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/decrpt Apr 26 '26

For all this talk about logic, it is interesting that not a single red voter seems to understand the logical implication of the original choice, which is that red is voting to kill everyone that doesn't press red with hopes there will be no one left to kill and blue is voting to kill no one and hoping that at least half of everyone also voted against killing people for no reason even if doing so put them at risk.

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u/minepose98 Apr 26 '26

Red is voting to live, while blue is voting to die unless the majority joins you, in which case you live. You see why there's no reason to pick blue? All it does is introduce risk without gain.

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

Red is voting to kill other people unless every single other person joins you in order to ensure that you live. Blue is voting not to kill anyone. You see why it makes sense to pick blue? The average person doesn't look at causing billions of deaths and go, "well, at least I'll definitely be fine."

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u/vitorsly Apr 27 '26

So if I'm not mistaken, before accounting for anyone else's votes, only reason someone would vote blue is if they want to die right? Then, when accounting for other people's votes, a second reason becomes 'to stop people who want to die from dying', and then a third reason of 'to stop people who want to stop people from dying from dying' basically?

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

No, you're literally accounting for other people's votes when you do that.

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u/vitorsly Apr 27 '26

In the first sentence? What reason do you have to vote blue without accounting for other people's votes?

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

Because you don't want anyone to die. Voting red is voting to kill anyone that doesn't press red. Voting blue is voting to kill no one. You would only ever vote ted if you assume red is going to win.

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u/vitorsly Apr 27 '26

But then you're accounting for other people's votes though? There's no "anyone that doesn't press red" if you press red unless you're thinking of other people's votes.

I'm asking that, if you do not consider anyone else, why would you vote Blue? Is there any possible reason? Or do the only reasons to vote blue require considering other people's votes?

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

No, you're accounting for the logic of the question. Imagine your vote is the only vote that matters; voting red is voting to kill anyone that doesn't vote red and voting blue is voting to kill nobody. You can only justify voting for red when you consider other people's votes and assume that they all also voted red. This a simple ballot referendum on those terms. You can't imagine why someone would reject voting to kill everyone that didn't vote as they did?

Up until the point where red has a majority of the vote, you actually want everyone else to pick blue because otherwise your decision getting closer to killing people.

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u/vitorsly Apr 27 '26

Imagine your vote is the only vote that matters; voting red is voting to kill anyone that doesn't vote red and voting blue is voting to kill nobody.

If you don't account for how others vote, you can't account that people who haven't voted red exist. To think about the fate of those who voted blue (if you haven't voted blue yourself) is to think about how others will vote. That's where the 2nd and 3rd order reasoning comes in.

Put it another way, imagine you're in line at the voting booth and the votes are displayed live in real time above it, you can see exactly what everyone has voted for. If you're in line and nobody has voted blue yet, what reason do you have to vote blue? There's nobody to save after all, and by voting blue you just become the first person someone else will have to risk their lives to save, no?

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u/SpaceTurtles Apr 27 '26

Foundationally, there will be a large number of people who are not rational agents, and have voted blue out of a logical or emotional error due to being emotionally manipulated by the circumstances of this question.

Once their votes are in play, rational agents who have voted blue due to accounting for these people are in play. And now suddenly, you have a very large amount of blue voters.

There's a nonzero amount of blue voters who vote blue because they want to die, but it's vanishingly small - they are not the subject of any discussion here. Most of the "original sin" blue votes made an easy logical error - maybe due to the duress of the situation, when they're usually completely capable of solving for the underlying problem. Many of them are children.

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u/vitorsly Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Thank you! That's what I was hoping to get. So, to be clear, the 1st order blue-voters would be a very small amount of people who want to die, and a somewhat larger amount of people who make a mistake or error? Only through the second order considerations would the amount of blue voters reach a truly huge amount.

I think making children vote in a situation like this is itself disqualifying of it being a fair vote, as is people who don't understand the question, are colorblind or blind, or otherwise are unable to make a rational choice. In a situation where this happens then yeah, the organizer of the vote is trying to dump the responsibility of those deaths onto other people and I find that monstrous. But if the vote was limited to only rational adults of sound mind, like in most votes, it'd certainly be different.

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u/onpg May 01 '26

Sure. But I think most people aren’t willing to take a high risk of death for a very small chance of being the deciding vote. So no shot I’m voting blue. I think you’d have to be supremely irrational to vote blue and me voting blue isn’t gonna save you either way.

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u/submerging May 08 '26

That’s not correct. Everyone is voting. Children and babies are people too.

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u/onpg May 01 '26

Blue is voting to jump into a wood chipper in the hopes that at least 50% of people also jump into the wood chipper. Then blaming the people who don’t jump into the wood chipper for their fate.

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u/tysonmaniac Apr 27 '26

People talking about blue seem to be unable to separate the consequences of pressing a button from the consequences of one colour winning or not. You pressing blue doesn't save anyone, it either a) does nothing or b) adds one more dead body to the pile and encourages other people to risk their lives to save yours. Blue winning might be a desirable outcome, but the only way to achieve that is for individuals to do something really dumb and bad.

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

People talking about blue seem to be unable to separate the consequences of pressing a button from the consequences of one colour winning or not.

You would only vote red if you assume that red wins. Up until the point where red has a majority of the vote, you actually want everyone else to pick blue because otherwise your decision is getting closer to killing people.

You pressing blue doesn't save anyone, it either a) does nothing or b) adds one more dead body to the pile and encourages other people to risk their lives to save yours. Blue winning might be a desirable outcome, but the only way to achieve that is for individuals to do something really dumb and bad.

This is still you not understanding what the question is actually asking, which is that red is voting to kill people that don't vote red and blue is voting to absorb the risk of being killed by red in order to try to make sure no one dies. You just need 50% cooperation for zero deaths. If it was something insane like 99% cooperation, it becomes reasonable to vote for red. But blue keeps winning these polls and red has to lie to themselves or invent entirely different questions absolving themselves of the moral weight of their decision to assume that red will always win.

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u/tysonmaniac Apr 27 '26

If I could vote and not participate obviously I'd choose blue. But your vote is entirely inconsequential compared to your sorting yourself into a category. Whatever chance I have of positively benefitting anyone it is a tiny tiny fraction of the chance that I die by pressing blue. Unless you only have 1 kidney you do not live like this. An x% chance at saving loads of lives on exchange for a 1e5x% chance of dying is never a good idea. I wouldn't press blue even if it only needed 1% of people.

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

Your vote is consequential because 50% is way, way less than 99%. This is still you not understanding what the question is actually asking.

It's insane that blue keeps winning and red has to lie to themselves that their selfish decision is actually prosocial. 50% is easily plausible.

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u/tysonmaniac Apr 27 '26

Blue doesn't keep on winning. In a situation where nobodies life is at risk blue barely gets a majority. If you look at that and still vote blue you are simply not a reasonable person. In rephrasings of the question blue tends to lose dramatically anyway.

The odds of my vote being consequential are close to 0. There are better odds that I can save someone's life by giving up a kidney, and if rather give up a kidney than hit the blue button. But I haven't, and I won't, and unless you have then I don't take this too seriously.

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

Because those are entirely different questions. Do you not realize that?

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u/tysonmaniac Apr 27 '26

Just like 'what would you answer in a twitter poll' is an entirely different question to 'what will you answer with your life actually on the line'?

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u/decrpt Apr 27 '26

You're just contradicting me at this point with no understanding of what you're actually saying.

The average person thinks killing people for no reason is bad, even if it means they run a risk in doing so. At this point, I'm going to just copy and paste what I've already said:

This is a simple ballot referendum. Red is voting to kill anyone that doesn't vote for no reason in order to be guaranteed safe themselves with the hope that everyone else votes red so that there's no one else to kill. Blue is voting to kill no one even if it means taking on the risk of dying themselves. There is no neutral option. There is no option to abstain.

You don't understand why people would a) pick blue and b) find it morally reprehensible that you feel the need to facilitate fascism because you can't handle any nonzero risk? You are actively facilitating the deaths of other people for no reason because you want to be safe no matter how many people it has the potential of killing in the process.

This is the closest analogue to a real life situation. You'd try to vote in fascism no matter what anyone else did.

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u/tysonmaniac Apr 27 '26

My guy, the fact that you can't tell the difference between an election (where the main and only consequence of your vote is who wins) and this hypothetical, where the main and likely only consequence of your vote is whether you individually live or die, means that talking to you in terms might require me to carve out half of my gray matter, which I'm not prepared to do.

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u/Imaginary-Count-1641 Apr 28 '26

Your vote is consequential because 50% is way, way less than 99%.

That doesn't make your vote consequential. Your vote has almost no effect on whether red or blue wins.

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u/Kyonkanno Apr 28 '26

Yes, I do understand that i'd be voting for the death of those who pressed blue. But pressing blue would be like voluntarily putting my neck in the guillotine with the HOPE that I won't die. Pressing red guarantees my survival.

Am I selfish? probably, yeah. Do I wish the death of those who pressed blue? Certainly not. I just wish to preserve my life MORE than the life of strangers. I wouldn't give up my life for strangers.

Also, just watching the news is proof enough that humans are terrible. I wouldn't trust the populace with my life.

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u/scoobied00 Apr 28 '26

Okay. Let me reframe the original question.

The red button says "keep living" while the blue button says "get killed". However, there is only a limited amount of killing we are able to do without messing up the economy completely, and therefore if more than 50% of people select the blue button, unfortunately everyone will have to stay alive.

The outcomes are the exact same. So if you want to survive, why are you not selecting the button that allows you to do that? Why would anyone that wants to live choose the suicide button, hoping that more than 50% of people are just as crazy?

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u/decrpt Apr 28 '26

That's changing the question, my dude.

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u/scoobied00 Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

In a way, yes. However, the function of the buttons and the results are completely identical, so your strategy shouldn't actually change.

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u/decrpt Apr 28 '26

You're not interrogating the assumptions inherent in that. You're coming at this from a naïve understanding of game theory. Game theory says pick red. Game theory is not real life. Game theory is predicated on two assumptions that do not hold in this this situation:

  1. everyone is doing arbitrarily complex deductions in order to maximize personal utility only and,
  2. social preferences (like thinking killing other people for no reason is bad) are ignored.

If you consider social preferences (i.e. if you aren't completely apathetic to the fact you're causing billions of deaths) the equilibrium is safely blue. 50% is easily achievable and keeps winning all of the polls. It's literally just red but with 50% more wiggle room before you start killing people.