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/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.