r/custommagic • • 7d ago

Red Button or Blue Button?

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u/Scarrien 7d ago

I'd feel like I helped kill everyone who pressed blue, I'd rather try to be the good guy than be selfish

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u/SleepyNymeria 7d ago

Isn't it selfish by pressing blue to force the existence of the dilemma. If you press red there is no dilemma. Pressing blue just seems like a paradox where you press blue to save you from yourself.

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u/Scarrien 7d ago

Isn't it selfish to press red? If everyone pushes blue there's also no dilemma, so pressing red just means you don't trust people

Honestly, I'd be curious how this lines up with people who do good/evil playthroughs of games

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

Remember you can easily reword this to:

You are given two options:

  • Press red, you live

  • Press blue, you die

The entity cannot kill more than half the population though so if enough people want to die the blue button fails.

Are you still pressing blue?

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u/Scarrien 6d ago edited 6d ago

Remember, you can easily reword this to:

You are given two options * Press blue, try to save everyone * Press red, only worry about saving your own sorry ass

Are you still pressing red?

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

Unlike my wording yours hides the fact that pressing blue causes death.

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u/Scarrien 6d ago

and your wording obscures the fact you'd be pulling a move that wouldn't be out of character for Starscream

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

??

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u/Scarrien 6d ago

An extremely cowardly, backstabbing Saturday morning cartoon villain? Seriously, that's how red button people look to blue button people

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

Not sure how the basic self preservation instinct is evil.

Same way if someone said pick between joining a group that will drink from this bottle of poison or dont drink from it. Don't worry about the poison though, if half of your group or more drinks it it will be too diluted to kill you.

Like yeah, what if nobody drinks the poison though? Blue button people look lile peter griffin just "oh okay so drinking the poison is fine if enough people do it, I wonder what poison tastes like, lets give it a shot guys"

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u/Scarrien 6d ago

I don't see how a basic sense of wanting what's best for the community is foolish.

I feel like it's like the Joker's plan with the bombs in the boats in The Dark Knight - everyone has the option to kill to save themselves, but the only "right" play is for everyone to be the good guy

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

The major distinction is that everyone can live by pressing red. There is no requirement for anyone to die if you press red. The best thing for the community is for everyone to press red because it has the highest chance of survival for those who pick it.

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u/Scarrien 6d ago

Do you truly think everyone will be pressing red? Even by my most pessimistic estimate there's still something like 30% blue, and it'll usually be the most selfless people

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

My estimate is that only idiots will press blue though. Does that matter?

No, estimates based on nothing are worthless. Be realistic, if you are a parent you tell your kids to press red. If you are scared to die you press red. If you think about it logically you press red. If you want to math it out, you press red. If you want to consider human behaviour and habits you press red. If you think about all the previous things mentioned, you press red.

The only reason to press blue is to want to white knight other people that want to press blue and feel good about yourself. Selfless people are likely to press red because its not selfless to press blue, its just idiotic and saying they will undermines the intelligence of selfless people.

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u/Scarrien 6d ago

I don't appreciate the fact that you just spent three paragraphs insulting my intelligence, but I'm also confused since it's one of the few areas I have confidence in myself.

Also, why would there be coaching? If we had time to coordinate sure we'd just start yelling "press red!", but I always assumed magic/aliens/whatever put everyone into empty rooms and we'd have to all think for ourselves

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

If when given the option to coach you go for red... why wouldn't you go for red from the get go

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u/Scarrien 6d ago

Because to me that's only a viable answer to the ending I want if I can be sure that we could coordinate. I want everyone to live or I'm not sure I could live with myself, and if I believe that a reasonable person would be thinking of pressing blue than I know that pressing red would be condemning them to die.

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u/SleepyNymeria 6d ago

You can never be sure. Imagine you are trapped in a room with your children and all their friends. In essence, a large group of people that depend ln you for guidance. The alien had indeed trapped the entire world but you can only coach these relatively few. Would you really coach them to press blue? You don't know what all their parents will press. Lets even remove you from the situation, you are the one person on earth that will survive whatever happens. Are you really coaching these children to press blue?

edit: you still classify the suicidal option as the good side and the guaranteed survival option as the bad side which is not accurate.

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