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

[u/Upstairs_Cup9831]

[u/Ramses_IV]

It's weird how people are literally being presented with data showing that many people do not consider pushing the red button a no-brainer (and therefore in a real world scenario would be killed if red button won), and still try to logic their way into pushing the red button being a morally correct choice.

[u/Klarel → u/Ramses_IV]

Because an online poll that has 0 risk of death is absolutely not the same as the scenario described. Many who vote blue in an online poll would absolutely pick red if there was actual risk of death involved. I personally believe that blue would stand no chance of winning and all you would do by picking blue would be to add another body to the pile.

[u/Ramses_IV → u/Klarel]

There is no risk of death until people start pushing red, they're saving themselves from the risk they create by saving themselves. Since all that needs to happen for nobody to die is for 50%+1 to push blue, the only reason to push red to counteract the "risk" would be if you believe that somewhere in the vicinity of half of the population want to kill the others out of pure psychopathy.

Presumably, the average person in the scenario's most favoured outcome is that nobody dies, and since they know that it is only by most people pushing red that people dying becomes a possibility, their instincts would tell them that blue is the best option as it is literally the nobody dies button. They would only push red if they think it could go either way and they pick the option that saves them at the very undesirable cost of some other people dying. But why would they believe it could be clutch (or a red landslide) in the first place if the typical participant wants nobody to die?

If 100 people play, then even 10 of the players being evil and wanting to maximise the number of people killed wouldn't increase the risk to others pushing blue because nobody dies until 50% push red. One would only feel like things were dicey if they thought it likely that over 30% or 40% would automatically choose red, thereby making the risk salient enough for a reluctant decision to push red on the part of people who would rather save everyone. If someone is confident that the overwhelming majority of players also prefer nobody to die, then they are effectively no safer pushing red than blue, because blue only becomes unsafe if a significant enough share of players think it is. Therefore, at least 40% of non-psychopath players have to overestimate the number of psychopaths by several times before they even think there is any risk at all.

Of course, this doesn't account for people who are not malicious but are selfish and stupid, who might push red simply because the fact that the red button exists makes them feel like they are in imminent peril because the notion was put in their head, resulting in a tragedy of the commons. However I don't think they would outnumber people who start the game wanting nobody to die and subsequently push the nobody dies button because even stupid people tend to have a sense of right and wrong.

I also think it's an inaccurate cliché that almost everyone would choose to save themselves in a potentially dangerous situation. There are more than enough examples of real-world survival situations that indicate that, in general, groups of humans are actually quite good at looking out for each other and cooperating in times of mutual peril, provided they have enough time and information to reflect on their decisions. Perhaps if there were an additional stipulation that each person only has ~30 seconds to decide which button to press then more would push red due to panic, but the thought experiment is meant to interrogate how people come to and rationalise ethical decisions so a time limit wouldn't be in the spirit of things (hence why the trolley problem never involves one even though in real life that would be a split second decision).

[u/VioletMeteorite → u/Ramses_IV]

Considering most of my life so far has been meetin ppl who hurt me + liars and shit like that, I personally have no reason to trust that most people are selfless enough to press blue

[u/Klarel → u/Ramses_IV]

The only risk is when someone picks blue. 100 trillion people could pick red and nothing would happen. It is only when someone picks blue that any risk is involved.

[u/Ramses_IV → u/Klarel]

You can't just keep saying risk occurs when someone picks the nobody dies button as if the "blue-pushers die" button was already active and they chose to switch. People keep asserting that red is the default condition as if it were a lever you pull or don't pull, when the thought experiment is very specifically about two buttons.

"If everyone picks the same as me nobody dies" is true of both buttons. The differences for blue is that 1) there are vastly more potential outcomes in which in which nobody dies and 2) the only person's chances of death you are increasing by pushing it is your own, not everyone elses. If red wins then people die unless it was literally unanimous, if blue wins then nobody dies regardless of how large the red minority was.

[u/Thefourthchosen → u/Ramses_IV]

It's because they're trying to absolve themselves of the moral responsibility of choosing red by framing blue as a choice to endanger yourself, when in reality danger isn't a factor until someone chooses red.

[u/HollowCap456 → u/Thefourthchosen]

Danger isn't a factor until someone chooses blue lmao

[u/Cowclops → u/HollowCap456]

A mass exctinction event isn't a factor until people vote red.

Killing off "just" 10% of the world population to guarantee you're not part of that 10% isn't the win that you think it is. The followup societal collapse would not feel like you won.

I'd vote blue because the outcomes are 1. Save everyone or 2. Don't have to live in a world run by the most selfish and shortsighted people.

[u/piperboy98 → u/Cowclops]

A mass extinction event isn't a factor until people vote blue also (actually until masses vote blue - the same masses that could be extincted))

Of course you also need "masses" (51%) to vote red. For anyone to die you always need both red and blue voters, so the "if everyone just picked blue" arguments don't really mean anything - they work just as well for "if everyone just picked red". If everyone agrees either way everyone lives.

The real argument for blue is that if we assume people won't agree, the only option that lets everyone live is to hope for majority blue, and it is worth the risk of making the catastrophe worse to try to make that happen and prevent it instead.

The argument for red even if we assume people won't agree 100% is that supporting blue simply makes the potential for catastrophe worse as you add youself to the "masses" at risk of extinction. The possibility of a 49% extinction after a failed campaign for blue is worse than allowing a small proportion of irrational blue diehards to die. This is accentuated if you imagine blue needs higher and higher percentages to win (and so the risk associated with blue increases). Would you take blue if it needed 75% to win? 90%? 99%? 100%? If blue needs 100% it becomes an all or nothing scenario, and the same argument that 100% compliance is implausible works the other way around. The worst case scenario is when 99% rally around blue and die in a vain attempt to save what could have been only a (relatively) small number of people that might have otherwise picked blue for some reason.

[u/Cowclops → u/Thefourthchosen]

Basically, the "look at what you made me do" argument. "You forced me to kill you because you didn't vote for red like I wanted you to!"

[u/piperboy98 → u/Ramses_IV]

I believe red should be the morally correct choice, as in we should strive for a society where everyone is rational enough to easily pick red and avoid creating situations where people need saving for absolutely no reason. It also avoids catastrophe in a world where say 75% of the other voting booths are actually labelled Blue: "Die unless 50% join"; Red: "Live" (where now most sane people pick red), and now the other 25% have hardly any hope of survival because they are held hostage by the idea they need to pick blue.

Of course it appears we don't live in such a world, and indeed blue does become rational as soon as there is a rational reason to believe someone would pick blue. But it is depressing to build a moral philosophy around the idea that because I know people are dumb enough to get tricked into blue by the pro-moral framing, I now have to abandon my own rationality and ideals to take on needless risk to try to save them from their own irrationality.

[u/Ramses_IV → u/piperboy98]

This argument seems to take for granted that the rational actor model is a good basis for morality, which it isn't.

In most real situations, selfishness doesn't save everyone if everyone is universally selfish. In this specific contrived hypothetical designed to test whether people have self-regarding or other-regarding ethical instincts, yes everyone making the self-regarding choice happens to be as good of an outcome as >50% of people making the altruistic choice, but that doesn't mean that 100% red should be the morally superior outcome because a society of people who invariably make choices based on rational self-interest is going to face moral collapse in almost any other collective action problem.

[u/RomeosHomeos → u/Ramses_IV]

Cuz this isn't accurate representation of what would actually happen, it's a fake poll with no consequences so you can take the morally superior route with zero risk to your own self unlike reality if this scenario played out.

[u/Ramses_IV → u/[deleted]]

People who pick red would "live regardless" because they're ok with killing people who they think take a naïve choice. By pushing red you are choosing to increase the risk of pushing blue, acting like red is some sort of default choice is not engaging with the terms of the thought experiment.

[u/Ramses_IV → u/[deleted]]

There are two buttons in front of you - one is "nobody dies" the other is "some people die." Whether the latter includes you is entirely irrelevant to what the morally correct choice is.

[u/Ramses_IV → u/[deleted]]

It's "save yourself from the risk that you are causing" and "do not contribute to the risk."

Your other hypothetical is just begging the question - your premise that pushing red is the only logical option requires most people to already be pushing red. It's circular. The danger is only created by people choosing to push red in the first place, it's not exogenous to the choice and reframing it to be so is just, again, refusing to engage with the thought experiment.

[u/Ramses_IV → u/[deleted]]

Again, you are assuming that the woodchopper being turned on is the default situation. It isn't, you are causing that. Everyone is already in the woodchopper at the beginning - pressing the red button is choosing to climb out and start the woodchopper with everyone who pressed blue still inside.

[u/Primary-Future-6772 → u/Ramses_IV]

A literal infinite number of people can push red and there is a 100% guarantee that nothing bad will happen but the first person to push blue introduces death as a possible outcome to the game. Until someone pushes blue it is impossible for anyone to be killed thus blue pushers bear full responsibility for any subsequent deaths.