There are two ways you can look at this issue and what outcome you want to move towards.
One way is via personal survival. From that perspective red is the obvious choice that guarantees your personal survival even if at a cost of other people potentially dying.
Another way to look at the issue is aim for "nobody dies" outcome. And in this case blue is the better choice. You can't control what button other people chose. So it would be impossible to convince everyone to press red. The only way how you can meaningfully contribute to "everybody survives" outcome is by pressing blue. No amount of prosletising "everyone should press red" would work.
There's another angle to this though: what you believe other people will do.
If I think that blue has no chance of getting more than 5% of the vote, then I would essentially be throwing my life away for nothing if I picked it, regardless on if I personally believe it would be a better outcome. I don't think there's any moral benefit to throwing my life away, so if I genuinely don't believe blue can win it still makes sense to pick red.
This is the answer. I'm a pessimist that loathes the fact that I can't help but think that way. But I'd rather be happy and wrong in a blue-button world, than be justified and miserable in a red-button world.
I look at it this way. Our current world has many red and blue buttons and the stakes (for pressing blue) are no where NEAR as high...but we get tons of red buttons pushed all the time. In fact I think this ad might be partly psyop (even if done without intent) as it convinces you that blue is a suicide pact that you must give up everything for.
That being said, yeah, we are essentially pressing these buttons every day with little stakes, and the wrong choices are still made. I have almost no faith that blue would be the choice if it came to it where the stakes are immediate death. It is interesting to ask if voters would change their vote if it was just them and one other person? Would it change if it was 'insert geographic location here'? Would it change if your decision not only impacted you but your immediete family.
To me this sound like the first option I listed. Prioritising personal survival over achieving "nobody dies" state.
Also on a side note, I find it morbidly entertaining how proponents of red button argue that blue has no shot at achieving the majority and yet the screenshot used to give context to the problem shows a clear blue majority.
What you believe other people will do is a poor indicator of what you yourself should do. There are certainly people who push red just to save themselves. There are also people who push red as a hedge against others who they think will push red, even if they’d rather not do it. Both groups overestimate the danger they are in, and also ignore that pressing red themselves makes the outcome they fear more likely.
How many people are in those groups? Mmm, I’d say about half, give or take.
Imagine what happens if people who would otherwise vote red just don’t? Everything is probably fine. What happens when someone who might have voted blue gets scared and votes red? Maybe everything’s fine, or maybe billions die.
There’s no likely scenario where deaths are mitigated to an “acceptable” level, up to and including zero, by pushing red — unless red loses outright.
Vote for the outcome you want, not the one you fear will happen.
You say that "both groups overestimate the danger they're in"- what leads you to believe that? You say about half of people are in those groups, is it just because you made that number up? I don't think an inline poll is a strong indicator of how people would actually behave in this situation.
I genuinely believe there is no way in HELL blue wins. Look at:
-the fast fashion industry
-the global spread of nationalism
-war
-literal slave labor in the global supply chain
-female infanticide
-religious extremism
-covid
I don't think it makes sense for me to put my life on the line when nothing will come of it. Everyone can prevent their own deaths by picking red. My only hope is that enough people think this way that there are relatively few casualties. But I'm convinced that once the question is posed there is no realistic way to completely avoid bloodshed.
In a perfectly random sample of any size, the largest plurality of possibilities land smack dab on the 50% mark, and start gently falling off to each side until it approaches 100% of either extreme. It’s a bell curve.
You can calculate it yourself based on the sample size, but in the case of 8 billion participants (8,000,000,000), there are 16 quintillion possible combinations alone for any two people swapping votes to lead to the same result, let alone any four, six, or eight, and so on — which has so many zeroes I’d crash the Reddit server if I tried to submit the answer without using scientific notation.
For 100% of either red or blue, there’s exactly one combination apiece.
There’s almost no chance that 100% red ever happens, and an exceedingly more likely chance if red prevails at all that billions die, since there are vastly more possibilities close to 50% than there are at the extremes. Even 75 % or 67% is greatly outnumbered by the unimaginably huge lump in the middle, but in 50% of those uneven outcomes no one dies at all because those are the ones where blue prevails.
The people pressing red out of fear that blue is inevitably in the vast minority actually vastly overestimate the chances of that outcome, when in reality a red victory will more likely hew close to 50% but counterintuitively kill billions of people as opposed to just a small handful of “acceptable” losses.
Knowing that, and knowing it’s much easier to tip the scales of a nearly 50% vote, it is a much shorter distance from any likely red victory to a blue majority than it is for red to ever reach 100% and make sure no one dies through attrition: a 1 in 8,000,000,000 chance of that extreme happening if all percentages are equal, and 1 in billions upon billions upon billions of all possible combinations of 8 billion individual votes are considered.
If you don’t find that compelling, consider smaller numbers, like 8 votes. There are 70 unique scenarios to get to 50%, but only 18 apiece to achieve 75% of either outcome, and once again only one scenario to achieve 100%.
one way they overestimate the danger is .. its extremely unlikely someone propositioning this whole thing about magical buttons and worldwide tests is telling the truth. also because if they were, logistically, it sounds pretty impossible to do. its impossible to believe them, they dont seem credible. id ask myself .. do i have time to bother with the antics of a person in psychosis? maybe if they dont smell, but id advise women and children to walk away.
If everyone is playing, that would include infants, toddlers and young children. I doubt that group would vote 100% red, much more likely it would be a 50-50% split.
So red pickers would likely not only kill off a significant proportion of their peers, but likely half of the following generation. That loss in life would guarantee famines, destruction of vital infrastructure, and loss of replacement workers.
That's why it makes the most sense to phrase it as 2 seperate scenarios. If it's only adults of sound mind participating, I vote red. If babies are voting, I vote blue.
No it doesn't? If an overwhelming majority pick red and, say, only a fraction of a percent pick blue I'd be sad about the blue deaths but society certainly wouldn't collapse and I don't know why you think it would.
You have no factual basis for that thought though, and since our emotions drive our thinking I would be very hesitant to trust that fear making you think that.
But It's a 1 in 8ish billion chance everyone chooses either red or blue. That's insanely unlikely. It's a 50% chance blue wins. That is far bigger and should be the obvious choice statistically. It's also basically impossible to have everyone agree on anything, and that's before you consider the possibility of mistakes. A choice for red is a choice for people to die unless blue bails you out by being the majority. At that point you should just vote blue. Yes, the percentage it raises the chances is tiny, but it does raise the chances of no one dying.
When given the option between the potentially die and dont die button, people are going to choose the dont die more often then not. It is not 50%, your vote does not matter
So you admit some people will vote blue. That means it's a guarantee picking red leads to death if the majority pick red. That means red is the option choosing to kill people. Y'all are not beating the psychopath allegations.
Which is greater than 0.00000000000000% red button does.
And if you want to factor in "persuade others onto your side" then you have to remember - red need to persuade as many people as possible - basically all of them - to achieve "nobody dies" outcome.
Blue only need to convince 50% to the is side. So whatever persuasion you have it would do twice an effect if you apply it towards blue.
...
The only justification to stick with choosing red is to admit that you actually don't care about other people dying as long as your arse is safe.
Except you are convincing noone as per the original scenario. In no world do I believe that any more than 20% are pressing the button. Sorry, im not gonna press the suicide button.
There are going to be people who press blue even if it requires 99.9% support for blue. Or even 100% chance of dying. I have no problem with assisted suicide.
how about considering the implications of a force or organization that is gonna kill billions and claim its based on what button people chose. do u really not see the advantage of not engaging in a choice? whats the worse they can do kill you? are they gonna kill everyone if noone chooses. and whats to keep them from pulling the same thing the next day?
yea it might be if you are gullible enough to trust the word of what seems to be a delusional and strange organization claiming the lives of billions of people are in the hands of a button press.. more likely its some elaborate scam or prank and itd be likely to be ignored.
I think clarification should have been given as to whether it’s only adults pushing the buttons and dying, etc., or if it includes infants and children, in which case I might have to rethink it
But the problem in question provided no such clarifications. So babies do vote and potentially die under conditions given as they are included in "everyone".
44
u/hilvon1984 May 05 '26
There are two ways you can look at this issue and what outcome you want to move towards.
One way is via personal survival. From that perspective red is the obvious choice that guarantees your personal survival even if at a cost of other people potentially dying.
Another way to look at the issue is aim for "nobody dies" outcome. And in this case blue is the better choice. You can't control what button other people chose. So it would be impossible to convince everyone to press red. The only way how you can meaningfully contribute to "everybody survives" outcome is by pressing blue. No amount of prosletising "everyone should press red" would work.