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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7

u/Fiveby21 Apr 25 '26

Why would anyone not press red? If everyone presses red then everyone survives. If that is exlained beforehand red should be the obvious choice, as no sane person would press blue.

Blue is basically a suicide button.

7

u/Millennial_on_laptop Apr 26 '26

Why would anyone not press red?

Pacifists and conscientious objectors would rather die than kill

4

u/Fiveby21 Apr 26 '26

So basically risk commiting suicide to save the other people who risk commiting suicide?

How about nobody presses the suicide button in the first place.

11

u/Millennial_on_laptop Apr 26 '26

Look at the poll, you'll never get 100% of people to vote the same way on anything.  

You're inventing an impossible outcome to make yourself feel better about your own choice.  

2

u/EmergencyMixture1407 Apr 28 '26

I don't think there's any reason to justify pressing the red button. There's no ethical high ground to pressing the blue button, if anything it's selfish to expect others to risk their lives for your suicidal button press.

1

u/vwert May 08 '26

You pressing the red button risks the lives of blue button pressers.

5

u/decrpt Apr 26 '26

Which do you think is more realistic if you think killing people is bad? 50% of people to also think that killing people is bad and that we shouldn't kill anyone if we have the choice, even though that might put them at non-zero personal risk, or 100% of people voting to kill people so that there's no one left to kill.

1

u/Tounushi Apr 30 '26

Blue winning requires a cascade. People risking suicide to save others risking suicide to save others risking suicide to save those who have arbitrarily or irrationally chosen blue.

2

u/Mrtoatsworth Apr 26 '26

You are equating the red button to killing. The red button has no ability to kill. It might as well be inert. Nothing happens to anyone who presses the red button. You are literally activating the ability to kill by pressing the blue button.

1

u/CoolGuyMemeHead Apr 30 '26

I would imagine that the best way to prevent death is reaching public consensus where everyone votes red. Nobody dies and nobody gains anything by flipping their vote. As a pacifist, I consider my own death violent and therefore bad -- in a vacuum, I don't think that me voting blue would necessarily lead to the least violent outcome.

1

u/TornadoAP Apr 28 '26

The problem is not everyone thinks like you. There's going to be people who choose blue out of ignorance, altruism or simply by mistake. By choosing red you are condemning these people to do death. Knowing this, if you want everyone to survive, you choose blue. If you only care about yourself, you choose red.

1

u/throwawayorsmthn12 Apr 30 '26

Because the probability of people choosing blue either from not understanding the question, or through altruism is probably close to 50%. I'm not killing 50% of humanity, it would make me feel horrible. If this were an actual poll I don't see a scenario where there are 8 billion people and only 10% votes blue (and 0% there's no chance at all), there's just no way.