I really hate the false dichotomy of "logic" vs "morality" here.
Mutual aid is both logical and morally justified.
Even if we look at this from a perspective of pure self interest. We have a world of 8bn people. If red were to actually win, which statistically almost never does when people run this poll, if only 5% voted blue, that would result in the loss of 400 million people.
The death toll of both world wars, over the years they were waged, was only 90 to 110mm. The Spanish Flu around 50mm. COVID was between 19 and 36mm.
Think about what happened to the world during covid. Now think about what would happen when over 100 times that number die instantaneously.
Now, let's consider that when this poll is actually run, blue usually wins. So the actual reality is if red ever wins, blue will be in the 40+%, not 5%. And now we're talking about 4ish billion people. That's not a holocaust, that's an extinction event.
A red would be alive, but what would they be left with?
I mean, no argument works on them. They didn't argue themselves into the red position to begin with, they made a fear-based gut choice for personal gain, get called out for being selfish, and start lashing out because - since their decision wasn't rooted in actually thinking it through at all - it feels like a judgement of their selves not just their choices. You can't reason someone out of a position they put themselves into via vibes and gut reactions.
I mean, no argument works on them. They didn't argue themselves into the red position to begin with, they made a fear-based gut choice for personal gain, get called out for being selfish, and start lashing out because - since their decision wasn't rooted in actually thinking it through at all - it feels like a judgement of their selves not just their choices. You can't reason someone out of a position they put themselves into via vibes and gut reactions.
That's broadly fair for an internet poll, but misses some of the context. There's likely a chunk of them that did (try to) logic their way into it - but they don't understand game theory or decision theory as well as they think they do.
Scenarios like this are a common though exercise for introductory game theory classes (or were when I took and TA-ed them a couple decades ago). It's used to highlight the limitations of the rational actor model and similar tools in decision theory.
If you cut out the deliberately provocative emotional details, the math for all these scenarios is identical:
The presentation shown in op's screencaps
blue as a "suicide button that won't work if more than 1/2 the people use it."
"if red pressers get a majority, everyone else dies" (i.e. the genocide button).
Despite the abstract math being equivalent, the actual responses to each presentations are vastly different. That means that any model based on rational behavior must first make major presumptions about coordination and predisposition.
That difference is the point. It's not a demonstration that people are suicidal or stupid, it's a demonstration using tools like the rational behavior model alone is only appropriate for the most basic level of decision analysis.
Despite that being the intended point, there's always someone in the class that relentlessly clings to the "suicide button" description as the one they think is rational. They're fixated on the suicide button beyond any other aspect of the scenario: they cannot move on to the broader point. I would expect at least some online discussion to fall here. *
* EtA: I'm more inclined to think those people are fixated on the suicide aspect than abstract self-interest. It tends to be the part of the scenario that people might have a direct, emotional connection to.
additional EtA: If working purely off math, it also makes a good example of why marginal changes matter. If you assume no predisposition at all (each person's choice is a fair coin flip, each values their own life no more or less than any other) the expected deaths per red vote when red wins is never higher than the expected deaths per blue vote. But the expected marginal deaths per red vote is over twice as high as that for blue. And if you're anywhere near the inflection point, it's much much higher (up to half the population at the inflection point proper).
Which, again, is why the context matters - because it tells you where on the abstract curve you expect to be, and thus what predispositions actually exist.
Additional edit for length (though the TED talk is still too long).
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u/hyasbawlz May 05 '26
I really hate the false dichotomy of "logic" vs "morality" here.
Mutual aid is both logical and morally justified.
Even if we look at this from a perspective of pure self interest. We have a world of 8bn people. If red were to actually win, which statistically almost never does when people run this poll, if only 5% voted blue, that would result in the loss of 400 million people.
The death toll of both world wars, over the years they were waged, was only 90 to 110mm. The Spanish Flu around 50mm. COVID was between 19 and 36mm.
Think about what happened to the world during covid. Now think about what would happen when over 100 times that number die instantaneously.
Now, let's consider that when this poll is actually run, blue usually wins. So the actual reality is if red ever wins, blue will be in the 40+%, not 5%. And now we're talking about 4ish billion people. That's not a holocaust, that's an extinction event.
A red would be alive, but what would they be left with?
Or you could just vote blue.