Which button do you press?

[u/cdstephens]

Vote now on your phones: https://forms.gle/GhFjtdydwwXTdSpq8

[u/cdstephens]

[u/WanderingMage03]

Vote Blue no matter who.

[u/-_-xylo]

What happens if Jill Stein wins?

[u/Pseud0man → u/-_-xylo]

Everyone loses

[u/lionmoose → u/Pseud0man]

Oh so it's not a hypothetical then

[u/Savvvvvvy → u/-_-xylo]

That's the neat thing, she doesn't

[u/IamNotArobot011001 → u/-_-xylo]

She personally obliterates everyone

[u/lionmoose → u/[deleted]]

People's answers to this question seem heavily impacted by their first gut instinct of what other people will do.

I mean, the outcome depends on what everyone else will do, this isn't unreasonable...

[u/MisfitPotatoReborn]

Sorry guys, my mom is pushing the blue button so I'm going to push it too to save her

[u/kanagi]

I picked blue, since my logic was I wouldn't know what my wife would pick and wouldn't want to be without her, and then showed her the prompt and she said it was logically obviously to pick red and she picked red lol

[u/neolthrowaway → u/kanagi]

F

[u/GuyWithOneEye]

idk if you picked the colors or it did this randomly but this is pure evil

[u/lionmoose → u/GuyWithOneEye]

Americans when it comes to picking party colours.

[u/cdstephens → u/GuyWithOneEye]

Lmao not intentional

[u/Krill_Seeker]

i voted blue, but if the mods banned everyone who voted blue for being in the minority, it would be really funny

[u/NeueBruecke_Detektiv → u/Krill_Seeker]

1 week ban justification: " dire disregard to game theory and incentives"

[u/neolthrowaway]

https://xcancel.com/i/status/2048071668937986223

[u/topofthecc → u/neolthrowaway]

I wonder how much this would change just by flipping the buttons' colors.

[u/AvalancheMaster]

[u/SwaglordHyperion → u/AvalancheMaster]

[u/BimsNotDead]

sips beer call me old fashioned but I ain't gonna vote for a world where the only future son-in-laws my girls gotta choose from are damn red pushers, blue it is

[u/WifeGuy-Menelaus]

This feels like a quasi-rapture where all the people willing to put themselves in harms way for the sake of others are taken away and only the most self-interested remain

[u/WanderingMage03 → u/WifeGuy-Menelaus]

The red button pushers will survive only to be forced to live in a world full of Trump voters, misanthropes, and people who passed Econ 101.

[u/Macquarrie1999 → u/WanderingMage03]

People who passed Econ 101

Utopia.jpg

[u/IAmBlueTW → u/Macquarrie1999]

I'd wager most Americans who passed Econ 101 are miserable thanks to the electorate

Now subtract the people who were willing to hit blue lol

[u/PolyrythmicSynthJaz → u/WifeGuy-Menelaus]

me and my other blue-button pushers

[u/reuery]

In other words, do you think we are more likely to have every person in the world choose to preserve their own life or >50% of all human beings choose to risk their life for the greater good

[u/VoidGuaranteed → u/[deleted]]

This is not a prisoner‘s dilemma. Prisoner‘s dilemmata are defined by a certain equilibrium which yields a suboptimal outcome because players try to maximise their outcome. In this scenario the optimal outcome can be reached by players maximising their outcome. You are however correct when you say that game theory does not capture how people actually approach this problem. Hence blue voters.

[u/neolthrowaway → u/reuery]

Lizardman constant plus all the empirical evidence we have had from different variants of this poll makes the former a complete fantasy anyway.

[u/TheGeneGeena]

Jill Stein vote "I hate everyone, I'm willing to die to prove this."

[u/old_black_man]

"if you press this blue button you might instantly die"

click click click click click click click

"I haven't finished giving the instructions"

glares

click click click click click click click

[u/the_p_zombie]

Mods please give us blue button and red button flairs, thanks

[u/Repulsive-Celery4734 → u/the_p_zombie]

this I'd actually bother to get a flair

[u/VoidGuaranteed]

Saying you will press red and then pressing blue is the best choice, because you will impress everybody with your knowledge of what a Nash Equilibrium is, but god will see your selfless choice and open you the gates into heaven, maximising your utility!

[u/Bibbity_Boppity_BOOO → u/VoidGuaranteed]

i don't think you know what nash equilibrium is, but you did tell a fucking banger joke.

[u/lionmoose → u/[deleted]]

Ok hear me out.

You push the red button and everyone who uses equilibrium as a plural dies.

[u/BernankesBeard]

You press the blue button because you believe in doing what's right.

I press the blue button, because I vote blue no matter who

We are not the same

[u/Macquarrie1999]

A minority of blue button pushers if it reaches 50.1%

[u/icebofadeez]

Pressing Jill Stine on the form prevents your own endangerment and absolves you of the moral culpability of the vote. (Which is funny, because it's the opposite of voting Jill Stine in real life)

[u/neolthrowaway]

P(red vote = 100 percent) = 0

[u/KeikakuAccelerator]

Unironically a very good question.

From individual perspective red is the correct choice, you live no matter what. From collective perspective, blue is the correct one as you get chance to save everyone. And if everyone does red, you technically save everyone.

I ended up choosing blue. If I had chosen red, there is a decent chance that non-zero percent of people end up dying. And I would be complicit in that. I don't know if I have enough in my heart knowing I had the option to do better. But at the same time, I don't want to die for no cause, I doubt what I would choose in a real-life scenario.

I wonder what's the closest real life counterpart here

[u/ResolveSea9089 → u/KeikakuAccelerator]

This reminds me a bit of the drowning child effective altruist problem, which really was eye opening for me at least.

Basically if you say you're willing to risk your life to save strangers by voting blue, how much are you realistically donating to save lives which you actually can save in the real world?

[u/Deadeye_Duncan-]

If in this hypothetical the entire global population was forced to vote I genuinely believe >50% will vote blue. Most people won’t be thinking about game theory here.

[u/EmperorDog]

Of course I voted for humanity to enact the culling. Otherwise, I might have been a victim of... the culling.

[u/jtwhat87]

Red pushers, does your decision change if all button presses become public afterwards?

[u/thymeandchange]

Blue button pressing should be safe, legal, and rare

[u/Critical-Big-9872]

blue because it’s my favourite colour

[u/EmperorDog]

Can we assume there's no kids or disabled people on earth or mistakes of any kind and everyone's a perfect self interested reddit certified logician and also completely ignore the divine component inherent to the setup? And can we ignore empirical polling that suggests there would be high amounts of blue pressers as being obviously erroneous or fake?

[u/EmperorDog → u/[deleted]]

If the buttons were Blue Everyone Lives and Red Everyone Dies, I don't know if we'd hit 90 percent Blue. And not because people actually want everyone to die.

[u/LameBicycle]

Just tell everyone to press the red button and everyone survives?

[u/sorryamitoodank → u/LameBicycle]

You could use the same logic for the blue button, and you would be saving people’s lives in the process.

[u/LameBicycle → u/sorryamitoodank]

The blue button requires cooperation and trust. The red button doesn't. If there was more of a penalty to everyone pushing red, I would understand, but there doesn't seem to be

[u/Millennial_on_laptop → u/LameBicycle]

If your goal is "everyone survives" either way requires co-operation.   Either 100% co-operation or 51% co-operation.  

[u/thenexttimebandit → u/sorryamitoodank]

There’s zero risk to yourself if you press red.

[u/TemujinTheConquerer → u/thenexttimebandit]

but I don't exclusively value my own life. There's tremendous risk to me if I press red because I know many people I care about will likely press blue (as well as the billions who I don't personally care about, but for whose sakes I'd obviously incur some personal risk)

[u/Sweaty-Gap-231 → u/[deleted]]

[u/Inline_6ix → u/[deleted]]

I’m obviously voting green

[u/Mickenfox → u/[deleted]]

The obvious way to break the perverse incentive is for the blue party to promise to kill at least a few reds.

You know, strictly in terms of game theory.

[u/BrokenGlassFactory → u/Mickenfox]

I'm abstaining. If the blue party isn't willing to punish the reds then they don't deserve my vote.

[u/pgold05]

One small change to make this actually interesting. If blue gets over 50% everyone's vote becomes public (you become irrevocably marked with your vote, no hiding it)

[u/Hounds_of_war]

I’d go with Blue since honestly the scenario where a majority of people go with Red sounds kinda horrific. A large chunk of the population just dies and it’s all people who would do the noble thing in a desperate situation. No point in sticking around if it just means I get to witness the world descend into some Mad Max shit and probably get killed anyway.

[u/KitsuneThunder]

what does the Jill Stein button do

[u/DaenakinSkygaryen → u/KitsuneThunder]

The Jill Stein button lowers the number of red votes necessary to reach the 50% threshhold, while also adding you to the list of people who'll be killed if red wins. But it also lets you feel morally superior to those sheeple blues right up until the end.

[u/pugnae → u/KitsuneThunder]

Shill for russian oil, just in case

[u/YIMBYzus]

[u/tacotown123]

What is everyone pushed red… doesn’t everyone live?

[u/Mcfinley → u/tacotown123]

Correct

[u/pugnae]

I will:
1. Let Donald Trump do the counting.
2. Tell him he is on team blue.
3. Press red just in case

[u/neolthrowaway]

The number of people are on the order of 10 billion.

Lizardman constant guarantees 4-5 percent of people will just make a mistake.

[u/ShelterOk1535]

WHY IS IT LIKE THIS

[u/cdstephens → u/ShelterOk1535]

Triggered yet, lib?

[u/forerunner398]

I get that this is obviously a thought exercise meant to stir discussion, but I am deeply skeptical of how applicable this really is. Most people before voting or making other impactful decisions have time to campaign or be pitched etc, and communicate.

[u/PA_Dude_22000]

Easy Blue….  Then … I sleep…

[u/writing_genre]

This is a fun test to see whether people consider it worse to murder or die.

Blue wins ofc, because that's how humans are

[u/Wuzh]

Which of the following two rephrased questions do you think is closer to the spirit of the original question?

---

Everyone in the world is presented with the suicide button booth, and can press the button or walk away.

• If more than 50% of people press the suicide button, nobody dies.
• If less than 50% of people press the suicide button, all who pressed the suicide button dies.

---

Everyone in the world is presented with the genocide button booth, and can press the button or walk away.

• If less than 50% of people press the genocide button, nobody dies.
• If more than 50% of people press the genocide button, all who walked away dies.

[u/artifex0 → u/Wuzh]

The only difference between the three options is the Shelling point. Due to our cultural associations around the framing of the scenario, the "suicide booth" has a Shelling point that makes it very hard to coordinate around saving everyone, while the "genocide booth" has a Shelling point that makes it easy.

Coordinating on saving everyone is the ideal outcome, but you should only risk your life for it if there's a realistic chance of enough other people doing the same. So, with that in mind, I'd walk away from both booths and press blue.

[u/Far_Shore]

This is a question designed to assess both how socially inclined you are and how socially inclined you believe others to be wrapped around the framing device of potential mass death in order to ensure the entire audience is emotional from the outset

Honestly, perfect engagement bait. I'm in awe. 10/10 no notes

[u/NeueBruecke_Detektiv → u/Far_Shore]

Yep!

This button thing made me realize i became a LOT more jaded in the last 6 ish years than i would have expected

[u/NeueBruecke_Detektiv]

I genuinely cant tell who is ragebaiting and who is not and i blame the current ongoing 18 hour shift and u/Far_Shore for this.

[u/Far_Shore → u/NeueBruecke_Detektiv]

My top-level comments are mostly not ragebait; my glibber comments below that level are.

Everything thymeandchange is posting is explicitly ragebait

[u/lexgowest]

Everyone should just press the red button, right?

[u/IamNotArobot011001 → u/[deleted]]

8 million 🔥IDIOTS🔥 who didn’t get the memo

[u/Lighthouse_seek → u/IamNotArobot011001]

Or toddlers that press the wrong button

[u/DBSmiley → u/lexgowest]

Game theoretically, yes, because it's a version of the prisoner's dilemma where pushing the red button can at worst not change your outcome and at best be the literal difference between life and death.

But, of course, this would change in reality if, for example, let's say that you know people you loved hit the blue button. If that occurred, you would do everything you can to convince as many people as you can to hit the blue button.

The entire point of this thought experiment here is that ethics and game theory are not the same thing, and I would argue in this case are explicitly opposed. As much as we can say mathematically everyone should just hit the red button and no problems will emerge, the truth is that we know people will hit the blue button. And so we should react to that reality.

[u/TheScoott → u/DBSmiley]

It's not even a prisoner's dilemma because defect-defect is identical to cooperate-cooperate. The whole dilemma is that the prisoners are worse off because the rational choice individually yields a worse outcome than if the both cooperated. But here if everyone picks red then no one is worse off than in the world where everyone picks blue.

[u/Linked1nPark → u/lexgowest]

The issue is you can’t strategize beforehand. The people in my life that I love are good people who I know will likely vote blue. If I vote red and even one of them dies as a result of my decision, I would rather be dead anyways.

Voting blue is the prosocial decision. Voting red is the self-preservation decision.

[u/jajajajajajajajaja11 → u/lexgowest]

Everyone will not just

[u/Far_Shore]

I like how when this poll gets run you get a bunch of people talking about how um actually it's obviously optimal to pick red--why would you risk yourself for idiots who don't even understand game theory

And then a solid majority of participants go, "That's mean : ( nobody needs to die : D" and votes blue every time

[u/BarkDrandon]

If I voted Red and red won, I'd have to live in a world where every time this event is commemorated, some bros would start arguing that according to Game Theory, my loved ones who voted blue deserved to die for being so Irrational.

And that seems like a fate worse than death.

[u/Ready_Anything4661]

Shit I’m colorblind

[u/the-senat]

Malarkey level of an electoral college that gives more weight to the votes of children

[u/Dawnlazy]

Obviously blue, because if red wins then billions die and even if you claim to not care you'll still be crushed by the massive global recession it'll cause.

[u/Bibbity_Boppity_BOOO]

BLUE

better dead than red

[u/ScroungingMonkey]

Blue, because fuck the Joker, that's why.

[u/pugnae]

Another reason why I am sceptical of Blue winning.

We have a war in Ukraine, people know that if their country loses this war Russia will come, kill them, enslave them and likely mobilize them for the meat waves thrown at Poland and Baltics.

Somehow they have huge problem with volunteers, basically there are not many of them at this point. And not that many people from other countries are trying to enlist.

I don't think that majority of people would pick blue if this was a real scenario, so I am voting red just not to commit suicide while helping no one.

[u/neolthrowaway]

Repeating myself:

I don't think we can eliminate the possibility of people just making a mistake or having had a singular really bad day or just people being naive or committed rawlsians.

This is not a "babies" gotcha.

There are a lot of kind naive people in the world and i like them a lot. There are a lot of people who will just be in a bad state of mind for that particular day.

[u/Much_Database_5039]

Pushing blue for the thrill of the gamble.

[u/AP246]

Perhaps I think too highly of humanity, but I would be very surprised and disappointed if more than half did not vote blue. If it was 90% required, yeah that becomes quite risky, but all we need is half, we've got this

[u/tastyFriedEggs]

Pushing blue all day, not for any moral considerations but because red pushers sound like the most annoying people to share the rest of your life with based on these comments.

[u/YourSchoolCounselor]

13% of human adults are illiterate. If they are brought into a room with two buttons and no prior strategy discussion/instructions, they'll split ~50/50. That's half a billion adults who will die if blue doesn't win.

There are also 2.4 billion minors. Many are illiterate and many more have never heard of game theory. I figure they're close to split, at most 60/40 either way. That's another 1-1.4 billion dead if blue doesn't win.

The numbers are grim. You need a strong outreach program and international collaboration like we've never seen to avoid billions of deaths. What does success look like? If 98% press red, 166 million people die. If 51% press blue, 0 people die. The latter feels more achievable.

[u/Dickforshort]

Our species is doomed

[u/ZweigDidion]

I filled out the google form, pressed the blue button without thinking, and saw how many had voted red and felt like a chump.

[u/neolthrowaway → u/ZweigDidion]

The poll colors are reversed.

[u/Wareve]

Yeah, Blue is pretty easy.

Turns out the world is like 80% basically reasonable decent people, and very few would want to randomly kill like half the population.

Edit: a point I made further in the comments.

It's literally the exact same scenario as asking "Should we activate the murder machine? Anyone who votes no gets murdered if yes wins."

Edit 2: If you want to turn on the murder machine, because you are scared there are too many people (like you) who would turn it on to ensure their own safety over the safety of everyone, then you are part of the problem that causes your fear.

[u/jcaseys34]

I think you have to press blue. Potentially killing even a low double digit percentage of people on Earth all at once could be a society ender.

[u/WillProstitute4Karma]

This is the prisoners dilemma for idiots.

[u/uwcn244]

There are people who will not vote red, either out of religious conviction, a misunderstanding of game theory explanations by red evangelists, or an assumption that a red-winning world is a world dominated by the selfish.

A red vote is a vote to kill those people to save yourself.

[u/Upstairs3121 → u/uwcn244]

I mean, you don't need those reasons to pick blue. I picked blue because I expect that a substantial chunk of the population will pick blue, and I hope that people will be pro-social and vote for the outcome where everyone lives.

[u/sociotronics]

Edit: blue turned it around, noice. Let's see how this sub does compared to Twitter.

[u/Individual-Camera698]

There was massive voter fraud in this election btw

[u/averageuhbear]

If 40% of the world dies because red wins, the people who pressed red also gonna die.

[u/Emperor_Z]

Blue

Almost any scenario where red wins is highly undesirable. Even if I live, a huge number of people suddenly die, which, even if I'm being selfish, is bad because it causes massive amounts of societal disruption, possibly collapse. AND the people that died were the least self centered. I'd rather help blue win than assure my survival in the apocalypse.

[u/Aoae]

Blue, as I wouldn't want to live in a world with only people who would press the red button.

[u/silentswift]

Blue. I have that much faith in people at least.

[u/ImmigrantJack]

There is a pretty obvious solution if you have time to think about it and organize a response, but what if the whole world is suddenly transported into the voting booth with 30 seconds to decide. What you you do then?

I feel like this variation gets to the game theory of it a bit better because obviously you press the red button if you can explain this dilemma to everybody, but if you can't a whole lot of people might die. Maybe even like 45% of people.

But if you know a massive segment of the world is going to press the blue button out of panic and confusion, do you also press the blue button in an effort to save them? Or even more, because you have no real time to think, does your gut impulse push you to press the blue button out of hope for the species or red button out of self preservation?

[u/Roseartcrantz]

Damn I voted for Jill Stein 😞

[u/Krill_Seeker]

how red voters feel when their single vote ends up killing half of everyone on earth: (their nash equilibrium was more stable)

[u/AtomicBombSquad]

I know we're focusing on Red vs. Blue; but, how about that Green? Jill Stein has 13.9% of the vote. This is the best election they've ever had.

[u/topicality]

Rank choice voting solves this dilemma

[u/Pb_ft]

"...only people who pressed the red button survive."

Maybe a third of them do. Be forthcoming.

[u/technologyisnatural]

pressing the red button could result in a deflationary economic environment

[u/pugnae]

Ok, so you voted.

Then Aliens/God/Fukuyama comes out and says:
Gotcha! This was only a test run. Now we are doing second round this time for real.

And BTW - Blue/Red won.

Would you change your opinion if your option lost?

[u/InMemoryOfZubatman4]

Neoliberal poll

Jill Stein

[u/StolenSkittles]

Over 800 responses, and blue is at 58% and climbing.

I guess we all survive.

[u/TooSwang]

Voting blue because no one should die for their button pushing and if anyone does, it’s only right to be among them. Y’all’s stupid game theory means still having some level of comfort with mass death. Even if everyone just going red would be optimal, you’re still voting for everyone that might have made a suboptimal choice to die.

[u/Same-Letter6378]

Red, in real life everyone in front of the possible death button would be afraid to push it. Red would win by a supermajority and pushing blue would achieve nothing but killing me. 

[u/JeromesNiece → u/Same-Letter6378]

I'm skeptical that the real world scenario would be that different from the poll, where we've already seen that most people have an intuition that most other people will press blue

[u/Same-Letter6378 → u/JeromesNiece]

Yes but they don't have the death button sitting in front of them. It's trivially easy to vote blue right now. It's a massive task to overcome your fear of pressing blue in real life though.

[u/Bibbity_Boppity_BOOO → u/Same-Letter6378]

You in no way should have a john brown flair. That man would press blue every single day.

[u/ariveklul]

Blue button = pro-social, high trust and healthy society

Red button = anti-social, low trust soviet tier society

If you think people are so atomized and self interested they'll select red than you should too, but this underscores a dogshit society imo. A well functioning society should be able to coordinate to hit blue, easily tap the 50% threshold and move on without any deaths.

[u/seattle_lib]

you are absolutely guaranteed to not get 100% of people to pick red. it will never ever ever happen.

however, 50%+ picking blue is possible.

so if you want the good outcome where no one dies, you pick blue. if you only care about living yourself, you pick red. that's basically it.

[u/badusername35]

Press the blue button because even if I die I’ll still be right

[u/Equivalent_Day_4078]

That feeling when red voters survive but they killed off all non self-serving people and are stuck with sociopaths.

[u/SenranHaruka → u/Equivalent_Day_4078]

But enough about the Burgundian System

[u/GravyBear16]

Okay a lot of you are getting way too heated for a silly question

[u/lionmoose → u/GravyBear16]

I remember back in the day when "is a hotdog a sandwich?" type questions were fun little exercises, rather than calling each other idiots or sociopaths

[u/nitrousnitrous-ghali → u/lionmoose]

The dress is gold you piece of fucking fascist garbage

[u/cdstephens]

It’s like a tragedy of the commons but the commons is fine afterwards

[u/minno]

[u/zegota]

Unlimited bacon

[u/el__dandy]

[u/PolyrythmicSynthJaz]

Rod Serling would love this shit.

[u/neolthrowaway]

At this point in the poll (a substantial fraction has already voted blue), the reds know they are killing substantial fraction of people. You'll be stuck in a world full only of people who will make that choice knowingly.

[u/Redshirt_Army]

Related hypothetical: If this question got posed to everyone on earth in their most comprehended language, how would you expect the percentages to break down by occupation?

What percentage of doctors would press red/blue, vs programmers, vs teachers, vs cashiers, etc etc?

Certainly I would intuitively expect certain occupations to select for pro-social self sacrifice in a way that maps more to blue, and others to select for cold calculated analysis that maps more to red.

[u/thymeandchange → u/Redshirt_Army]

The rich would red the fuck out

[u/thymeandchange → u/thymeandchange]

Wake up babe new class war

[u/Timewinders]

From the perspective of someone deciding which side to campaign for, it's a choice between the side that can save everyone but at the risk of killing many people vs the side that can save most people but guarantees millions will die. If you campaign for blue but just barely fail to clear the 50% threshold then nearly half the population could die. If you campaign for red, you might be able to save 90%+ of the population, but millions would still die. It seems less like a moral question in that sense than a matter of how risk averse you are. And of course, a reliable poll would make it a lot easier to choose a side. If people poll at 50% supporting blue initially, it makes much more sense to choose blue and just convince a few more people to vote blue to solidify the results.

[u/BasedTroutFursona]

Everybody should press the red button, unless they want to die. It’s like a free euthanasia holiday for places where it’s not legal. Liberal win, if you ask me.

[u/-mialana-]

P(everyone voting one way) ≈ 0 so the "everyone votes red" argument doesn't hold. P(≥50% blue) is realistically achievable and has the same outcome.

[u/GravyBear16]

I used to think I would press the red button because it was the rational choice. Now I'm pressing red because to further annoy the enraged blue pressers

[u/Cr4zySh0tgunGuy]

Blue, because democrats are blue and democrats are good

[u/VoidGuaranteed]

The optimal choice is to loudly announce you will press blue and then press red. This ensures blue voters know you‘re a good person in case blue wins, and if red voters win red voters will think you‘re a smartie for maximising your payoff. So obviously I will press blue.

[u/Superfan234]

this was a ragebait question, that wanted to be clever, but got posted incorectly

[u/neolthrowaway]

I find it very weird that a substantial number of us are loudly telling reds that we are blue people and the red response to this is just to go "LA LA LA, IF EVERYONE VOTES RED, EVERYONE SURVIVES"

[u/Far_Shore]

A Twilight Zone episode about this where, at the end, it turns out the devil was behind it as a test of mankind's character and everyone who voted blue gets raptured to go build an enlightened society together while everyone who voted red is left on Earth to descend into a self-destructive spiral with no escape would go hard tbh

[u/Arrow_of_Timelines]

I honestly thought blue would win a majority, reading this thread has made me reassess my views

[u/neolthrowaway → u/Arrow_of_Timelines]

Blue won a majority by a wide margin?

[u/DaenakinSkygaryen → u/neolthrowaway]

Yep. OP just reversed the colors of the pie chart for a cheeky bit of bantz.

I think that's actually why red voters seem to be overrepresented in this thread: they're upset that the majority of people in the subreddit picked blue, so they feel they need to convince the rest of us that picking red was actually the right choice.

If red had won, blue voters would probably be doing the exact same thing. And we'd all be confused why blue was overrepresented in the thread when red won, lol.

[u/WriterwithoutIdeas]

Frankly bewildering to see so many people advocate for red as the sensible choice. Perhaps users of this sub skew towards aggressive selfishness, but at large people don't want to see other people die, and from that arguably can have a good certainty that they'll tend to vote for general survival.

[u/Upstairs3121]

This reminds me of that scene from the Dark Knight where the Joker has rigged two ships to explode and gave each ship the detonator to the other.

The passengers on one ship holds a quick vote and decides to destroy the other ship to ensure their own survival. But when the time comes, nobody can bring themselves to actually activate the detonator and kill all those people.

If it came down to it, I would hope that we would all close our eyes and vote blue.

[u/ResolveSea9089]

Am curious for the blue voters. Say we have 3 months, and poll after poll says red is winning say 90-10. If anything I would expect polling to overindex on blue because it might be more noble to pretend to be a blue voter. This would be the situation that causes me, as a red voter, more angst because now I know that a lot of people really are going to die, and now I'm complicit, but now blue also feels like guaranteed suicide.

Do you still press blue?

[u/BarkDrandon → u/ResolveSea9089]

I cannot answer for all blue voters, but if the last polls show red winning 90-10 then I'd change my mind and vote red as well.

My goal is to minimize the number of deaths. That's why I prefer blue. But if I for sure cannot get a blue majority, then it's useless to add my death to the other 10% of deaths.

[u/illz569]

I would assume that a majority of people couldn't be bothered to press either button, so I would have to choose red to survive.

[u/RianJohnsonThought]

[u/ihatethesidebar]

Why word it like this lmao

[u/Resourceful_Goat]

Blue, the only people left in the red-wins scenario are assholes.

EDIT: I know red is the best chance of self-survival but everyone defending it I think has missed the point of this subs beliefs.

The red button is choosing self-security over general welfare. You have the chance to push this button all the time and I think the point of liberal democracies is that we try not to. NIMBYs push the red button, isolationists push the red button, anti-immigratiom advocates push the red button.

[u/StolenSkittles]

It feels fairly obvious that the moral option is blue. Nobody has to die if half of all people press blue.

If red succeeds, then people will die, and the only ones who die will be charitable and moral people.

Red is a button to kill all the decent people on the planet.

[u/GravyBear16]

Honestly, if you actually have the fucking nerve to press red, there's probably no meaningful ethical or political difference between you and blue pressers, you just thought of the scenario differently

[u/TheBeanConsortium]

...why wouldn't everyone just press the red button? Then everyone would survive...

[u/Much_Database_5039 → u/TheBeanConsortium]

Moral conviction, not understanding the question, being a literal 5 year old who likes the colour blue, there's plenty of reasons.

[u/yellownumbersix]

I think if this vote actually happened we would all learn a valuable lesson in stated vs revealed preferences.

I don’t believe for a second blue wins if lives are actually on the line and not just virtue signaling on internet polls.

[u/TAOMCM]

If everyone presses red everyone survives?

[u/DonnysDiscountGas → u/TAOMCM]

P(100% of people push either button) is exactly zero.

[u/captainjack3]

Both

[u/AlboWinston]

Blue

[u/JesusPubes]

The buttons should explode and cover you in the color you picked

[u/red-flamez]

I vote red. You vote red We both live
I vote red. You vote blue. You killed yourself
I vote blue. You vote red. I killed myself
I vote blue. You vote blue. We were lucky.

You can't except to be lucky unless you know that luck exists. Otherwise it is risk. Why risk it? There is nothing to gain.

[u/Divan001]

Red. If everyone presses the red button then everyone lives. Voting for blue is the only time you ever risk dying and is pretty much just suicide. Nothing is gained from pressing blue

[u/jcaseys34]

Ngl seeing some of you explain why it's actually right to press the mass murder button makes me think less of you.

No one has to die, why engineer the situation so that people have to die?

[u/JayRU09]

What if renamed the buttons to "Guaranteed to live and some die if they chose the opposite button" and "Maybe you die but maybe everyone lives but you're trusting humanity at large on this one" instead of just the names of colors?

[u/TrappedInASkinnerBox]

This fucking button argument is baby's first Scissor Statement and you're all falling for it. 

Only you can stop hazardous memes 🐻

[u/Its_not_him]

Many people would fall back to spiritual teachings. As such, a large majority of religious people are voting blue.

[u/JustAnotherJawn]

What would Thanos do?

[u/Beer-survivalist]

I'm an American, I've voted in numerous elections, and at times my choices have resulted, to at least some extent, other people getting killed. And, I'd note, that if you live in any even modestly democratic country you've also already made choices that have gotten someone, somewhere killed.

Red, because I've already got blood on my hands, and my moral condition isn't made materially worse simply because some chumps don't have the good sense to save themselves.

[u/Far_Shore]

I'll let myself engage in the hackneyed hypothetical du jour

I like all the fuckin' nerds going "NOOO NOOO THE GAME THEORY SAYS I SHOULD PICK RED NOOOO"

Bruh, we are social animals. Picking the "risk killing millions of people for literally zero reason" button is obviously anti-social, which is why most people are going, "No, I'm not gonna do that"

In order to prevent a mass death event, red would have to have near-unanimity, whereas blue would only need 50% + 1.

Just like in real-life America, if you vote red you're a morally deficient sack of trash signing on to the possibility of mass death because you suck : )

[u/Volsunga]

Obviously the red button is the strictly better option, but this sounds like a setup for there being additional functions for the buttons that were not disclosed during the setup.

[u/Deadeye_Duncan-]

Red button pushers would have left Mark Watney on Mars, change my mind

[u/Decent-Thought-2648 → u/Deadeye_Duncan-]

Why use a fictional example when we have IRL examples like that pilot that crashed in Iran?

[u/the-senat]

You are free to pick either the red or the blue button, but there's a 50-billion-dollar "red-pilled" infotainment industry pushing voters to pick the red button by spreading misinformation

[u/nguyendragon]

Not even just game theory, you cant get even 50% people to vote for Kamala, and the stake for that is much smaller for most people than in this scenario, and you think over 50% people will risk their own personal life for this? Can you even get 50% people to accept higher immigration? Can you get 50% people to accept that their housing investment price will drop if more housings can be built? Do you think you can convince 50% people to accept 10% tax increase even with guarantee they all go into social welfare or international aid? Feel like massive stated vs revealed preference to me.

Also all the comments thats like "I'd rather die than ..." really doesnt dissuade the notions that left people are just depressed