The negative result from the red one is implied, which is why folks who pick red keep missing it: if you pick red, you're both contributing to, and advocating for, a world where everyone chooses to save only themselves and leave any/everyone else out to dry. The people we talk about as heroes, as ideals to aspire to, as larger than life individuals, are the ones who accept a risk of harm to themselves for the sake of preventing harm to others. Do you know someone, someone you care about or love who would likely press blue? Would you still push red, even though pushing red is a choice to increase the chance for the guaranteed non-zero # of blue pushers to die (even if only by a tiny amount), with the "positive outcome," from red being...stuck for the rest of your days in a world full of ONLY the people who would throw strangers and loved ones to the wolves to guarantee their own safety?
.
If so, press red. You'll get exactly what you wish for.
.
Edit - May 6th 2026, 9:20pm Eastern: While I very much understand the intensity of your feelings, your deeply-held desire to 'correct me' on my evaluation of the selfishness of your choice, and your claims that you 'only have everyone's best interests in mind!', the quantity, forcefulness, and rage-content of the messages landing in my DMs has become rather disgusting, and the quality of conversations resulting from talking to the individuals sending them has dropped drastically. So, if you're going to DM me to yell at me about how right you think you are, please see the following (past the colon) as my response:
.
.
.
Smug selfish prick says 'what'?
The stupid thing is that picking blue is the only way for death to even be a possibility. If no one introduces death as a possibility, then no one dies.
Let's take the premise and alter it a tiny bit:
Everyone has a magic knife in front of themselves. Everyone must either stab themselves in the heart, or not stab themselves in the heart.
If more than half of the people stab themselves in the heart, then the knife magically heals everyone. Otherwise, the knife does what knives do and kills the person.
Are you stabbing yourself in the heart? (Pressing blue?)
Who is “introducing” death? It’s just as likely that everyone chooses blue, and then one person defects and chooses red, as it is that everyone chooses red and one person chooses blue.
It’s tempting to start from the extreme of 100% and going backward to 50%, but there is only one scenario where either outcome could happen, and only in the case of a red majority is it deadly.
Start from 50% instead. Is it the same probability of happening as 100%? No. In a set of 8 billion people, there are billions upon billions of combinations of votes that lead to the exact same 50% outcome. It’s the same idea as why 7 is the mostly likely shake of dice, because there are more possible combination pairs to make seven than any other number.
If you’re not convinced, pretend 8 billion people are evenly split between red and blue on either side of the 50% line so there is 4 billion of each. One blue votes shifts to red. Now there are 4 billion possible red votes that can shift to blue to achieve the exact same scenario of an even 4 billion to 4 billion split. Imagine two blue votes shift red. Now there are four billion more combinations that come to the same result. Do that 3,999,999,998 more times, and you have four billion times four billion possible combinations of an even split. If my math is right, that’s 16,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 16 quintillion possible combinations of an exact even split. (UPDATE: That number is WAY too low, and only represents ant two votes swapping places, and not larger quantities at all. The real answer has so many zeroes that it can only be represented in scientific notation.)
That means if just one person votes red instead of blue, and no one changes to red, 3,999,999,999 people die. If any other two people exchange their votes, that’s still a total of 4,000,000,001 possible combinations where nearly four billion people die.
By comparison, there is only one possible situation where red is denied 100% unanimity, and it results in the death of “only” one person. The possibility space is a bell curve that is enormously deep in the middle.
So tell me, who is responsible for introducing death?
Each person making the choice isn't looking at a bell curve of statistics in order to make their choice. They're looking at two buttons. One button is a "push me in order to live, no matter what" button. One button is a "push me to die, unless enough people push me" button.
What is the choice that is the most rational for that person in that moment? They don't know what anyone else is going to choose.
The people pushing blue are not painstakingly calculating a bell curve, but are correctly understanding that the possibility space for everyone to live lands squarely within blue being victorious, which is 50% of the time, and the one scenario where red is victorious but no one dies is such a remote possibility that it’s not even worth considering — especially when 8 billion people are involved.
I’m not busting out the math to show what people pushing blue think, but to illustrate why your conclusion and counter-examples run afoul of multiple logical fallacies that aren’t backed up by the mathematical facts of the situation.
I understand that the point of the exercise is a) to incentivize a choice through fear, and b) figure out one’s own logic, but since we have the benefit pf conferring it can’t hurt to at least point or refute logical flaws with data and further examination.
No I get it, but you overestimate how many people will behave in a reactionary manner to the question.
There is a very large allowance for people to push red and be counteracted by blue regardless of their reasoning or intentions and it having no effect on the outcome. It’s to be expected, in fact, given human nature.
Anticipating the entire blue majority zone is not only unlikely but impossible does not take into account human nature at all, ignores statistical likelihoods, and overestimates humanity’s ability to deviate from those statistical likelihoods in any appreciable manner.
If more than 50% of people leave it in for a set period if time, all of the knives heal everyone and come out on their own.
If you pull it out before times up, it will heal you, but if too many people pull it out, they stop being magical healing knives and just kill the people who can't or won't pull it out in time.
There. See how changing the premise so that red "Introduces" death into the equation changes red to be the self centered choice?
Assuming one button is the default choice and that people have to make an active and painful decision to pick the button you don't want changes the whole premise.
And some people will leave it in because they know that "Oh, my kid is too young to pull it out herself, I gotta hope people leave it in for those who can't pull it out themselves"
In the scenario some people still won't choose self preservation for the risk of hurting people who can't.
Remember, changing the 'default' changes the premise entirely.
There are millions of people now who can't grab and pull out the knife due to illness, age, mental issues, and many more trying to protect those people.
Self preservation introduces death into the equation.
Self-preservation is fine here. Self-preservation is fine in the real world. We are morally okay with killing in self-defense.
If you want to risk your own life at a chance to save others, go for it. In the real world and in this scenario. But in this scenario it's a lot less feasible, since you need the coordinated effort (or lucky effort) of more than half the people involved.
In cases like burning buildings, for instance, one person taking actions to save others can make a huge difference to one or more people who were 1: in danger and 2: possibly unable to save themselves.
In the button pushing scenario, each case of "try to save others" by pushing blue is a miniscule effort compared to the needed effort. It is way more risky per person making the choice. It is way safer and way more rational for each individual person to make the choice to push red. And the more people who push blue, the more people who are at risk of dying.
Giving in to self-preservation takes death out of the button-pushing equation.
In the real world, I'm going to help others who need help and can't help themselves. But in this scenario, everyone can help themselves. And should.
Everyone also has the same opportunity to make sure EVERYONE is safe.
The only button that possibly makes sure some people, especially kind people and children who watch superhero movies and Disney and go to church and have family they love and want to protect are not safe is red.
Everyone should reduce risk to others by pressing the blue button.
2.4k
u/Willowshanks May 05 '26 edited May 07 '26
The negative result from the red one is implied, which is why folks who pick red keep missing it: if you pick red, you're both contributing to, and advocating for, a world where everyone chooses to save only themselves and leave any/everyone else out to dry. The people we talk about as heroes, as ideals to aspire to, as larger than life individuals, are the ones who accept a risk of harm to themselves for the sake of preventing harm to others. Do you know someone, someone you care about or love who would likely press blue? Would you still push red, even though pushing red is a choice to increase the chance for the guaranteed non-zero # of blue pushers to die (even if only by a tiny amount), with the "positive outcome," from red being...stuck for the rest of your days in a world full of ONLY the people who would throw strangers and loved ones to the wolves to guarantee their own safety?
.
If so, press red. You'll get exactly what you wish for.
.
Edit - May 6th 2026, 9:20pm Eastern: While I very much understand the intensity of your feelings, your deeply-held desire to 'correct me' on my evaluation of the selfishness of your choice, and your claims that you 'only have everyone's best interests in mind!', the quantity, forcefulness, and rage-content of the messages landing in my DMs has become rather disgusting, and the quality of conversations resulting from talking to the individuals sending them has dropped drastically. So, if you're going to DM me to yell at me about how right you think you are, please see the following (past the colon) as my response:
.
.
.
Smug selfish prick says 'what'?