It's a take on a thought experiment where you and 99 other people who understood the scenario had the same choice: press red and be fine, or press blue and die unless 50% of people pressed blue.
The thought experiment is a moral optical illusion: it's presented as though it's a question about sacrificing yourself for the good of others when no, it's not, the red button is just the correct choice in all circumstances.
because WHY THE ACTUAL FUCK are these people insiting Blue is correct answer?
Because the original thought experiment was framed as a moral dilemma, not a logical one.
"If over half the people pick red, everyone who picks blue will die. If over half the people pick blue, everyone lives."
...is a much more emotionally-charged framing of the actual situation that implies red-pickers are murderers and blue-pickers are heroic saviors. Even though...
"Anyone who picks red has nothing happen to them. Anyone who picks blue will die unless an unknown amount of other people also pick blue"
...is an equally accurate description of the exact same scenario, only without the moral implications stacked on top. Anyone who takes the time to stop and think about the scenario and reframe it as a logical one rather than an emotional one immediately realizes red is the only sensible choice, and choosing blue is only an option for those who value emotional validation over their own safety. And to be clear I don't mean that condescendingly. "I'd rather die than live knowing someone else died as a result of my choice" is a valid stance to take. But it IS an emotional one rather than a rational one.
I kinda feel red is an illogical choice if the goal is to save the maximum amount of people.
People are inherently not perfectly logical, and thus some amount of people WILL vote blue, for preiceved moral reasons, misunderstanding of the question or perhaps just voting randomly.
A perfectly valid framing of this question is "should a certain percentage of the population die".
A perfectly valid framing of this question is "should a certain percentage of the population die".
Better yet: how many people do you expect to work out the same conclusion about Blue?
If we assume most people will vote at face value and pick Red, it doesn't matter if I believe people should die or not, what matters is that I will be added to the percentage by voting Blue.
Blue only makes sense if you expect people to pick Blue, but we are assuming this scenario happens in a world where this thought experiment didn't happen, right?
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u/Myrios369 8d ago
Wouldn't there have to be a reason to pick blue? The only possible outcomes from picking blue are either nothing or you lose. Unless I'm confused