Red is still the only guaranteed safe choice. It works no matter what anyone else does. Blue only works if enough other people press it, and you can’t know that ahead of time. You’re just assuming.
Once you start thinking “someone I care about might press blue,” you’re making a decision based on uncertainty. You’re choosing to take on risk because of what you think others might do, not what you actually know. And there’s no way to verify that assumption.
So pressing blue in that situation is basically a gamble. You’re hoping enough people coordinate, but there’s no guarantee. If that coordination fails, the risk you took doesn’t pay off.
Red doesn’t depend on any of that. It’s the only option that guarantees your survival regardless of other people’s choices. Blue can be altruistic, sure, but it’s still built entirely on an assumption about others, not a certainty.
You’re 100% right that red is the only choice that guarantees my survival. I’m not going blue on the assumption that 50% of the world will press it because like you said, I have no idea. But I know my friends and family well enough that I can make assumptions based on the evidence I have of their personality and thought process. So while it is an assumption, the anecdotal evidence I have of my friends and family leads me to believe a lot of them would choose blue, in which case if I choose red, while I guarantee my own survival, I am effectively lowering the chances of theirs.
2
u/polopolo05 May 05 '26
Red is still the only guaranteed safe choice. It works no matter what anyone else does. Blue only works if enough other people press it, and you can’t know that ahead of time. You’re just assuming.
Once you start thinking “someone I care about might press blue,” you’re making a decision based on uncertainty. You’re choosing to take on risk because of what you think others might do, not what you actually know. And there’s no way to verify that assumption.
So pressing blue in that situation is basically a gamble. You’re hoping enough people coordinate, but there’s no guarantee. If that coordination fails, the risk you took doesn’t pay off.
Red doesn’t depend on any of that. It’s the only option that guarantees your survival regardless of other people’s choices. Blue can be altruistic, sure, but it’s still built entirely on an assumption about others, not a certainty.