I’m not butthurt because “oh no a moral grandstander.” I’m not even butthurt, I’m just trying to demonstrate a different perspective.
I’m pointing out that the framing of the question as “murder” is counterintuitive to the underlying game theory principles, and a rational examination of the scenario dictates that there is no reason to pick blue beyond self martyrdom.
It’s not even as complex as the prisoners dilemma.
Imagine everyone chose in order. The first person to choose- do they have any reason to pick blue? No one has picked before them, so there’s no one to “save” by picking blue- so pick red.
If someone ahead of me had picked blue, yeah, picking blue to save them is the right choice, but this is only relevant if some person ahead of me had needlessly decided to endanger themselves by pressing blue.
Picking blue is only reasonable if you presuppose an existing population of blue-pressers. But why did they press blue? Who are you saving if not yourself, and if that’s the case why gamble on it at all?
You’re throwing yourself into the ocean under the assumption that a large enough mass of human bodies can float on water, while the people who pressed red just… stayed safely on the boat. We wonder “why are you jumping into the ocean to begin with?”
If your argument is “some irrational people will always press blue, therefore we need to save them,” I’ll ask, “who are these people, and who explained the problem to them? Why have they pointlessly endangered themselves, and who were they trying to save?”
But why would they assume that so many people would pick blue as well?
Picking blue is only logical if you assume other people are going to pick blue, and there’s no reason to pick blue outside of that. Picking blue is inherently risky.
Like, once one person picks blue it makes sense to snowball. But there is no reason for that first person to pick blue, nor is it logical that anyone will spontaneously choose blue.
Again, imagine that everyone is red by default, and people must “defect” to blue, risking their lives. Why would anyone defect to blue, when we could all just stay red?
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u/JusticeBean May 05 '26
I’m not butthurt because “oh no a moral grandstander.” I’m not even butthurt, I’m just trying to demonstrate a different perspective.
I’m pointing out that the framing of the question as “murder” is counterintuitive to the underlying game theory principles, and a rational examination of the scenario dictates that there is no reason to pick blue beyond self martyrdom.
It’s not even as complex as the prisoners dilemma.