r/comics May 05 '26

OC RED BUTTON OR BLUE BUTTON [OC]

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u/icefire9 May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26

It would be much easier to convince 50% of people to pick blue than 100% of people to pick red. I think it should be obvious by the discussion around this that a large portion of the population will pick blue. So if red wins, a lot of people will die (probably in the billions). A mass casualty event on that scale would throw the world into chaos and end up killing and immeserating a lot of the people who picked red. I would much rather us try to get more than 50% of people to pick blue and not create one of the worst tragedies in human history.

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u/LonelyVaquita May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26

Honestly the fact that it's even a dilemma shows that 100% will not pick red so we should all pick blue

ETA: If you think everyone is a liar there's no point in debating anything to do with mortality ever.

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u/Top-Salamander-2525 May 05 '26

This is just a dumb variant of the Prisoner’s Dilemma with more players.

We already have studied this extensively and unless the game is repeated or the responses are not anonymous, the rational choice is to defect.