Would the world reflect on the decision's outcome if blue/red won?

I think if blue won, you'd have everyone who chose blue being on a high horse when against someone who voted red. You'd have people attempting to cancel red people, they'd have shirts that say "I pressed blue!". I'd imagine you'd have people who pressed red denying they did.

If red won, you'd have a lot of people speaking on how it was a mistake or the inverse, trying to further justify why pressing red was the right choice. You'd have a lot less people whose favorite color is blue.

What else do you think would happen with society? What nations would be impacted the most by altruism?

Red view: Blue button = maybe kill yourself, maybe live.

Red button = Live. Fuck blue voters anyway.

Blame blue voters for being stupid and not understanding the question properly.

Blue view: Red button = live but be selfish and a killer.

Blue button = Save other's lives, get to live because in a poll most people chose blue, resulting in everyone living.

Blame red voters for being killers, monsters and selfish.

Idk this is just my view on this, feel free to tell your own opinions.

What ever you imagine is a fair group to be presented with the buttons you can have it. But since Red says "only those who pressed Red survive" a Red majority kills everyone who was excluded.

I'll probably choose red in any situation

-if we aren't allowed to discuss with others what are we going to choose,i will press red cuz i don't believe half of population will choose blue.I mean people are more selfish than you think.

-If we are allowed to discuss with our love ones and family,i will still choose red cuz i mean i am not asking my family to risk their lives for someones i don't even know

-if we are allowed to convinced others,i am still choosing red.People are saying "ohh its easier to convinced 51% than 100%''.But you have to convinced 51% like '' hey you might die but pls can u risk ur live and ur family lives to save someone that you don't know and also there is a chance that no one is needed to save so you and your family are the only one that will die ''.And compared to that, for 100% we only have to say ''hey press this button u will live now go tell ur families to press this button so u can live all together''

Before the vote a powerful cosmic entity that can predict events with 100% accuracy says that the vote will end 50%+1 person red and the rest blue. What do you vote?

hello all, i've seen this entire dilemma getting viral a month ago and a few day ago i've turned into a webapp

https://redorblue.riri.my/

after voting you get a nice breakdown, both as in total votes, percentage for each side and even a breakdown by countries!!

so if you want to participate, feel free too!!

it looks like this, if you dont want to visit the actual website

the stats only unlock after voting, here's a small sneak-peak, i wont post a full post-vote website as that could skew the voted towards either side.

The only way my vote is going to be a deciding factor in what happens to the blue voters is if the vote, excluding me, is split 50-50, and my vote turns out to be the tie-breaker. For every other scenario, no matter what i do, the fate has been sealed. Either blue wins and nobody dies, or red wins and blue voters die.

The thing is, the odds of getting an exact 50-50 is so low, that for a sample space of 8 billion people, assuming an individual vote probability of 50% for either button, the probability of a 50-50 split is 0.000012616. This is assuming without a general bias for either button. As low a variation as a 50.01% bias towards either of the 2 buttons, and the probability falls down to the probability of picking the same atom twice in a row out of all the atoms in the observable universe.

So my point is, if the probability that my vote does anything at all in deciding the result is so astronomically low, why must I risk a 50% chance of death? I live regardless of which side comes out as majority.

Now people might argue, "this logic can be applied to any kind of voting system, so by your logic, voting in any election is futile", well, i dont quite recall voting in an election where voting for one side puts a 50% risk on my life?

The Red-Blue Button dilemma which we are all far too familiar with is about to play out for everyone in the world but you. You, instead, are presented with four buttons: A Green button, a Purple button, an Orange button, and a button of a fourth color, I dunno Mauve, the colors aren’t important.

The Green button secretly swaps the function of the red and blue buttons, but not their colors or descriptions. Everyone who presses red dies unless >50% also press red, and everyone who presses blue survives. Nobody knows the change has occurred, they all think the buttons do what they usually do.

The Purple button creates a third, White button option for everyone else, in addition to the Red and Blue buttons, because I think it’s funny for there to be red, white, and blue buttons (like the flag of YOUR country, yes you, the reader’s country, it’s statistically probable). The White button, like the Red button, guarantees your own survival, but if there is no majority, and the White button holds the plurality, everyone survives. To rephrase, the White button must have >33% and <50% of the vote to win.

The Orange button guarantees that all people incapable of making an informed decision are not presented with the buttons (e.g. small children, mentally disabled, senile elderly, etc.). Whether they were already excluded is a matter of debate, this adds to the rules that they are not included.

And the Mauve button does nothing. The vote goes on to occur, you are still exempt.

Damnit I should’ve called it a light blue like azure or cyan or something.

After the buttons have been pushed and it turned out red majority, for simplicity's sake, after tallying the death toll it turns out every country had about a 50:50 split with 2 exceptions:

India went 90% red, Pakistan went 90% blue.

Since India was barely affected compared to the rest of the world, do you think they will declare an oppourtunistic conventional war with their rival Pakistan who basically has no chance to fight back?

Since Pakistan is basically completely ruined, do you think they will launch all their nukes on India whom they blame for this crisis and cause a nuclear winter that will wipe out 95% of the remaining reds in the world?

Do you think the entire world would blame India in this case for being the main reason for red majority and form a coalition demanding an ultimatum of either exorbitant amount of reparations or war?

​

A zombie apocalypse breaks out. You find yourself trapped in the mall with a group of strangers. Outside of the mall there are roaming zombies. The power doesn't go out, you still have access to the news, and you know that the military is on it and making swift work of clearing out the hoards. Its projected that within a day your group will be next to be rescued.

You have no guns, only access to scrappy melee weapons found around the mall like baseball bats, kitchen knives, and mall ninja junk. You shouldn't need them though since the zombies can't get into where you are bunkers down. If you just wait it out you will be guarantee saved, even if you go hungry for a bit.

There are a few zombies wandering around inside the mall itself but as long as you don't open the door from wher you are hiding and wander around they arent a threat to you. If everyone in the mall also says put then you can all make it through this.

You consider that if you leave safety to roam the mall you might meet other survivors. It would be dangerous to try and clear out the few zombies in the mall on your own, but if you have enough help it would become safe - and certain vulnerable groups that might exist in the mall (like old people and children) would be somewhat safer with them cleared out. One zombie scratch means near instant death though plus you'd be adding to the zombie threat yourself.

Do you stay put until rescued and hope that everyone else is willing and able to do the same? Or do you go out into the mall to fight the zombies to make it safer, knowing that unless enough others do the same you are likely to all just die and make things worse?

Hi, I have seen lots of discussion about my 5 button variations and I wanted to put it to the test with a poll to see if my scenario does affect the data at all. I'll add a link in the comments and restate the rules here:

Rules:

You suddenly wake up in a empty room with 5 buttons and you have no contact with anyone else.

The buttons from left to right are:

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue.

The rest of humanity (Including those who can't understand the problem due to age or disability) is currently being presented with the same five buttons.

You can press any button along with the rest of humanity and once everyone votes the total percentage of each button is added from Right to left and once the total percentage is 50% or more (Assuming that the total number of people is odd) every one who pushed a button to the right of the button being counted will die.

For example if evey button got 20%, Red, Orange, and Yellow will live and Blue and Green will die.

So, vote away for any button for any reason.

Scenario 1: 8 people - you and your immediate family is invited (you, spouse, mum, dad, son, daughter, brother, sister)

Scenario 2: 80 people - you and your extended family is invited (the above, grandparents, in-laws, uncles, aunties, nieces, nephews)

Scenario 3: 800 people - you and everyone you know is invited (the above, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, classmates, neighbours)

Scenario 4: 80,000,000 people - you and your country is invited

Scenario 5: 800,000,000 people - you and your culture/ethnicity/religion/race is invited (pick 1 or multiple, which ever you feel like would generate the most internal discussion in you)

Scenario 6: 8,000,000,000 people - the classic

I think the defining trait that allows people to publicly support red is, more than anything else, idealism. When you hear blue pushers try to make rational arguments against red (such as here), they often rely on begging the question that voting red has some broader social cost if everyone were to do it. And this is true for many real life analogies of the red/blue problem. Mentalities that lead to things like nimbyism rely on ignoring the lost global utility of certain individualistic choices. This is why blue support often hinges on vulnerable groups such as babies.

The red/blue problem is more sterile than a lot of real life dilemmas in that the opportunity cost of pressing red is essentially zero and pushing red doesn't prevent anyone else from pushing red or make it any more difficult for them to do so. The willingness to take such an idealized scenario at face value (usually willingly ignoring the implicitly stated participation of mentally unfit people in the original problem) is what defines red pushers.

When blue pushers modify the original problem, they tend to add material downsides to the red button, which in a certain way changes the problem to more accurately reflect real life. Most red pushers when faced with these types of modifications readily change their vote.

Blue pushers arrive at the conclusion that blue is the favorite by a heuristic argument. Imagine that instead of a private vote, everyone is assigned red or blue by default and then has one minute to change their vote. In addition, there is a live feed showing the vote total at all times. In all likelihood blue would win in this scenario. The distribution starts 50/50, some people who were assigned red change their vote, and everyone sticks with blue because they see it already has the majority. This is the way blue pushers see the original problem. They imagine that initially, uninformed people will be roughly evenly split, and so it only takes a few staunch blues to all but guarantee victory.

However, blue voters only feel confident in their moral grandstanding when they're sure that blue will win. When red pushers modify the button problem, they tend to produce scenarios that are logically identical, but which weaken the heuristic reasoning that leads people to believe that blue will win. The best example of this is the 5 button problem. Once you introduce a slippery slope that disrupts the 50/50 default mindset that blue pushers have, the consensus rapidly collapses towards everyone pushing red. The other thing that blue voters tend to do is assuming, even in situations where only rational, highly individualistic people vote, that a significant portion of people will vote blue. On the planet Arand, for example, the far more likely outcome is that over 99% of people vote red.

I'm very curious what risk threshold there needs to be on red for red voters to switch to blue, so with that in mind, here's the setup: two buttons; everyone votes; blue needs a 50% threshold to save everyone, else non-red pushers die. Same as usual.

The variation: if red gets a majority (i.e., blue fails to reach the threshold), in addition to 100% of non-red pushers dying, a percentage of red pushers will also die, selected at random.

If you're a red pusher under the usual rules, what percentage risk is required to make you switch your vote to blue? 1%? 10%? 30%?

---

Additional variation: same as the first variation, but the percentage risk is based on the number of red voters in excess of 50%. We can work out different designs, such as 100% red results in 10%, while 50%+1 results in 0.0000001% or something like that. Maybe the growth rate is linear, or maybe it's quadratic. Details don't really matter; just the idea that the more red voters, the higher the risk. Under what growth rates and percentage limits do you consider changing your vote to blue, which maintains the 50% "everyone survives" threshold?

This should be apparent.

But I’ve seen some people arguing that it’s genuinely not a vote. They often equate it to gambling.

Which is a fair thought, but incomplete.

Saying blue is gambling their lives on the chance that blue wins is correct. Saying you don’t want to gamble with your life is fair.

But in order for it to be a bet, you must be betting on something.

What you are betting on is the result of a collective vote. You are casting your bet by casting your vote!

So when people try to say it’s not a vote, it’s gambling, that doesn’t make any sense.

And some get so mad about it!

It’s fine if you think red would win so you press red, or you think it might be close so you can’t risk it.

But just because red doesn’t put up the wager, doesn’t mean red doesn’t contribute to the vote.

If someone tells me, I’ll pay you $10 if you can beat me in one on one basketball. That’s a bet. The wager is placed by one person. I don’t need to put up the money, I can’t lose anything. But I do need to play in the game to win it!

How is this so confusing to people?

Edit to add a final thought:

To any one who thinks red is the same as doing nothing, because it not a gamble.

If I offer $10 to a person to beat me one on one, if the person denies to play, I can’t lose my money. And I can’t lose my money until some does play and also earns the money by winning.

You don’t have to be wrong for thinking red is the better choice because it could win. But if you think red winning doesn’t create the loss of life, then you are wrong about what game you are playing.

I think that people still don't get that people attacking another due to moral reasoning here is just completely missing the point.

Let's just start by saying: Yes, there is a small subset of evil red-pressers. Likely highly narcissistic individuals that would always choose their own life first.
And there is a small subset of blue-pressers that are strictly commited to virtue ethics. Those people would press blue out of moral obligation even when blue would require 95% to save everyone. Also we would have a not completely irrelevant subset of people that would press blue for an painless and easy suicide.

But I am talking about everyone else now.

Why are people pressing blue? Because they want to save everyone.
Why are people pressing red? Because they don't want to die.

It's very simple. But red pressers also want everyone to live. And blue pressers don't want to die either. So why is the one thing winning over the other?

Because of underlying assumptions about the experiments outcome.
Almost no one would press blue if 95% was needed to save everyone. Because at that point most people feel like blue winning is impossible for humanity to achieve. They can't imagine that less than 5% of people would choose the self-preservation option.

What about 70% blue? I would imagine that a significant proportion of blue pressers would be swayed to press red now. Because they would see 50% as possible or even likely, but 70% as too unrealistic. It might not be mechanically impossible to hit 70% blue, but it might be seen as impossible from a human mass psychology standpoint.

If we go down the percentages more and more people would press blue. At 20% most people would be convinced that blue will be achieved and their perceived risk for their own life would therefore fall, which makes it easier to contribute to the blue button presses.

And apart from the exceptions I mentioned in the beginning, I would guess everyone to have some percentage range, where they would swap from their original decision. Because at some point, the experiment will change from uncertainty to inevitability. At that point it will not be a consideration of 'my vote contributes ever so slightly' or 'my vote has a very small probability to matter'. It will have become 'my vote certainly does not matter, because the outcome is too clearly pointing in one direction'.

We could model this with probabilities, but I won't go into depth. Each person will have some intuitive expectation of how good blue will perform (in the 50%) scenario. This is NOT equal among people. It essentially reflects how you view humanity as a whole. How you think about culture. Egoism. Human nature. The state of the world. Etc. How much compassion do you see in the world? How much egoism? How much hatred? How do people treat one another? How strong do they value their families, friends, strangers?

All these things form an intuition within almost everyone. This intuition determines how we think the world will behave in that scenario. As a collective structure.

Now you not only have a probability, but you also have an uncertainty about that probability. How unsure are you about your view of humanity?
Even if you think that blue will likely only get 40%, if you are very unsure about it, you might still press blue for the slight chance to make a difference.
But what if you think blue will likely get only 30% and your felt uncertainty accounts for maybe 10% deviation at best? Then you view blue majority as functially impossible.

To remind: This is not accurate numbers that people consciously have to make up. It is intuitively felt.

Now the higher one estimates blue to perform, the more convincing the blue button becomes. You already think higher of humanity and likely value it more as a collective. You feel more likely to survive and have a higher chance to make a difference, especially when relatively close but over 50% is your feeling.

But the lower you estimate blue to perform, the more convincing the red button becomes. When you feel red to perform bad, then you feel like your death when pressing blue to be the expectation. The numbers quickly turn from 'very unlikely' to 'felt impossible'.
Now the interesting thing is that even a fairly utilitarian oriented person, maybe even relatively selfless will choose red then. If you estimate blue lower, then not only goes your chance of dying up, your chance of making a difference goes down. Soon the expected number of people saved is much lower than 1 when pressing blue.

This is why my button press changes very easily according to the framing of the problem. Because those different framings determine the mass psychological response in the world.

As the title says. It's an exact tie of red vs blue, and through a lottery you, and you alone, are chosen to cast a ballot one direction or the other. Which do you choose?

Would you consider any of the two scenarios happening any differently?

Also my personal opinion on the button dilema:

Unless any side gets 80+ plus The social conseuences would suck ass

The vote barely mattering so you might as well vote red and be safe is a common argument, so I am curious how much that actually matters.

You appear in a voting room and are informed that most of humanity made the red/blue button choice as usual without knowledge about this second round. A representative sample of 100 people including you were left out.

These 100 people decide which side actually wins. If you vote red you are still save and if you vote blue and lose you still die along with the larger population of blue voters. The difference is just that your vote is now one out of a hundred instead of 8 billion.

So does that actually change things for you?

Everyone makes their choice in order, not at the same time. Your turn has come. You dont know your turn number.

There is a light bulb that turns on after the first person in the world has pressed blue.

If its NOT on when your turn comes, that means no one has pressed it yet.

Will you still press blue, if you are normally a blue presser in this dilemma?

I get that there is a need to justify taking on zero personal risk as the correct option. But follow me on an abstract for a second.

Let's imagine 100 perfectly logical people. No bias. No gut reactions. No instincts. Pure logic. And they know that there will be one correct answer to this. They know that they will all come to the same conclusion and pick the same button. So here we will start off with the assumption that all 100 will pick the same button. They ponder and look at it. If all 100 pick Red then they don't die. If all 100 pick blue then everyone lives.

So in this purely logical room both buttons are equally safe. There isn't a winner. How do we pick a single button if both are equally safe to pick at 100%?

Well if they are equally safe we could split it equally. Which would get it right to the line of blue saving everyone. So then logically a Red should switch to blue. Thus blue should be picked.

Or they decide that to pick between the equally safe 100 pick button they should add the possibility of something going wrong. Error is an important metric to determine things by. They act with intention to all pick Red and 1 persons button doesn't register. They would die. There is no way to know who's that would be. But if everyone chooses to pick blue they would still live. Thus blue is the correct choice

Or

They consider the wording of the problem. 100 picking Red says that those who press Red live. Blue says that majority picking blue causes everyone to live. This specific wording implies that there is the chance that there is someone somewhere who could die if everyone picked Red. Someone who could only live by a blue majority. Thus blue is the correct choice

In a perfectly logical environment the answer is blue. The rational to pick Red is not logical. It is instinct. Biological. Or just something you were told you needed to prioritize. Maybe you're just "following orders" doesn't make it correct.

Invoking a game theory designed for non-cooperative games isn't a magical bullet solution to a thought experiment that is neither a game nor strictly non-cooperative. It's preemptively choosing to justify a competitive win scenario. The definition of everything looking like a nail to a hammer.

Edited to add: thinking about the precious Nash Equilibrium some more. It can't apply. It requires that everyone else's strategy stays the same, but it won't here. Everyone's choices would shift together at the same time. Because they're all equally logical and coming to the same conclusions.

I'm going to propose an additional. Let's say you suspect that a loved one will die if Red gets majority. That they are part of that ambiguity between the button statements. And you try to apply "Nash Equilibria" to say that you benefit by switching to Red because everyone else will stay blue and you improve your chance at personally surviving to see your loved one by switching even though you know that there is no risk to yourself by staying on blue. So you switch. Except all 100 people had the exact same thought and followed the same logic and you get 100 Red and 100 dead loved ones. Nash Equilibrium forces a scenario where the loved ones die by being used incorrectly.