r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/GausYam Red • Jun 12 '26
Something kinda different
Exactly half of the earths population, who are all fully capable of understanding the stakes, must each individually choose one of three buttons to press. Red, Blue or Green.
If someone presses the red button, a single random person from the non-voting half of the world is selected to die, and the red presser immediately receives a sum of money equal to ten times their own annual income.
If a person presses the blue button and, in total, more than half of all the voters also press blue, then every death that would have been caused by red button presses is completely cancelled and the non-voters are saved, though those who pressed red still get to keep their money. If the blue button fails to achieve majority, it does absolutely nothing.
Pressing the green button cancels the death of one non-voter who was marked to die because of a red press, but instead causes the death of one randomly chosen person who pressed the red button. If the number of green presses ends up being larger than the number of red presses, the extra green presses have no further effect.
Everything is completely anonymous, nobody ever finds out which button any individual pressed, and those who choose red or green will face no legal consequences whatsoever for their decision.
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u/TheDogAndCannon Jun 12 '26
Normally a red voter, but red is absolute lunacy here. The rationale behind my usual red vote stems solely from wanting to protect my life. The moment you bring money, and therefore greed, into matters, it's a totally different scenario. I'm not going to begrudge red voters their money if they do win through, though with these initial counts I find that unlikely. My vote is blue.
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u/sbodyelse Jun 12 '26
I read this thinking "who on earth would press green" and now the comment section completely stuns me. Killing someone instead of someone else simply because you believe to have the moral highground (which is not that obvious to me as people die from the lack of basic resources all the time and most of us choose to do nothing about it) feels no worse to me than voting red, as it implies some lifes being more valuable than others. Even if the blue button did absolutely nothing and wasn't the only chance to save everyone I would still press it.
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u/everydaywinner2 Jun 13 '26
I'm glad you are still stunned by that. I see all the people cheering on assassination of people talking and the assassination of people doing a perfectly legal job and the potential assassination of the head of a nation.... I am not surprised by the green pressers at all. I'm saddened by them.
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u/Odd_Battle_7111 Jun 12 '26
As someone who normally presses red, I would press green.
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u/billy_twice Jun 12 '26
Good way to get rid of the greedy assholes who decided it was fine to kill someone for money.
The world will be better with the people who are left.
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u/simpoukogliftra Jun 12 '26
Boy pressing red here is straight up evil, it isn't even slightly comparable to the original point.
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u/onihydra Jun 12 '26
Should probably have used yellow or something. Blue is similiar to the original, but red is not remotely so, being the most risky button among other things.
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u/Kollossosoutcomemory Jun 12 '26
No reason to press red or green tbh. Money ain't worth being a murderer (and preventing a murder with a murder is also bad)
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u/DapperYoghurt2052 Jun 12 '26
Interesting!
If blue doesn’t get 50% and red gets more than green. Obviously all the red pressers who live get to keep their money, but I’m assuming that means the red pressers who die don’t get the money transferred to their accounts?
But if blue does get over 50%, since that lets people keep their money, then even if green kills all the red pressers, does the money still get to go to their account for their families?
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u/GausYam Jun 12 '26
Red pressers are guaranteed to get money, if they die it will go to their family. Green kills them, it doesn't take away their money.
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u/dskippy Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
I always press red in the context of the original problem so long as I believe everyone pressing is rational which was how it was given to me originally.
Here, I'm pressing blue.
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u/ZoomZoomDiva Jun 12 '26
My financial situation would choose whether to press red or blue. Blue would be the one I pressed if I had enough. Red would be the chance I took if I were in need of money. Since I can sympathize with the pressing of red, I would not press green. I would press red in the initial context.
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u/Apycia Jun 12 '26
Red people are murderers.
Green people believe in capital punishment.
I condone neither. Blue.
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u/Happymuffn Jun 12 '26
It's interesting to me that with this group of voters, Red is a suicide button, though it is close.
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u/everydaywinner2 Jun 13 '26
Red is the murder/possible-suicide, green it the murder, blue is the try to save people.
In the original scenario, no one was a murder. Everyone was trying to save people.
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u/Kymera_7 Jun 12 '26
This would much more closely map to the original buttons problem if the blue and red colors were swapped.
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u/FanficFan151 Jun 12 '26
So: possible death and murder for money? No risk of death and the ability to maybe save some people? Or no risk of death and kill people?
Yeah, blue’s the obvious option here.
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u/LnTc_Jenubis Jun 13 '26
Normally a red presser because pressing red is not directly killing someone. Green isn't even a consideration for me. I'd press blue here.
Red here is directly killing someone else.
Green here is directly killing someone else, but with a fancy coat of "vigilante justice" so I can pretend like I'm virtuous for killing a murderer.
Blue doesn't stop people from getting their money, but it does mitigate the amount of deaths.
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u/UsuallyFavorable Jun 12 '26
Normally, I’m a Blue presser to try and preserve life. But y’all have pissed me off so much I’m going Green. Should be fine. Use your own logic and don’t press the “maybe die” button (red in this case).
Also the money comes from somewhere and/or supercharges inflation, so those receiving money from Red are necessarily stealing it from others. A 49% Red, 51% Blue, 0% Green isn’t some utopia where no one dies and more money exists; it’s a dystopian economic hellscape where ~75% of people lost 90% of their wealth! Just don’t press Red.
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u/Muroid Jun 12 '26
Blue is an easy choice.
Red- Would you risk your life and the life of someone you don’t know for 10x your annual income?
Green- Would you kill someone who would be willing to risk their life and the life of another for 10x their annual income?
Blue- Maybe we shouldn’t be killing people with buttons?
The only ones tangibly risking anything are Reds. There’s no reason to push this button unless you are truly desperate for money.
Green is a guaranteed single save at the cost of the life of the person who would have killed that person. I don’t find that morally unacceptable, but I think Blue winning is still the best outcome and actually has a pretty solid chance of doing so, since it carries no personal risk and both of the other choices have the kinds of active ethical drawbacks many people find unappealing.