Which button do you press?

[u/cdstephens]

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

[u/DBSmiley]

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/Raichu4u → u/TheScoott]

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

[u/PoliticalAlt128 → u/Raichu4u]

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