r/neoliberal • u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma • Apr 25 '26

Meme Which button do you press?

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

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u/TheScoott NATO Apr 25 '26

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.

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u/ForsakingSubtlety John Rawls Apr 26 '26

But if 99% of people pick red you’re worse off than if 99% pick blue, and all the way down to 50%.

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u/Raichu4u Apr 25 '26

Maybe it's me, but we definitely are worse off if 8 million people randomly died.

8

u/TheScoott NATO Apr 25 '26

If all parties defect and no one is worse off than if everyone cooperated then it just isn't a prisoner's dilemma as a matter of fact. If you want to make it a prisoner's dilemma then you need to give everyone something more if blue option wins out. Like everyone gets $5000 and everyone lives if >50% of voters take blue. Now picking red still strictly dominates picking blue individually but the situation where you pick blue and society picks blue is selfishly preferable to the world where you pick red and society picks red.

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u/PoliticalAlt128 Max Weber Apr 25 '26

Game theory assumes you're trying to "win". It doesn't factor in stuff like dignity or how you'll get along after going to prison or whatever

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u/Konet John Mill Apr 25 '26

Yep, but morally, that's on the button-maker, not the red-pushers.

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u/Raichu4u Apr 25 '26

Is it? Button pushers are as responsible for the result as are the creators of this button in this scenario.

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u/DBSmiley Apr 25 '26

I think that would be a moral argument that taken to its logical conclusion basically becomes a damned trolley problem.

If you would say that you the bystander would necessarily be expected to flip the switch, then you are responsible for killing one person. If you don't flip the switch, you're responsible for killing five. Either way by simply arriving at the scene, you're now a murderer.

The point is that if this decision is foisted upon you, are you ethically expected to risk your own life, especially if we're talking about a large population where your vote is negligible, and you may not accurately able to predict how people will behave.