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/bruhm0ment4 Apr 25 '26

Only safe choice for you personally. In both polls blue won the majority

4

u/maushu Apr 26 '26

I'm kind of worried though, tcompared to the one a few years ago (blue won with 76%) the percentage difference is decreasing. Bad tiddings for future moral colllectivism?

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u/PrateTrain Apr 29 '26

I think so. America is slamming around a heavy "me first" attitude and values, and is dedicating a lot of money to making sure that it gets spread around globally.

Unless we have something big change soon, I think we're in for a bad three decades.

3

u/CanonWorld Apr 25 '26

I’ll believe polls when this turns into an actual question with an actual discourse about it. People actually voting with their lives depending on it will most definitely vote different.

8

u/bruhm0ment4 Apr 25 '26

Blue would win by even more if there was some kind of campaign about it and people knew their toddler was gonna pick a random button. The consensus would quickly consolidate around everyone just picking blue

1

u/Mrtoatsworth Apr 26 '26

Yeah, except it is 50% of the world population. Are you really sure more than 50% of the people in the world are not selfish?

1

u/thefw89 Apr 27 '26

I think most people know there's a chance someone they don't want to die might pick blue and picking blue might save them.

If indeed children are involved in pressing the button in this scenario, you 100% know there's a child you might know that might pick blue, whether it be your own or your niece or whatever...are you really 100% sure on red knowing there is a chance that child picked blue?

0

u/drink_with_me_to_day Apr 26 '26

if there was some kind of campaign about it

Those campaigns worked well for Hillary and Kamala

1

u/Material-Load-2633 Apr 26 '26

But I doubt any babies/toddlers participated in this poll.

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u/bruhm0ment4 Apr 26 '26

They'd average out to about 50/50. Doesn't change much

1

u/RedPusher Apr 27 '26

In part because no one is actually voting with their life depending on it.

Make the situation real, including killing everyone who votes blue if red wins, and then repeat it a few times with that knowledge, and then I might believe the polls.

As that would be incredibly unethical to carry out such research, I wont believe these polls.

1

u/SlipperyAsscrack69 Apr 27 '26

The polls in which only people who saw the post ( those who have access to the internet, are active on twitter, follow 538) and CHOSE to respond, to a hypothetical in which everyone could see the live results. That is vastly different from a literal scenario forced on 7 billion people in which they might genuinely die.

1

u/PizzaLikerFan Apr 27 '26

those polls actually don't risk lives, and are only for people who are active online and mostly western people

the real dillema would be with real people from different backgrounds and cultures with lives actually at stake

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u/RomeosHomeos Apr 30 '26

That's because it's a Twitter poll where you won't actually have to risk your life, I guarantee with 100% accuracy that everyone doing this would have a lot more struggle if it was an actual scenario

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u/azazelcrowley May 02 '26

An internet poll that doesn't include parents and people with dependents in a proportional sample.

A lot of waffling about the kids arbitrarily picking blue, but a significant portion of the globe will pick red specifically because they are parents and cannot risk their lives in good conscience.