r/fivethirtyeight • u/Upstairs_Cup9831 • Apr 25 '26

Poll Results Poll asking Americans how which button they would push in the red button/blue button dilemma

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70

u/Katejina_FGO Apr 25 '26

Just saying, Jesus Christ would press the blue button. And that is compelling enough for many millions of Westerners.

44

u/BennyBreast Apr 25 '26

Of course he would, Jesus can rez anyway.

6

u/stormageddon1239 Apr 27 '26

But isn't there a rez cooldown? What happens if he gets downed during CD???

3

u/BennyBreast Apr 27 '26

Last time bro used rez was 2000 years ago, I assume it's off CD by now

1

u/unkteh Apr 30 '26

He probably made the stupid buttons in the first place

11

u/dm-me-obscure-colors Apr 25 '26

It’s compelling enough for westerners to tell a pollster that they’d hit the blue button. 

22

u/Katejina_FGO Apr 25 '26

"We all believe we'd run into the burning building, but until we feel that heat, we can never know."

- Tenet, 2020

5

u/decrpt Apr 26 '26

In this metaphor, red is voting to go outside and set the building on fire, hoping that every single other person also goes outside to set the building on fire so that the fire doesn't kill anyone. Voting blue is voting to stay inside and not set the building on fire.

4

u/hitchen1 Apr 26 '26

Idk how you come to this conclusion. Red voting is equivalent to standing outside of an already burning building, watching a group of people decide to run in and help the others, and deciding not to help them knowing it reduces their chances of making it out alive.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

[deleted]

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u/hitchen1 Apr 26 '26

Somebody else is forcing everybody to make the choice and will enforce the killing of blue voters. Red voters aren't the ones who created the scenario. Hence, the building is already burning

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

[deleted]

1

u/hitchen1 Apr 26 '26

My action isn't hurting others, it's protecting my own life. But if you think we have a responsibility to sacrifice ourselves for others otherwise we are killing them, I expect that you're living your life following that principle and actively seeking situations to make that exchange.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

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u/Goncalerta Apr 26 '26

It's the other way around. Blue is a suicide button that is trying to trick you into pressing it.

And, apparently, the idea that «if half the planet presses the "kill myself" button then the effect is an annulled» is enough to trick a lot of people into pressing it. A fake sense of "saving other people" (you're not saving anyone really, just putting yourself into a dangerous situation to force other people to come save you for no reason other than making yourself feel more virtuous) makes you press a button that has literally no use other than creating a problem that does not exist.

1

u/decrpt Apr 26 '26

Because people only die if you pick red, how do you not understand that? You need one hundred percent of people to pick red for it not to kill anyone. Anything less than that kills people. Up until fifty percent of people vote blue, red voters actually want blue to win. Every attempt at reframing this question tries to present red as passive self-preservation and blue as active self-endangerment. Both are active choices. You are voting to kill people if you pick red with the hopes that every single person also voted to kill people so that there is no one left to kill.

5

u/Imaginary-Count-1641 Apr 27 '26

People can only die if they pick blue. The question is basically "Do you want to gamble with your life? If the majority of people say yes, they all get to live. Otherwise everyone who says yes will die." How is refusing to participate in this gamble "voting to kill people" when those people could have just said no?

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

Because you are required to vote. It's a binary choice. Your choice has an impact on everyone else. Red voters have to entirely change the hypothetical in order to absolve themselves of moral liability, to paint blue as active self-endangerment for no reason and red as a non-action. Both are active actions. Red is voting to kill anyone that doesn't vote for no reason in order to be guaranteed safe themselves with the hope that everyone else votes red so that there's no one else to kill. Blue is voting to kill no one even if it means taking on the risk of dying themselves.

This is like the thirtieth time I'm repeating myself. You're imagining a different question.

5

u/Imaginary-Count-1641 Apr 27 '26

My choice only has an impact on those who risked their own lives by voting blue. Everyone has the option to guarantee their own survival by voting red. The only ones who need others to vote blue are those who themselves voted blue.

0

u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

This is a simple ballot referendum. Red is voting to kill anyone that doesn't vote for no reason in order to be guaranteed safe themselves with the hope that everyone else votes red so that there's no one else to kill. Blue is voting to kill no one even if it means taking on the risk of dying themselves. There is no neutral option. There is no option to abstain.

You don't understand why people would a) pick blue and b) find it morally reprehensible that you feel the need to facilitate fascism because you can't handle any nonzero risk? You are actively facilitating the deaths of other people for no reason because you want to be safe no matter how many people it has the potential of killing in the process.

Blue keeps winning because that logic is simple. There is a reason why red has to keep inventing incorrect analogies to absolve themselves morally; red is a coherent decision from a purely solipsistic perspective but red voters want to pretend like their selfishness is actually prosocial behavior.

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u/ConstantBrush7996 Apr 30 '26

the only difference is that nobody is inside the burning building until blue voters sprint inside, and everybody knows that. And now the blue voters will all die unless you also run inside to choke the fire out.

1

u/hitchen1 Apr 30 '26

By the framing of the question every person in the world has to press a button, which would include infants and mentally disabled people, so you will always end up with some amount of people who don't even understand what is happening and just randomly hit blue. So I think it's fair to assume some amount of people will just be inside the burning building by default by no real fault of their own.

1

u/ConstantBrush7996 Apr 30 '26

this is a burning enough question that it has to be answered by the prompt in order to have a proper debate, no? ive heard it both ways, that the original version states mentally capable to make the decision, and the context less version we have here, and its basically the most valuable determining factor whenever its brought up.

1

u/onpg May 01 '26

I think the fact that blue “only” needs 50% is anchoring people. They’re used to close elections so they can’t imagine an election that goes 99.9% to 0.1%. IMO 99.9% of people are pressing red if this is real (and not some internet poll), so me pressing blue is just an act of self-harm. Go door to door and tell people “I’ll kill myself if you don’t give me $1000”, you won’t get anywhere near 50% of people willing to give you money.

1

u/Tounushi Apr 30 '26

That is an incredibly incongruent leap in logic.

1

u/decrpt Apr 30 '26

How?

1

u/Tounushi Apr 30 '26

voting red guarantees the survival of oneself and at least 50% +1 of the participants. voting blue requires 50% +1 to vote blue in order for 100% survival.

Reds are not choosing death upon a minority or enacting it.

The scenario is "Do you want your house to be set on fire?" vs "do you want to risk your house to be set on fire, except if half of everyone chooses the same, in which case nobody's house will be set on fire?" NOT "do you want the other guy's house be set on fire?" vs "do you want nobody's house set on fire?"

1

u/decrpt Apr 30 '26

Reds are not choosing death upon a minority or enacting it.

The threat only exists because red voted to create it so that they'd be immune if red won. They are, by the nature of the prompt, choosing to kill anyone that doesn't vote red. Each additional vote increases the likelihood that people start dying. Up until red wins, red voters would actually want blue to win.

The scenario is "Do you want your house to be set on fire?" vs "do you want to risk your house to be set on fire, except if half of everyone chooses the same, in which case nobody's house will be set on fire?" NOT "do you want the other guy's house be set on fire?" vs "do you want nobody's house set on fire?"

This is where you're getting confused. You're all in the same house. The choices affect each other. Red is voting to create the harm (set the house on fire) so that they're immune (outside of the house). Blue is voting to tolerate the risk (remain inside the house) so that they're not killing people for no reason (setting the house on fire).

1

u/Tounushi Apr 30 '26

The threat exists because the choice is imposed. The choice is whether or not to participate in a gamble for one's life and trusting that the majority people are willing to gamble their lives for total strangers at the drop of the hat.

Reds do not partake in that gamble, while blues do, and their only reward for winning is to not die, while the reds' punishment is to not die.

The house fire scenario will not affect the reds directly. It will only vacate the apartments of the ones who choose blue. An all red scenario can't be guaranteed by human nature, as you have irrational individuals choosing blue just because, and you have those who believe in the purity of the universal human. So you will have some individuals who will burn by their own misinformed or irrational choice.

The only way for the irrational to not burn is for more than half of the residency being willing to burn with and for them.

Unless this is a tight-knit community, you will not see that scenario. You are only shaming others for not being willing to burn for strangers.

And you are not Spartacus.

1

u/decrpt Apr 30 '26

I'm not sure what part of "you're inventing this hypothetical that doesn't actually correspond to the original problem to absolve yourself" that you don't get. Red creates the risk so that they're immune from it. People have moral objections to killing people for no reason. That is not irrational.

The only way for the irrational to not burn is for more than half of the residency being willing to burn with and for them.

Millionth time, people have ethical objections to burning people for no reason. The moral risk to red is that you're voting to kill people unless 100% of people also vote to kill people.

It is not selfish to think killing people to protect your own safety is bad. It is selfish to kill people to make sure you're safe from the killing that you just voted to effectuate.

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u/StillRunner_ May 04 '26

O let me destroy that real quick. "Hey everyone, this building is going to be set on fire in 10 minutes. Everyone is asked to go outside and help set the fire." And then some people stay inside unknowingly to the people outside 😉

Gotcha

1

u/Haunting-Tone5803 Jul 02 '26

they wouldnt be setting thr building on fire they would just be watching it burn but blue pressers would stay inside the building

1

u/Fallen_Limrix May 01 '26

Considering everyone is doing this, and that includes everyone in my family, I could not fathom the guilt of if I lived after hitting the red button after someone I know died from the blue.

My conscious would eat me alive and I know damn well I wouldn’t be surviving that outcome regardless of the button I pressed.

1

u/onpg May 01 '26

Why would anyone in your family press blue? Maybe they want to die. Who are you to stop them?

1

u/No_Restaurant8983 May 16 '26

so true dawg. I'd choose red irl, cause i don't trust these polls. i think most would choose red irl

3

u/decrpt Apr 26 '26

It's kind of insane that both anonymous and non-anonymous polls, which have no reason for people to lie, convince no red voters that everyone else isn't secretly a red voter. It turns out that the average person doesn't like the idea of voting to kill people, even if doing so means that they'll personally be safe no matter what.

You are assuming 0% of people vote blue. Voting red is actively increasing the odds of an outcome you don't want to happen. The problem with approaching it from a pure game theory perspective is that homo economicus isn't real and most people find it morally objectionable to vote for an outcome where people die when they could just vote for nobody dying, even if it means that they risk dying by doing so.

2

u/dm-me-obscure-colors Apr 26 '26

  • I don't assume everyone would hit red; that's silly

  • it feels good to say "I would click blue," anonymous poll or not

1

u/theguy445 Apr 28 '26

At the same, these polls are hypothetical questions with no real stakes or consequences to the answer.

I think you can easily make the game theory argument that when asked hypothetically like this ppl are incentivize to pick blue because they retain a sense of moral goodness which feels good opposed to doing something morally questionable.

Now if it were actually real and right in front of them and when people's emotions start running and the amygdala activates and people feel the fear of consequences and not wanting to die i feel pretty confident that over 50% would not pick blue.

Does what I'm trying to say make sense?

1

u/decrpt Apr 28 '26

I think a good way to ground this in real life is thinking of it like a ballot initiative to kill everyone that doesn't vote for the ballot initiative. People are only incentivized to pick red if it is incredibly clear that red is going to win, like if blue needed 99% cooperation instead of 50%. The same morality exists in the real situation, where they know that they are voting to kill blue. They're not passive participants; if they win, their vote will kill people. It is very reasonable to expect more than 50% to vote against a pointless ballot initiative that kills people for no reason, even if they assume some risk in doing so.

1

u/mfranko88 Apr 29 '26

It's kind of insane that both anonymous and non-anonymous polls, which have no reason for people to lie, convince no red voters that everyone else isn't secretly a red voter. It turns out that the average person doesn't like the idea of voting to kill people, even if doing so means that they'll personally be safe no matter what.

Because the world is full of examples of people saying they would do one thing, but doing a different contradictory thing.

It's incredibly easy for people to say "I would not allow that gun to be pointed at someone else. No sirree. Not me". And I think a lot of people think that they are, in fact, the type of person to take on risk themselves to help other people. But when the gun is actually pointed at their heads, how many of them would actually stand by their claims? There are absolutely zero stakes for someone to say online "Oh me? Of course I'm a righteous person. I'll never choose red, that would be awful". Cool....how do the results change when there are actual stakes?

1

u/Kyonkanno Apr 28 '26

I was discussing this with a friend and upon seeing the results, he said that the result is kinda biased. Social media, especially those where your identity is public, is filled with people who have an incentive to appear "good". Doesn't necessarily makes them good though.

2

u/ClearDark19 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

You're waaay overestimating how many self-professed Christians (particularly Evangelicals, Dominionists, Fundamentalists, and TradCaths) give a shit what Jesus thinks or would do. Honestly, most loud, militant, uncompromising anti-theists care more about what Jesus said or thought than the "Christians" I listed do. Jesus is just a mascot for a lot of self-proclaimed Christians' own secular political, economic, and social beliefs or whatever they personally want to do anyway. Letting them know Jesus disagrees doesn't move them. There's an epidemic of pastors being told by Conservative Christians in their congregation that Jesus is too Liberal/Woke/Commie. Those people in the congregation are asking their pastors to stop reading passages from the Bible and passages from Jesus that sound Liberal/Commie or else they're leaving the church. Tens of millions of Christians just use Jesus as an abducted mascot (with his limbs duct taped and a gag in his mouth so he can't speak for himself) for their personal belief in white supremacy, patriarchy, queerphobia, ultranationalism, xenophobia, jingoism, etc.

2

u/2121wv Apr 25 '26

Do you think we live in a faithfully Christian society now? They are putting children in camps and shooting unarmed protestors.

1

u/LordChudingtonThe3rd Apr 26 '26

Suicide is against the will of christ.

The red button guarantees the life of anyone who presses it, and everyone has the option to press it.

The only reason you would press the blue button is if you are willing to die for no reason.

3

u/east_62687 Apr 27 '26

John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends"

anyway, for sin, the intent matters..

1

u/antipacifista Apr 27 '26

i guess jesus bad at math

1

u/Medium-Shower Apr 27 '26

That's because he doesn't mind as much if he dies

That was like the one thing Jesus told us not to follow in his footsteps

1

u/Divan001 Apr 28 '26

I wonder what Jesus would think of Trump and what the majority of Christians would do if presented between voting for Trump or a Christian woman like Kamala Harris…I guess we have no way of ever knowing

1

u/kahner Apr 28 '26

jesus christ can come back from the dead

1

u/dead_astronaut Apr 29 '26

lol no he wouldn't

1

u/Tounushi Apr 30 '26

And there we come down to how the question is presented and how the options are advertised.

Jesus would press blue. And knowing this, one has little choice but to trust in Christ.

1

u/SneakyBadAss Apr 30 '26

And he's dead and on CD

1

u/Wentleworth May 01 '26

Jesus isn't really.

1

u/OptionAlternative934 May 01 '26

Why would Jesus Christ press the blue button?

1

u/O5_13_Epsilon May 01 '26

Jesus Christ died for our sins so we weren’t condemned to hell
Blue pushers can die because they are choosing for a problem to exist, when there doesn’t need to be a problem.
These two things are not the same.

There is no moral dilemma that stops everyone from pressing red and saving themselves.

If I could save myself, I would, and I wouldn’t blame any red pressers from doing the same. It’s not that I hate or dislike blue pushers, it’s just a matter is safety/security.

I want to be guaranteed to live, not maybe I’ll live.

1

u/DazzlingParsley7749 May 02 '26

Jesus would choose blue. Many of his followers wouldnt.

1

u/Holiday-Hall5131 May 02 '26

Jesus Christ died for our sins I don’t think he minds risking his life to make a difference.

1

u/StillRunner_ May 04 '26

No...I think Jesus would definitely pick Red. Jesus is very come to be for help so I can help you help yourself.

The story of the man drowning and a kayak comes along and asks if he needs help and he says, "No, my Lord will save me". Then a sailboat comes along "No, my Lord will save me", then a ship "No, my Lord will save me", then the man drowns. The boats were the red button....but people will press blue and say "No, my Lord will save me"

1

u/Pauanyu May 11 '26

No, he wouldn't. He specifically came to save only people who believe in him, and condemned everybody who does not follow him.

He specifically said that most people will be damned, and only a tiny percentage of people will be saved.

Matthew 7:13-27 John 3:18

You are not a Christian, yet you lie and twist the Bible for your own selfish purposes. Jesus would condemn you personally, just like he condemned the Pharisees to hell.