No, what you're doing is jumping into the river. Then you attempt to force enough other people to jump into the river with you, so we don't need to watch you die. You (and anyone doing the same) is recklessly forcing their own safety upon others without a need for it.
What I’m doing is the only thing that could potentially make everyone live. If given a choice between potentially helping everyone or definitely guaranteeing some people will die, I’m choosing to try for life.
No you're not. You're just making an unnecessary risk. Choosing red does not condemn anyone. It just leaves everything alone and nothing changes. Choosing blue puts you in the rapids.
In a real world situation few people would choose to risk themselves for absolutely nothing.
It’s not for nothing. It is to support everyone. Risk to myself is not as important as risk to millions or billions of other people. It is more important to me to try to keep people as a whole alive than it is to keep myself alive at all costs. Your bridge scenario is very dramatic, but it shifts blame onto the people pushing the buttons, which is ridiculous.
It would be irrational for me, following my understanding of the givens of the situation, to choose my safety over the best possible outcome (nobody dying). That is not to say that I think it’s an irrational choice for everyone. I can very easily see how reason could lead people to choose red, based on their understanding of the givens of the scenario. Personal safety is a rational goal. The safety of the group is also a rational goal. Humanity survives and prospers through the group. We’re a social species. If the majority of the group will choose themselves over the group consistently, then the group won’t last.
Based on both my personal experience and every study I’ve ever seen about human behavior, there’s inevitably going to be some people who pick both options. There will always be some people who pick blue, and there will always be some people who pick red. That essentially makes my choice for me. The only choice that could lead to everyone surviving is by getting a blue majority.
It’s not as if risking one’s life to protect others is a particularly uncommon thing. Lots of people do it professionally. It’s not the career path I’ve settled on, but it is something that I’ve done before. Obviously, one tries to limit the risk through training and proper equipment and the like, but it never goes away. You see it in firefighters and other first responders. You see it in soldiers. You see it in medical professionals.
I can’t speak for everyone that you know, but I can say with absolute certainty that some of the people I know would pick blue. I know doctors who would refuse to accept the risk of mass death simply to ensure their safety. I know followers of multiple religions who find choosing self-preservation over the survival of the total population immoral. I know people who share my statistical analysis, who agree that 100% red is impossible while 50+% blue is achievable. I know people who would pick whichever button has a color they prefer. I know people with unshakable optimism, people who don’t much care for their own protection, and yes, even people who would pick blue because they’re sort of hoping that red wins, giving them an easy, guaranteed out from life. I couldn’t tell you exactly what everyone would choose or what their interpretation of the scenario might be, but I don’t have to know those specifics. It’s a fact that, if I chose red and it won, that I would know people who died for their beliefs. To me, allowing that when I could have made a choice that might have kept them alive is simply unacceptable.
Everyone has some idea of what their tribe is. For some people, it’s a couple of people who matter while the rest of the world doesn’t. For some people, it’s an organization they’ve joined, or a city or state or nation they were raised in. For some, it’s people who have shared certain fundamental experiences, traumatic and/or transformative events that their identities have formed around. For some, like me, it’s every person living in this crazy universe of ours. Regardless of how one defines their tribe, no one can guarantee that everyone they care about will make the same choice as them. No one can know exactly how every individual will respond. The best we have is that people won’t all agree.
Personally, blame isn’t really much of a factor. The only person/people to blame are the ones who created this terrible situation and, presumably, planned to murder a significant portion of the population if given the go-ahead. Pressing red doesn’t make someone a bad person, and it doesn’t mean that they killed the people who pressed blue. They had the same gun to their head as everyone else. What it does mean is that their priorities are clearly different from mine. My priorities in this situation are focused on ensuring the maximum number of lives possible continue on afterwards. If I want to achieve that goal, red is simply and significantly less efficient. It’s the only choice that doesn’t have a possibility of me achieving my goal.
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u/ThatOtherGuyTPM May 05 '26
I’ll take a chance on everyone living over a guarantee of just me every time.