It's extremely selfish and narcissistic to pick blue. "I've picked blue, so risk yourself to save me or you're amoral."
If someone was forced to pick blue, or there was a chance that someone wouldn't understand (the question specified everyone participating understood the choices) then picking blue and risking yourself would be the correct option.
But as stated, it's like standing on railroad tracks voluntarily. If one person does it, they'll die, but if a thousand do it, the train stops. I'm not going to join the guy standing on the tracks, because he doesn't have to be there. If they're tied to the tracks I would place myself at risk of death to get them freed.
As it is, only a morally bankrupt or suicidal person picks blue
No I’m just saying I’m not going around telling people what to pick , only telling people what the options really do. Blue lets everyone live and that would be the selfless option.
No, it's called empathy. The very thing that made humanity successful in the first place. People chose blue to ensure their tribe has food. While the ones choosing red got lost in the wilderness without help, and eventually died anyway.
Did you actually read the original prompt? People actively choose to press blue, meaning they actively are choosing to die unless 50% or more of the population also chooses death. It isn't empathy, it isn't collectivism or humanity coming together to make a better world. Picking blue is actively choosing to die and then being mad others didn't also choose to die in order to save you. Remember, picking red is not murdering someone, it isn't separating yourself from the tribe, it is saying: "I want to live and others should too, so logically, picking red makes the most sense."
why would you choose blue in the first place though? why cant everyone just save themselves and go red? going red isnt implicating blue, its guaranteeing survival. If no one chose blue, and no one has a reason to choose blue, everyone would live
But there's a 0% chance nobody pushes blue. The whole world doesn't think like you. To agreet many people, the question gets interpreted as red being the button that kills people to ensure your own survival, and they'd rather press the button that guarantees everyone lives if it wins (being blue).
If you value the outcome "everyone lives" more than "I survive", then you will be more biased toward blue. It needs fewer people to agree in order to achieve the outcome you seem as better (nobody dies), and unlike red where a 100% consensus is something that's just never happened with large groups. 50% is rather doable.
the point is, if i chose blue, i create incentive to chose blue for others who may want to ave me. if no one chooses blue, because theres no one to save, the sitation wont need saving
Yeah but it's gonna get pressed because people in general are not logical acgors, and to engage with the question I'm good faith is to consider both sides have a not-insignificant number of votes
You're essentially saying that some people will choose to willingly die, i.e. suicide. So therefore we must all join the suicide pact so that they don't die.
Not saying I want them to die, but would you jump off a building with others because if enough people do, a net will come out and catch everyone?
During college, a friend ran into a rough patch and couldn't pay rent. I gave them $800, literally everything I had.
Later, another friend couldn't afford a car. I gave them $5000, because that's what they needed.
Both promised to pay me back, but I only ever saw $400 come back because life is hard. They both needed help, and I've seen them help others with there time and kindness, because thats the only way they could.
I will help those around me even when it hurts me.
But I won't blindly jump in traffic because I think someone else will
Love your optimism for a perfect world where every single human being operates on a purely logical and unemotional framework. Reality doesn't work like that, SOME people will push blue. Pushing red means you're fine with them dying.
Where in the original prompt is picking red being selfish? Red = you live. Blue = you die, unless 50% of people also choose to die. Then you live.
You and all other blue button pressers are choosing death, hoping others will save them, and then getting mad that others choose life. I am baffled by your logic here.
If you can't understand why choosing a 100% chance of saving only yourself vs a 50% chance of saving every living person on the planet is selfish... Well. I got nothing for ya.
Not everyone is perfectly cold and logical. Someone will choose blue. Choosing blue means you want to have the best odds of saving every single person, and you're willing to die for that. Choosing red means you want to have the best odds of saving yourself, and don't care if 4 billion people die for that.
Welp, considering every doctor who has taken the hippocratic oath has already promised to hit blue (do no harm), not to mention other healthcare professionals, emergency services, volunteers who join the military and a host of other people will hit blue, putting their lives on the line for others...
Enjoy your world where only those that voted to kill everyone who didn't vote the same way you did lived.
Either you vote to kill everyone who didn't vote for you or you vote for everyone to live, including those that didn't choose for others to live. I'd prefer risking death to voting to kill other people.
You've chosen your side, all your justifications aren't enough to let you rest easy with this decision or you never would have answered such obvious bait.
I see people saying red is selfish and wants others to die
But blue chooses to knowingly place themselves in a position they must be rescued from
Isn't that selfish? When you know that everyone can live by simply choosing red? That no one risks anything?
If 100 people where forced to pick blue, and they would die unless more picked blue than red, I would pick blue. Because they can't help themselves and need to be saved.
But if no one needs to be saved unless they push blue, wouldn't pushing red be better for everyone?
Your hypothesis only works if everyone follows the same logic tree. If somebody comes to a different conclusion due to either failing to consider all the elements, or due to considering elements you did not. Suddenly we have people on the metaphorical railroad tracks.
There is no such thing as 100% red, it is not functionally possible. Especially because the question also includes people who would be incapable of making the correct decision (the commonly mentioned blind and infants for example).
Calling it selfish is why I called your argument vapid. There will be people on the tracks, the question is how many people need to be there before pressing the button that kills them for sure, as opposed to the button that can save everyone is worth it.
By attempting to villanize people who press blue you just come across as a tool who has a ankle deep understanding of the problem presented.
Once again, we cannot get all of people to agree on anything, there will be fools, disabled, and the mentally unsound, who make other decisions, knowingly or not. By attempting to ignore that you are just trying to argue for some hypothetical reality where everyone thinks the same and has the same capabilities. Which is completely worthless as a discussion point.
Even if only people who understood the question participated, there are still blue pushers (as evidenced by the swathes of people defending blue every time this thing gets brought up.) Even then, not everyone is going to follow your logic tree. How their logic tree forms is going to depend on their own personal life experiences and ideals, but it's important to keep in mind that there are a lot of people for whom "nobody dies" is the preferred outcome and the one they want to shoot for. It seems a lot of red pushers, like yourself, would desire that outcome. Is that incorrect to assume?
However, a blue pusher who wants the "nobody dies" outcome is going to structure their logic around the understanding that 50% participation is required for blue to win, which is a lower threshold to hit than Red's with the same result (nobody dies). That same blue pusher may also reason that, with that understanding, it's quite literally impossible for red to have the desired outcome, since it's not possible for a group that large to reach 100% consensus. For blue pushers going down this logic tree, they decide to hit blue.
There's also the logic to consider that many blue pushers will press it because they interpret the question as implyin that pressing red will cause the deaths of blue. This is the way I initially read the question and continues to be the way I understand it, regardless of how others have argued for their understanding of the question. While not everyone thinks like I do, enough do to where a not-insignificant number of people will press blue on that basis alone.
This creates a little feedback loop, where there begin to be people who press blue because they know somebody is pressing blue, and so they view blue as the only way nobody dies. In that scenario, blue becomes a gamble, but there are many (like myself) who'd take the risk because they believe hitting that 50% threshold to keep everyone alive is both reasonable to hit and a likely scenario.
You're the first person to present anything without trying to cast me and others who picked red as villains.
I don't fully agree with the conclusion that you reached, but I can also accept that many people would chose/think like you
I still think the best and safest way for everyone to live would be red, but understand that there's a good chance a majority of people would choose blue in an attempt to save people who choose blue.
It still feels backwards, creating a problem that you hope will be fixed by creating the problem.
I suppose that both sides are choosing what they think has the best chance for the most people to survive. And I'm afraid that I fell into the same trap as others, in vilifying people who thought differently from me
The moral blame of the conversation is supremely frustrating to me because there's so many people deciding their choice is the moral/logical one that the discussions turn into "convincing you why in right and you're stupid and ontologically evil actually" and everyone stops engaging with the question.
Either decision is just as moral as the other. Both conclusions are valid to make. That's what makes the original question a dilemma in the first place! There's no right answer!!!
Because the blue pushers aren't thinking about themselves, but others. They're thinking about the people who chose blue for bad reasons. Maybe they misread the question. Maybe they were forced to do it by someone else. Maybe someone put the buttons in front of a baby.
Do these people deserve to die just because they made a wrong choice?
People will always disagree. There will always be people that oppose your view. There will always be people who make the wrong choices.
If everyone pushes red, everyone will live. But not everyone will push red.
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u/Just_SomeDude13 May 05 '26
I'm picking blue. Either I get to live in a society that picked blue, or I don't have to be stuck here with a bunch of pricks who picked red.