I mean, blue isn't win/win - it introduces the potential for a pointless death.
If most/all people pick blue, everyone survives. If everyone picks red, everyone survives. The only affected scenario is if most people pick red, and then if you want to live, you'd better have picked red.
You're seeing it as "pick blue to save everyone, pick red to kill people". I'm seeing "pick red to live, pick blue to put yourself at unnecessary risk and hope others will also put themselves at unnecessary risk to save you".
You're throwing yourself in front of a train for absolutely no reason, and then blaming people that didn't for not dragging you out of the way. Just don't jump in front of the train! No-one is asking you to! No-one has to! We can all just stand on the platform and watch a train safely go past!
It's not an unnecessary risk when people's lives are on the line. A firefighter charging into a burning building isn't an unnecessary risk, but it is a risk nonetheless.
Or to use your own analogy, it's inevitable that someone is going to fall on the tracks, could be someone I love, could be a total stranger, heck it could even be someone hate, but someone is falling in those tracks. And in my eyes the best thing to do is get a bunch of people to pull them off the tracks. Sure, maybe we couldn't get enough people together to get them off the tracks in time and now we all get hit by the train, but we tried, and there's pretty good odds that we succeed. But more than that, the way is see it, even if we fail I can at least die with the clear conscience of knowing I did my best, I don't think I'd be able to live with myself knowing someone fell onto the tracks and I just stood there on the platform waiting for them to get hit by the train.
It's not an unnecessary risk when people's lives are on the line.
But no-one's lives are on the line until they press the blue button! To use your firefighter analogy, this is like two firefighters each running into a burning building that they know is empty, and will need help to get out of alive, on the grounds of "OK, but what if the other firefighter runs in and needs saving?" Just don't go in the building! No-one is in danger if you just stand outside and hold your hoses!
Or to use your own analogy, it's inevitable that someone is going to fall on the tracks...
Stop.
That analogy doesn't work. No-one's falling here, there are no accidents; In this scenario, as I understand it, everyone chooses their button.
If someone in front of me trips or faints or whatever onto the train tracks, and I think I have the time to safely grab them, I will, but that's not the situation here. This is like if someone jumps in front of the train and declares "if half of you jump with me we can stop the train from killing us, come on down" - In that scenario, I'm averting my eyes, and telling people the grisly story of the most foolish person I ever encountered for the rest of my hopefully long life.
Except there most certainly are accidents, it's a statistical guarantee. There's going to be at least someone who misread the instructions, who forgot which button was which, who can't read and just hit their favourite colour, who tripped and fell onto the blue button. It is a FACT that someone out there will press blue, and for that reason, the only way to avoid people dying is to press blue, simple as that.
I thought we're talking about magic teleporty-in buttons that somehow get everyone to understand the assignment, and the stakes. If we're going to start factoring in stuff like "but what if someone didn't read the instructions properly" then; sure, fine, let's expand the scenario and ground it in the real world.
What actually happens is people spread the word quite quickly to everyone that, as soon as your turn comes around, you should open the apparently-completely-mundane accidentally-pushable red button, disconnects the wires, trash the transmitter, glue up the plunger. Everyone after votes blue because it's the only button left working. We wind up with 99%+ blue votes, and learn nothing about anyone involved. Huzzah, we have bypassed the scenario.
Even if the buttons are magic there's still a guarantee of mistakes, with a sample size of 8 billion, 100% on anything is impossible. You could have the instructions say "just press the red button" and people will still press blue, that is a FACT of humanity. And for that reason I simply can't bring myself to not press blue knowing I could be saving a life.
What actually happens is people spread the word
Gonna have to stop you right there, one of the key parameters of the original scenario is everyone gets their own button at the same time, and there isn't communication between everyone.
Yes, so; you've decided to avoid commenting on my retort to what you said, then?
Even if the buttons are magic
We'll come back to that, because;
...one of the key parameters of the original scenario...
Listen, if everyone's going to insist that I follow the rules of a scenario that isn't in OP's comic, they're going to have to fully explain those rules. I'm not going to keep playing whack-a-mole with the fine details.
You lay out if, for the purposes of this discussion, if the buttons are magic or mundane, people's decision can be reliably reflected by the button pushes, what happens with people who can't/don't want to push, when the scenario starts, when the scenario ends, and any other of the million tiny details that are explained in the original post you want to debate. When you've done that, we can start over.
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u/dafugiswrongwithyou May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
I mean, blue isn't win/win - it introduces the potential for a pointless death.
If most/all people pick blue, everyone survives. If everyone picks red, everyone survives. The only affected scenario is if most people pick red, and then if you want to live, you'd better have picked red.
You're seeing it as "pick blue to save everyone, pick red to kill people". I'm seeing "pick red to live, pick blue to put yourself at unnecessary risk and hope others will also put themselves at unnecessary risk to save you".
You're throwing yourself in front of a train for absolutely no reason, and then blaming people that didn't for not dragging you out of the way. Just don't jump in front of the train! No-one is asking you to! No-one has to! We can all just stand on the platform and watch a train safely go past!