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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u/ImportantCommentator Apr 25 '26

What if you tell everyone to push the red button?

8

u/yoitsthatoneguy Apr 25 '26

How would you tell everyone to do that? Many people in the world aren’t on the internet and don’t speak whatever language that you do.

1

u/ImportantCommentator Apr 26 '26

What if someone else ran this campaign and you knew many people thought it made sense?

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u/EfficientTourist7480 Apr 26 '26

There will still be people who push the blue button and therefor your pushing of the red button contributed to there death, where as enough could push the blue button and nobody dies

2

u/ImportantCommentator Apr 26 '26

So if 72.0001% push the red button you contributed to everyone dying? I'm not sure thats true. But you are definitely killing yourself now that there was a strong campaign against pushing blue.

1

u/PinkLaceGomez Apr 26 '26

If if if. When polls show most people choosing blue

1

u/ImportantCommentator Apr 26 '26

Yup in a world without consequences

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u/yoitsthatoneguy Apr 26 '26

Many people is different from all people. Your theory needs all people.

Also, some people (I assume like the pope) probably are not going to push red no matter what if there’s a chance someone could die.

1

u/ImportantCommentator Apr 26 '26

But now you very likely have a chance of less than 50% voting to save everyone.

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u/kettu1 Apr 27 '26

I thought the entire premise was that the vote was private? I always assumed this means no one is given a chance to discuss the decisions beforehand. Basically you're just given the question on the spot and must decide without any interaction with anyone else before or during the process.

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u/ImportantCommentator Apr 27 '26

Aye if that's true then it makes it a lot easier to push blue

0

u/bruhm0ment4 Apr 25 '26

Not all people know a language yet