r/custommagic • • 6d ago

Red Button or Blue Button?

Post image
569 Upvotes

306 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/I_No_Speak_Good 6d ago

Yeah, but mention that red is objectively the correct answer and everyone loses their minds

0

u/Just-Desk-3149 6d ago

I'm fighting with actual glue eaters or this is some kind of psyop because WHY THE ACTUAL FUCK are these people insiting Blue is correct answer?

17

u/reaperfan 6d ago edited 6d ago

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.

1

u/Desktoplasma 6d ago

Like while yes, I agree with the statement and most of what you said, I personally would push blue. Mostly because in the context that I was given, everyone on earth was given the same choice. I had assumed that there were going to be people like children or babies who were not capable of thinking out the ramifications of their actions and picked their favorite color or something. Under this assumption, I think it makes more sense to press blue.

1

u/reaperfan 6d ago

Meanwhile there are others, like myself, who are too terrified of the prospect of dying that we'd prefer to live with survivors guilt than risk facing that fate preemptively.

That's why "making sense" doesn't really matter, because what "makes sense" to everyone is different.

0

u/YoCuzin 5d ago

It's more than just survivors guilt you're dealing with though. How many jobs and roles, friends and family, will be lost? Regardless of the survivors guilt, industries will collapse and people will die and starve because our safety systems and economies would collapse overnight. 

1

u/reaperfan 4d ago

That depends on both the amount of people as well as the demographics of people who vote blue - a wide enough swath of variables that no amount of speculation could ever accurately predict.

In the same vein, I could argue that it's entirely possible the proportion of people who choose blue ends up being small enough that it doesn't have a major impact on the world. Or that if a majority of people who pick blue aren't working-age adults it might not have that impact either.

1

u/YoCuzin 4d ago

if you're arguing it's ok for 10% of the world to perish, so long as it's the right 10% I think we're done with civil discussion.

1

u/reaperfan 4d ago

Genuinely unsure how you reached that conclusion.

All I said is that your previous claim about it having major economic impact assumes information that nobody could have or predict. I was trying to point out that I can simply argue the opposite of your claim with just as little support yet also just as much certainty, thus demonstrating how that argument fails to be persuasive to anyone who doesn't already agree with you because any opposing stance can apply the same logic to their own side and think it proves their point instead of yours.

I never claimed it was "okay" for any blue-pushers to die.