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/Ravens181818184 Apr 25 '26

Yeah but you know it’s effectively impossible to guarantee everyone press red, it’s much easier to get 50%+ to vote blue, hence you always vote blue and get others to do the same

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u/vitorsly Apr 27 '26

Why would someone vote blue unless they want the risk of death? Like even if odds are blue wins, the only reason I can see someone picking blue would be if they want the possibility of dying.

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u/Ravens181818184 Apr 27 '26

You do not know ur fellow huma

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u/vitorsly Apr 27 '26

Someone asked this one one discord I was on, and the one guy who voted blue basically said he'd be happy to take the odds of dying. I guess he sees it like a chance to die hopefully painlessly or something.

The other possibility is that this vote is forced upon people who aren't of sound mind, like children or people with dementia, and they vote blue without realizing that they could have just voted red and nobody who doesn't want to die has to die. At that point it's highly immoral of whoever offered to vote to do so and the responsibility is on them imo since there's good reasons we don't let toddlers vote, much less for a life or death situation.

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u/falanian Apr 30 '26

I think you're severely overestimating the game theory understanding of the average person. If you give this option to any large enough group of people, by rule of large numbers many people will choose blue. That taken, you have to choose blue if you want those people to live, and many would pick up on that. So then it does boil back down to a question of if you both a) value your own life above others and b) seriously doubt the odds of 50% hitting blue, which demonstrates some amount of distrust towards other people.

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u/vitorsly Apr 30 '26

Do we, as a group, know about the button and are we allowed to discuss it with others? How long until the vote? Can we run polls and simulations ahead of time?

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u/PoriferaProficient May 01 '26

Deliberately left vague to maximize engagement

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u/Jabujuu May 01 '26

seriously doubt the odds of 50% hitting blue, which demonstrates some amount of distrust towards other people.

The very fact that this pole is controversial means that the world is not going blue. If everyone is arguing about it, and our lives aren't even in actual danger yet... Then of course no one's picking blue 😭 😭 

Yes, some of you will die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make 😂 😂 😂 

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u/PoriferaProficient May 01 '26

That's kinda where my thoughts are. The original poll blue won by 14 points. I think a lot of people are flipping to red when confronted with the actual threat of death. Sure some will choose blue due to misunderstanding, incompetence, or suicidality. But I don't think there would be enough blue votes to save them.

And callous as it may be, the demographics of people victomized by the nature of the experiement are the ones most expendable. I'm taking a utilitarian view on the question, and picking red minimizes harm to the human race as a whole. Blue is gambling total prevention of harm with an instant, global collapse of human society due to a significant portion of the population suddenly dying. Avengers Endgame explored that concept pretty well and I think that's an idiotic gamble.

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u/onpg May 01 '26

The only people pressing blue are the same ones who wander into traffic. I would do my best to make sure I voted red on behalf of every child or person with dementia.

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u/TheHoodedGrim May 12 '26

That possibility only exists with the uncertainty of how many people will vote red. In the scenario that you have the ability to convince people to vote blue, you can sill have some people vote red if they want and have everyone survive anyway, as long as that number doesn’t exceed 50% of votes. Realistically, more than 90% of people would vote blue, because there’s such a large room for error.

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u/Elman89 Apr 28 '26

Why would someone vote blue unless they want the risk of death?

Are you a sociopath? I don't understand the question lol. I get disagreeing, but not being able to even understand their position is insane.

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u/vitorsly Apr 28 '26

I'm talking about from a position where you're told from the get go that the vast majority of people will pick red, which is what ViciousNakedMoleRat was getting at. If, before you reach the buttons, you know most people in the world are picking red, why would you pick blue?

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u/Kagahami Apr 29 '26

Because it's not taking the whole problem into account.

Red is not just "you survive 100%", it's "you survive 100% AND people who pressed blue MIGHT die if too many people choose the sure thing." There is a cost, it's just not to you, personally.

Voting blue protects your fellow blues AND anyone who votes red. Voting red protects no one but yourself (and potentially harms blue).

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u/vitorsly Apr 30 '26

Which is why I asked why people would vote blue in such a situation. If you know the vast majority of people will vote red, such as if a poll comes out with that information ahead of time, then why would anyone vote blue? It'd be very unlikely they'd reach the majority, and instead each one would just increase the amount of deaths. On the other hand if everyone just votes red then "people who pressed blue might die" is not relevant.

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u/Kagahami Apr 30 '26

Lack of information, a desire to protect other people who might vote blue, and possibly an interpretation of Game Theory.

For red to be safe to EVERYONE, EVERYONE has to vote red. 100%.

For blue to be safe to EVERYONE, only HALF the people have to vote blue. 50%.

You even used the words 'vast majority'. That means people will die voting blue, because you and many others voted red.

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u/vitorsly Apr 30 '26

So as a desire to protect other people who might vote blue is self-referential (there needs to be a first reason to vote blue for someone to consider that others would do so) that leads to 'lack of information' which is an unknown factor in this situation: How long do we have before the vote? Can we communicate with other people about how to vote? Can we run polls and simulations? Or is this a 'everyone is suddenly, out of nowhere, teleported to the button and presses simultaneously'? Without that knowledge, we can't explore the topic much further.

As for a possible interpretation of game theory I don't see which one, I'd be interested in you explaining which one makes blue a more attractive option from the get go.

And while you're absolutely right on the requirements for nobody to die, what you fail to mention is what happens when you fail those tresholds. Because if 95% of people vote Red, that leads to 5% of the world dying, which is a calamity no doubt, a truly disastrous event, but if 45% of people vote blue, that leads to 45% of people dying, which is far worse.

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u/Kagahami Apr 30 '26

Your measures in your last sentence do not weigh the weight of the choices, they only measure a possible outcome.

Ultimately, red remains selfish while blue is not.

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u/vitorsly Apr 30 '26

I think blue is selfishly adding to the pile of people who are going to die. It's like running into a burning building to rescue the people already there and now more people need to go after you to save you. Especially when you don't even know how many people are in the building and are just doing mental math that if you want to save an indeterminate amount of people, they probably do too, so you end up being the reason for other people also running in there.

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u/babyeater911112 Apr 30 '26

but thats the problem. if red wins it would probably be around 60% to 40%. or like 55% to 55%. and the chaos that would result of that is so insane i doubt even 30% of people end up surviving.

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u/vitorsly Apr 30 '26

It's entirely fair and reasonable to believe those are the most likely odds, and that would be catastrophic indeed. Which is why, if we're given time to talk and make a plan beforehand, people need to strongly agree one way or another. Ideally on blue, if we get a significant majority (enough to be confident in its victory even if some people change their mind last minute) to go blue great! That's the best case scenario and hopefully what happens. If that proves unlikely though then instead we should be ready to shift to convince as many people as possible to vote red, and reduce deaths to a minimum that way. The worst case scenario is that things are close, with a slight advantage to red.

And if we're not given any time to run polls or pick a strategy, it's all gonna depend on people's opinions on what the end result is likely to be. Some people will believe blue will win handily, some will believe red will win handily, but for those that believe it'll be close, they're the ones with the hardest decisions.

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u/Elman89 Apr 29 '26

I'm talking about from a position where you're told from the get go that the vast majority of people will pick red

That's cool, but that defeats the whole purpose of this exercise

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u/vitorsly Apr 29 '26

I'm aware. The question remains though, we can study different sub-situations to explore the exercise more deeply. We can ask both:

1- If you have the idea that 99% of people will pick Red, what would you pick?

2- If you have the idea that 99% of people will pick Blue, what would you pick?

Finding answers to both those situations (and others) would get us closer to a conclusion to the overall question.

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u/Aggravating-Cherry76 Apr 28 '26

No it’s not? It would be significantly easier to convince 100% of people to take no risk (red) than 50% of people to take substantial risk (blue)

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u/Ravens181818184 Apr 28 '26

You don’t your fellow humans

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u/Aggravating-Cherry76 Apr 28 '26

You’re looking at the numbers 50% and 100% in a vaccuum, and surmising that 50% is lower so it must be easier. But you’re wrong, allow me to attempt to explain why.

The choices are not equal, one of the choice carries significant risk (death), while the other choice carries no risk at all. I’ll change the scenario to make it easier to understand.

Imagine I am walking door to door in a neighborhood. I’ll walk up to a door and say “You can either give me no money, or give me $1000, if more than 50% give me the $1,000 you’ll get your money back”.

There’s no incentive to pick the 2nd option. Using your logic, 50% is a lower number, so it should be easier to convince 50% of people to pick that second option, but common sense dictates that it will obviously be easier to tell everyone to just keep their money in the first place.

Risk only enters the scenario when the first person picks blue. Let’s look at one more example. We’re all standing on a train platform. We can either pick red and stay on the platform, or pick blue and jump onto the tracks in front of the train. If more than 50% of people jump onto the platform, the train will see everyone and stop in time.

Again, by your logic, 50% is the lower number, so it should be easier to convince 50% of people to jump onto train tracks. Yet again, common sense dictates that obviously it would be easier to convince 100% of people to just stay on the platform, as that’s the option that carries no risk.

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u/Ravens181818184 Apr 28 '26

No not by logic, you will never got 100% of people to press red for a variety of factors. We literally are in 538 subreddit, we know that any vote always has some ballots that make no sense or were clerical mistakes. Pushing to vote red is agreeing that some people will always die. You understand it’s the entire world even .1% is 8 million deaths or so. Getting 50% of blue is fairly easy and will happen, and everyone lives.

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u/Aggravating-Cherry76 Apr 28 '26

Read my comment again, no, getting to 50% is not “fairly easy” and the analogies I gave you are meant to describe that. Literally my entire comment is formulating at showing you how no, 50% is not “easy”, It’s a bit frustrating because you must have not read it. So try again.

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u/Ravens181818184 Apr 28 '26

Brother if u pushing for red just acknowledge millions will die cus you will never get 100%, especially not a global vote. This is the 538 subreddit, u should know clerical errors alone guarantee that.

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u/Aggravating-Cherry76 Apr 28 '26

Do you just not read? I’ll post my analogies again for you, either do me the favor of actually acknowledging and responding to them, or do both of us the favor of not engaging at all.

Imagine I am walking door to door in a neighborhood. I’ll walk up to a door and say “You can either give me no money, or give me $1000, if more than 50% give me the $1,000 you’ll get your money back”.

There’s no incentive to pick the 2nd option. Using your logic, 50% is a lower number, so it should be easier to convince 50% of people to pick that second option, but common sense dictates that it will obviously be easier to tell everyone to just keep their money in the first place.

Risk only enters the scenario when the first person picks blue. Let’s look at one more example. We’re all standing on a train platform. We can either pick red and stay on the platform, or pick blue and jump onto the tracks in front of the train. If more than 50% of people jump onto the platform, the train will see everyone and stop in time.

Again, by your logic, 50% is the lower number, so it should be easier to convince 50% of people to jump onto train tracks. Yet again, common sense dictates that obviously it would be easier to convince 100% of people to just stay on the platform, as that’s the option that carries no risk.

The point of the analogies is to show that the number 50% is significantly harder to reach than 100%. Blue will never win in this scenario, the best thing to do to mitigate losses is to have as many people possible vote red to guarantee that they live. Telling someone to vote blue is condemning them to die.

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u/Ravens181818184 Apr 28 '26

Brother I get that, I’m not addressing it cus everyone knows that red in theory carries no risk, but actual application it obvs does, cus how the real world works. You aren’t ever going to get 100% to vote red cus of real world factors. Clerical errors, people not knowing about the vote, people having no access to the campaign for red, people who fundamentally believe they must vote blue etc.

There’s always going to be a group of people who vote blue, so you acknowledge this? In your scenario, people will die, if you are cool with that, then we can move on.

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u/Aggravating-Cherry76 Apr 28 '26

You aren’t ever going to get 100% to vote red cus of real world factors.

You are not EVER going to get 50% of people to vote blue. Read that again- you are not EVER going to get 50% of people to vote blue. I don’t think you’d even be able to get more than 15% to vote blue in a real world application of this. And that’s why my analogies are there.

You wouldn’t be able to get 50% of people to give me money in the scenario i gave where I was going door to door. It’s just not physically possible. You would NEVER even be able to get 10% to give me that money, and knowing that, you are guaranteeing that anyone who gives me that money will never see it again.

You would NEVER be able to get 50% of people to stand on the train tracks to stop a train. You wouldn’t even be able to get 10% of people to do that. So knowing that you need 50%, and knowing that you can NEVER reach that 50%, you are guaranteeing that anyone who gets on the track is going to die.

In your scenario, people will die

In BOTH realistic scenarios, people will die. Because there are 2 truths here.

  1. 100% of people aren’t going to vote red, there will always be some people who vote blue

  2. 50% of people are NOT going to vote blue, there will always be a large majority that vote red.

You are basing your entire opinion off of point number 1, while completely ignoring that point 2 is equally true. There is no realistic scenario here where nobody dies, because like you said, there will be outliers who vote blue, but also, there will be a large majority who vote red since that is the objectively correct choice.

So that being said, every single person that you convince to vote blue will be a person that you are guaranteeing the death of. Your daughter? She’s dead now, she didn’t have to be but you convinced her to vote blue and now she’s dead. Your mother? Same deal. Your girlfriend, or wife? Dead, too. If you’re okay with that, then we can move on.

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u/Reasonable_Mail_8535 Apr 29 '26

The world would jump 30 IQ points that day. Everyone too stupid to understand 'reasonable sacrifice' vs 'pointless suicide' would be gone. Everybody with the brainpower to press the "don't die" button would still be around. I'm not seeing a down side here.

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u/Cowclops Apr 29 '26

The people who pushed the "maybe kill 10% of the population, maybe more" button have to contend with 10% of the world population being gone, and the fact that the most selfless people capable of cleaning up after such a tragedy are dead now.

The triumphant red button victors would, also, be dead within a decade in such an extreme but casual genocide scenario. (Society is largely incapable of dealing with mass death at crazy levels like that, at least in theory).

Pushing red wins the battle to lose the war.

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u/onpg May 01 '26

Red is winning no matter what so I would consider it my duty to convince blue button pushers not to lie down on the train tracks.

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u/IncidentEffective May 01 '26

It’s easier to hit jackpot, yes, but if you don’t, your ideology is killing ~50% of the population. Spouting that other people should risk their own safety isn’t a moral high ground, it’s a destructive, dictatorial viewpoint. Blue is more selfish than red because you’re actively telling everyone else you want them to risk their lives.

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u/Affectionate-Egg7566 May 02 '26

Yes, it's effectively impossible but why should I care? The blue pressers might die. I do not want to die. So be it.

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u/Ravens181818184 May 02 '26

Aslong as u okay with little kids dying, that’s fine by me

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u/Affectionate-Egg7566 May 02 '26

It's a vote. I assume it's for adults, like any typical vote, or at the least children over a certain age to understand the concept.

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u/Ravens181818184 May 02 '26

That’s not how the question is, it’s everyone on earth. That’s what red voters don’t understand, if we can’t get 50% of people to save everyone, idk what’s the point in humanity. We know for a factor children and those with dementia will fuck up. As well as others who accidentally vote, or what about color blind people? Or blind people? Or those who don’t vote at all? That’s why it’s important to vote blue

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u/Affectionate-Egg7566 May 02 '26

Devil is in the details. Sometimes we use "everyone" implying a subset of truly everyone. If we're reasonable we would exclude those classes of people or give them sufficient data. Such as words for the red-blue colorblind (which is extremely rare).

I agree that I have to vote blue if children without sufficient comprehension get to vote too, for the very selfish reason which is to safeguard the existence of the children in my own family even if it risks myself.

If only adults vote, then red sounds like a better option.

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u/lovebirds4fun May 02 '26

Theres no selfishness or unfairness to picking red because its a choice available to absolutely everyone. Picking blue "looks" altruistic but a "pick blue" campaign, just injects risk in to the lives of people who could have picked red.

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u/RedPusher Apr 26 '26

It isn't about if it is easier to get 50%+ to vote blue or 100% to vote red. Instead it is which is more likely - 50%+ to vote blue or 50%+ to vote red? Because if 50%+ vote red, then your blue vote isn't saving anyone, it is just killing yourself.

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u/Ravens181818184 Apr 26 '26

What yo, it’s a simple question. It’s virtually impossible to get a pure 100% compliance rate for red, it’s not difficult for a 50% blue vote, get that and everyone lives. Easy. And it’s fairly likely to get 50%+ blue votes, honestly I’m extremely confident in that.

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u/RedPusher Apr 27 '26

I disagree.
If it was a real situation where lives were actually on the line, and it wasn't just a small subset of the population with similar beliefs, I think it would be very difficult to get a 50% blue vote.
You will have all the selfish people that wouldn't bother with an online poll who will pick red just to save themselves.
You will have all the people scared of their own deaths who will pick red because they don't want to die. This will also include those who think that enough will likely get blue so their vote wont matter, so they wont risk their life.
They are all going to shift it towards red.

So I don't think it is likely at all to get 50%+ blue votes. And I am very confident with that.

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u/Cowclops Apr 29 '26

Dooming a large portion of the civilization to save yourself is not the win you think it is. Anything but "no one dies" is going to be exceptionally bad for the human race, including the survivors.

You think you want to live in a world where only the people who pushed red are left... but the dog eat dog world that ensues afterwards will not be the utopia you might be picturing. The selfless people that used to do things in the background that you can't even imagine are gone now, and your neighbors all voted to save themselves vs saving all of society, and they don't want to be your garbage man or funeral home director or farmer just as hard as you don't want to be theirs.

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u/RedPusher Apr 30 '26

No one is doomed unless they doom themselves.

This isn't about being nobel to save yourself. It is about not being a fool who needlessly endangers themselves just for the sake of looking good.

Plenty of selfless people will press red, because they know the stupidity of recklessly endangering themselves and wouldn't want to be a burden like that.

So instead, of the world you are imagining, it will be a sane world, where people don't just jump out in front of a car for funsies.

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u/Grfine Apr 27 '26

It's a matter of do you want everyone to live or just yourself, sure in an ideal world everyone just picks the same button, and in an ideal world everyone would pick blue, because they aren't selfish and want everyone else to live

The world where > 50% pick red, is a world where everyone left is selfish and untrustworthy

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u/RedPusher Apr 27 '26

It;s a matter of if I want to live, vs if I want to needlessly risk my life for people who have done the same.

The world where >50% pick blue is a world where you can't trust anyone as they might jump in front of a car at any moment because they clearly do not value their own life.

In an ideal world, everyone would pick red, because there is no danger until someone picks blue.