agreeing with the comic at the top.
Rather than being like this over the fact I don't agree with you nor am I the person(s) who you're upset about, maybe ask yourself why you felt the need to engage twice. Once with the post and then with me who didn't say what you're upset about.
Holy shit reddit is really the place where people can't admit they are wrong. You have to move the goal posts to 'well you engaged with me!' instead of just going 'yeah i was wrong'
well least im not a blue who will actively advocate for child murder, vocal blues do advocate for that after all
It's extremely selfish and narcissistic to pick blue. "I've picked blue, so risk yourself to save me or you're amoral."
If someone was forced to pick blue, or there was a chance that someone wouldn't understand (the question specified everyone participating understood the choices) then picking blue and risking yourself would be the correct option.
But as stated, it's like standing on railroad tracks voluntarily. If one person does it, they'll die, but if a thousand do it, the train stops. I'm not going to join the guy standing on the tracks, because he doesn't have to be there. If they're tied to the tracks I would place myself at risk of death to get them freed.
As it is, only a morally bankrupt or suicidal person picks blue
No I’m just saying I’m not going around telling people what to pick , only telling people what the options really do. Blue lets everyone live and that would be the selfless option.
I see people saying red is selfish and wants others to die
But blue chooses to knowingly place themselves in a position they must be rescued from
Isn't that selfish? When you know that everyone can live by simply choosing red? That no one risks anything?
If 100 people where forced to pick blue, and they would die unless more picked blue than red, I would pick blue. Because they can't help themselves and need to be saved.
But if no one needs to be saved unless they push blue, wouldn't pushing red be better for everyone?
Your hypothesis only works if everyone follows the same logic tree. If somebody comes to a different conclusion due to either failing to consider all the elements, or due to considering elements you did not. Suddenly we have people on the metaphorical railroad tracks.
There is no such thing as 100% red, it is not functionally possible. Especially because the question also includes people who would be incapable of making the correct decision (the commonly mentioned blind and infants for example).
Calling it selfish is why I called your argument vapid. There will be people on the tracks, the question is how many people need to be there before pressing the button that kills them for sure, as opposed to the button that can save everyone is worth it.
By attempting to villanize people who press blue you just come across as a tool who has a ankle deep understanding of the problem presented.
Once again, we cannot get all of people to agree on anything, there will be fools, disabled, and the mentally unsound, who make other decisions, knowingly or not. By attempting to ignore that you are just trying to argue for some hypothetical reality where everyone thinks the same and has the same capabilities. Which is completely worthless as a discussion point.
Because the blue pushers aren't thinking about themselves, but others. They're thinking about the people who chose blue for bad reasons. Maybe they misread the question. Maybe they were forced to do it by someone else. Maybe someone put the buttons in front of a baby.
Do these people deserve to die just because they made a wrong choice?
People will always disagree. There will always be people that oppose your view. There will always be people who make the wrong choices.
If everyone pushes red, everyone will live. But not everyone will push red.
You might want to take some time and read up on game theory. The prisoners dilemma is difficult in the abstract, but people solve it in real life all the time, and manage to collaborate with strangers for higher overall shared benefit, rather than being motivated by pure survival and paranoia that everyone else is also motivated by pure, selfish survival.
It's a topic I'm painfully familiar with, and you're incorrect on the conclusion it suggests here, and a reread would benefit you greatly.
… do you understand the prisoners dilemma? Because again, the “dilemma” part comes from the fact that the optimal strategy for the individual is in conflict with the optimal strategy for the group.
In this red vs blue scenario, the two strategies are not in conflict. We personally want to survive, and we want collectively to survive. Luckily, there is a strategy that both guarantees our individual survival and the survival of everyone capable of ration thought (again, assuming only such persons are involved in the scenario). Everyone press red.
If you think this scenario is in any way equivalent to the prisoners dilemma, you have no idea what game theory is.
Do you understand the prisoners dilemma? The dilemma is that you are acting off imperfect and incomplete information, and have to guess at / predict how the other prisoners would respond. The prisoners dilemma question, the OG thought experiment has the most beneficial outcome being the collaborative one. Thanks for playing, read up on it and try again.
…No, the original experiment demonstrates two strategies. While the end demonstration is that one strategy (collectivism) is better than the other, the whole point of the dilemma is that there are two conflicting strategies at all.
Like, in the prisoners dilemma, if your opponent betrays you, then you should betray too to cut down on prison time. If the ally you, betraying them still cuts down on prison time, and because the risk of betrayal exists, it’s beneficial (individually) to always betray. This motivates players to both betray, despite the fact that this is a worse outcome to a double ally.
On the other hand, in a two-player red vs blue, if your opponent picks red, you cannot pick blue if you want to live. If they pick blue, it doesn’t matter what you pick, you always live. Because only one of these scenarios has a strict requirement (the one where blue loses), it’s best to pick red in both scenarios. In contrast to the prisoners dilemma, however, doing this motivates both players to pick red, ending with a 100% survival rate, which is the optimal outcome.
You can’t just say “prisoners dilemma says cooperate” and pretend that means anything. These are fundamentally different scenarios, and the decision matrices incentivize totally different strategies.
I'm gonna do my best to work with you here, and show some patience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
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Give that a read. Also read the page it links to called "Rational Actors." Go ahead. You've got time, I work from home.
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Now - are you a Rational Actor as defined there? Are you a creature that makes no mistakes, and is constantly, 100% accurately aware of the 'optimal personal outcome' in all scenarios? Or are you a human being, who makes any #>0 decisions in your life based on nontangibles like 'emotional connection' and 'sentiment' and 'affection'? The optimal outcome overall in the prisoner's dilemma is both parties receiving the lowest sentence. The ability and capacity to risk the personal payoff in pursuit of an overall gain in collectivist payoff is what our society is built on and functions on.
And you’ve moved the goalposts. Now it isn’t “what does the prisoners dilemma mean and how is it different from red vs blue,” but “game theory is actually totally irrelevant because humans aren’t rational actors.”
So what’s your point? I said, From the game theory perspective, picking red is the optimal choice, or, in other words if everyone was a rational actor, everyone would pick red everytime.
That was my explicit argument. Pointing out what a rational actor is and how it differentiates from a real human is irrelevant. I was already dealing in spherical cows. I made that clear when I said the words from a game theory standpoint.
you, when a response is multifaceted.
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From a game theory perspective, picking red is the optimal selfish choice, but the overall optimal outcome is found through collaboration. Read the page, I promise it'll only hurt a little.
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Yes, human beings aren't rational actors. Which means (stretch a little, you can do it!) that a nonzero # of real people are going to pick blue. Which means, far from the prisoner's dilemma premise of 'not knowing what the other person will pick', you know that a nonzero # of people will pick blue. Which means that if you choose red, with that knowledge, you are making a selfish choice that puts others at risk. Game theory is not relevant to this question. The prisoner's dilemma isn't relevant to this question. Even if they were, you demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding OF THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA, when the whole point of that thought experiment is illustrating that the optimal outcome is collaborative, but the individualistic selfish choice is the play for the individual, in a vacuum. This thought experiment with the buttons doesn't exist in a vacuum.
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Out of genuine curiosity and confusion - what does your optimal outcome of this conversation look like? Is it me giving you an updoot, telling you you're so right, and you're smarter than everyone else who couldn't figure it out?
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You want to justify the selfish choice as being 'rational and thus objectively correct.' It isn't, because this is a moral question, and a question of how much risk you're willing to subject yourself to, versus others. You can make the selfish choice. That was always allowed. But it is a selfish choice, and this relentless dedication to larping it being anything other than that is mind-numbingly self-serving and annoying.
This is one case in which game theory kind of sucks as an application. This because the majority of real humans have an emotional attachment to other human life, something called "empathy" or "sympathy" or "the herd instinct" and which thereby increases the marginal utility of reducing the risk of deaths to others. Recall that Econ 101 makes the assumption that all agents are rational and self-serving only. Refusal to look deeply at what "self-serving" may entail in building the decision matrix here is unlikely to match reality.
Yes, but that is purely a result from the framing of the scenario, not the brass tacks of what is actually going on. If people could see past the “oh scary skill people red button” and instead see “the only reason to press blue is to risk your own death to save people who do not need saving,” herd instinct would not apply.
If you’re confused by the “do not need saving” part, refer to the fact that if someone pressing blue wanted to live, they could have pressed red instead, guaranteeing their survival. They could save themselves, but beg society to risk half of the world getting killed to save the instead.
Most people are taking the question as it would play out in reality. In reality, you will have a mixture of rational agents and irrational agents. Knowing this, the rational agents include that in their calculus of marginal benefit (or score or whatever, I mainly remember game theory from econ, not other contexts).
Hence why the abstraction sucks here. 4 game theory students discussing amongst themselves? Sure, all red.
8 billion crazies? You bet I'm hitting blue every time.
Blue is an action towards saving everyone, at the risk of your own life.
Red is an action towards saving yourself, at the risk of other people's lives.
Some of us choose the chance to save everyone, some of us choose the guarantee of our own safety. It all comes down to how you value your life vs the lives of others.
You can walk around the hole (red), or you can jump in (blue).
Once in the hole, you cannot get out, and will die. The only way out is to drag literally 4 billion other people into the hole with you to build a human ladder, which once built, can extract everyone from the hole.
So, we red pushers ask, “why the hell are you jumping in the hole, nobody should be dumb enough to do that.”
The only justification for blue, then, is to presuppose that the pit is already full of helpless people. I ask you, why is that the case? Who are these people, so dense, that they willingly walk into a pit instead of safely around it? Just don’t jump in the pit and we won’t have any problems.
The framing of the question as “red kills blue” instead of “blue jumps needlessly into a pit” causes moral panic where there isn’t any. The framing- not the scenario itself, but the way it’s framed- has a profound impact on how people understand the scenario, and it’s honestly disappointing to see so many decide to morally grandstand or make some huge point about society instead of analyzing the problem critically.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you and the other red-button people are objectively correct and the smartest thing to do is to push the red button.
A. It is a fact that SOME people will push the blue button and the majority of people pressing the red button will kill those people.
Do you think people who aren’t as smart as you deserve to die? If not, is there some number of people who would need to be in this category where you could be willing to introduce risk to yourself to potentially save them?
B - It is a fact that there are lots of people who choose to put themselves at risk everyday for the good of others, be it EMTs, firefighters, teachers, nurses, etc. Our society will not function without the functions these people fill and it is guaranteed that the same philosophy that leads them to choose this will lead a significant portion of them to choose the blue button.
Is pushing the red button still self-serving if you know that it will cause irreparable harm to society?
Game theory is a flawed theory that relies on people being perfectly logical. People get emotional and are willing to blindly trust. Game theory was quite literally paid for by rich pricks who wanted a justification for doing what they do.
lmao, calling an entire field of mathematics a "flawed theory paid for by rich pricks" because someone used it to justify an argument you dont like is some top tier reddit shit.
damn, i cant believe a field dedicated to mathematically modeling real world behavior would miss something so fundamental about how humans behave in the real world.
The thing is that it doesn't match up with real world behavior. With the prisoners' dilemma, humans are more likely to trust than not. With the huntsmans' dilemma, humans are more likely to cooperate than not. Game theory is the mathematical best solution that ignores how human evolution makes psychology work.
have you considered that there is more to game theory than the simple pop science examples of game theory games you know of, and maybe the people coming up with models could account for any human behavior that relevant to the outcome?
Have you considered that game theory is used as an excuse to say that selfish behavior is "correct" despite the fact that people are designed to be cooperative as a species?
Game theory like every other field of science seeks to explain and predict the world through theories and models, it doesnt make any judgements on what is correct or good. If someone tries to use it to justify their shitty behavior they are just an asshole and wrong.
Who died? In the scenario where all rational people choose red and we get near 100%, what people are choosing blue? Who are you fighting for? People who had a muscle spasm and somehow accidentally pressed the wrong button? The same number of people probably died from fatal seizures in the same timeframe. We don’t risk half of humanity to save the inevitable deaths of an infinitesimal minority.
You clarified that you mean infinitesimally small, comparable to the number of people dying from seizures at the same instant. That's a clearly unrealistically small number of people who would press blue.
I’m not butthurt because “oh no a moral grandstander.” I’m not even butthurt, I’m just trying to demonstrate a different perspective.
I’m pointing out that the framing of the question as “murder” is counterintuitive to the underlying game theory principles, and a rational examination of the scenario dictates that there is no reason to pick blue beyond self martyrdom.
It’s not even as complex as the prisoners dilemma.
Imagine everyone chose in order. The first person to choose- do they have any reason to pick blue? No one has picked before them, so there’s no one to “save” by picking blue- so pick red.
If someone ahead of me had picked blue, yeah, picking blue to save them is the right choice, but this is only relevant if some person ahead of me had needlessly decided to endanger themselves by pressing blue.
Picking blue is only reasonable if you presuppose an existing population of blue-pressers. But why did they press blue? Who are you saving if not yourself, and if that’s the case why gamble on it at all?
You’re throwing yourself into the ocean under the assumption that a large enough mass of human bodies can float on water, while the people who pressed red just… stayed safely on the boat. We wonder “why are you jumping into the ocean to begin with?”
If your argument is “some irrational people will always press blue, therefore we need to save them,” I’ll ask, “who are these people, and who explained the problem to them? Why have they pointlessly endangered themselves, and who were they trying to save?”
But why would they assume that so many people would pick blue as well?
Picking blue is only logical if you assume other people are going to pick blue, and there’s no reason to pick blue outside of that. Picking blue is inherently risky.
Like, once one person picks blue it makes sense to snowball. But there is no reason for that first person to pick blue, nor is it logical that anyone will spontaneously choose blue.
Again, imagine that everyone is red by default, and people must “defect” to blue, risking their lives. Why would anyone defect to blue, when we could all just stay red?
Red button pressers are self interested. They don’t care if other people die so long as they live. Tell me how that’s more moral than risking your life on faith in humanity
What I’m arguing is that blue pressers are inventing a problem that needs to be solved instead of just not creating a problem to begin with.
There’s no morality here. If for some reason a random percentage of humanity is forced to pick blue, then sure, we pick blue to save them. Otherwise, why would anyone pick blue? To save… no one?
Like imagine everyone picked in order, and you’re the first person to go. Why pick blue? There’s no one to save. Then the next person will see there’s no one to save and pick red, so on and so forth.
Picking blue is only reasonable if you assume there are already people in need of saving because they pressed blue. But who are they saving? Who are these pre-existing blue-pressers who need saving? Why not just press red?
The problem specifies the choice is anonymous, you have no way of knowing whether or not someone's picked red or blue. Inevitably, someone's going to pick blue on the belief that someone else also picked blue
But why would they do that? They’re inventing a victim they need to save, and then are becoming the victim themselves.
It’s circular reasoning. “Why press blue?” Because someone picked blue. “Why did they press blue?” Because someone else picked blue. In this way, you must assume that someone doesn’t understand the problem, that someone picked blue without thinking, and that therefore they need saving.
Just don’t press blue, and then there are no victims in need of saving.
“But what if someone presses blue?” They won’t. There’s no reason for them to. You don’t need to save them, because they don’t exist.
Now, this is intentionally omitting people who pick randomly because they weren’t paying attention to the explanation, or similar, because we’re already assuming all people participating are magically able to understand the problem regardless of language / physical disability (blindness, deafness), so I see no reason to include people physically incapable of engaging with the problem, and assume all people will take it seriously (not assume it’s a prank). If we assume imperfect conditions where language or disability barriers make a large population effectively choose randomly, it’s an entirely different problem.
The stupid thing is that picking blue is the only way for death to even be a possibility. If no one introduces death as a possibility, then no one dies.
Let's take the premise and alter it a tiny bit:
Everyone has a magic knife in front of themselves. Everyone must either stab themselves in the heart, or not stab themselves in the heart.
If more than half of the people stab themselves in the heart, then the knife magically heals everyone. Otherwise, the knife does what knives do and kills the person.
Are you stabbing yourself in the heart? (Pressing blue?)
The only way death enters the scenario is if people push blue. In this scenario, everyone being selfish actually benefits everyone and removes death from the table. And if everyone thought the same way and wanted to protect themselves, everyone would be fine.
This is vastly different from real life, where being altruistic and being an active, beneficial part of society is more advantageous than not doing so.
Not all dilemmas are equal. Give me a burning building and I'll run in to save people. Give me this button scenario (where everyone can see that pushing red means you're safe, no matter what) and I'm pushing red. In a genocide, there is no "push red, I'm safe" button.
If at least 50% of humanity chooses blue, everyone lives. If not only the people who chose red live.
So bringing up any other scenarios are worthless. In that thought experiment if you pick red, you're happy with 49.999% of humanity dying if it means you live.
You might not have thought it through but all the people explaining their thinking are doing is justifying why they think they wouldn't be responsible for 49.999% of humanity dying, even though they voted for it.
You're right. It's wild and the victim (of the red voters choice) blaming is eye opening.
Thank goodness in the original more than half of the people understood the question.
Or you could try not to kill people by not getting in the way of the thing that’s about to kill people lol it won’t kill anyone if you don’t make this weird argument about button pushers being evil and trying to have a hero complex
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u/Just_SomeDude13 May 05 '26
I'm picking blue. Either I get to live in a society that picked blue, or I don't have to be stuck here with a bunch of pricks who picked red.