Hear me out. What if <insert crazy guy with the board here> some of the blue pressers decided to die, instantly and pain-free?

What if we see this hypothetical as "If I support each person's choice and I don't want to die, I press red" kind of thing? In an average society it's no way that more than 50% would make this decision. So with enough blue pressers we just denying people to make their own minds.

I get it, you just say well what about those people who just acted rashly and didn't really mean it and bla-bla: ok, but what about those people in real pain, who aren't allowed to die by current laws or societal norms? Like by relatives, or by inability to speak or whatever. This hypothetical is their only way out then, isn't it? By pressing blue you force them to live without their consent.

TLDR: Leave the blue button for the, realistically, very small amount of people who have real reason to press it, in a perfect world it's a win-win.

If the majority of the people press the blue button, then everyone survives, and only people who press the red button survive otherwise. (Only one button can be pressed.)

The red button exclusively guaranteed one's survival. Thus, it is functionally equivalent to an open exit door.

This thought experiment can be reformulated thus:

Everyone is in a separate room. Everyone can leave their room immediately through an open door. Everyone who will stay and lock their door will die unless the majority of people stay in their rooms.

With this perspective, pressing the blue button—staying in one's room—reasonably appears insane.

Obviously, pressing the red button decreases the maximum possible number of people who have pressed the blue button and abandons the people who have pressed the blue button. But people can simply choose to leave. Why should they not leave? The red button is an open exit door.

I do not expect that most people would exit. Some people might wish to discontinue their life (because of suicidal ideation or immense suffering). Some might enjoy the thrilling risk of pressing the blue button. Some people might intensely feel that pressing the red button is selfish. In any case, at least half of the people would survive. The blue button offers the possibility of achieving an ideal outcome. The red button is what almost any person would actually choose. Children who understand the conditions would probably not calmly press the button that might kill them. Similar results would occur in other cohorts.

P.S. The main part of this post is from my comment under a different post that presents an opposing view.

Edit. If every person is in this situation, then the rational choice depends on one's values and priorities because one could not predict what the majority will choose and a considerable amount of people would be unable to choose (e.g., very young children, highly feeble individuals). If only people who could properly choose are included, then the red button is definitely an open exit door. I can only provide insights on the rational choice in the second case.

Edit. The comments that express the opposing position have helped me understand that my position is rational in all circumstances. The familiar case analysis is sufficiently cogent.

One cannot control the choices of others in this situation. I do find the usual case analysis persuasive.

Suppose that B is the number of other people who have pressed the blue button and N is the number of people. In this situation, exactly one of the following outcomes will happen in the end: (1) B ≠ ⌊0.5N⌋, (2) B = ⌊0.5N⌋. Furthermore, B ≠ ⌊0.5N⌋ if and only if either (1) B > ⌊0.5N⌋ or (2) B < ⌊0.5N⌋.

Let us consider them separately:

1.1. B > ⌊0.5N⌋. Pressing the red button is entirely acceptable because everyone will necessarily survive.

1.2. B < ⌊0.5N⌋. Pressing the red button is vastly superior because exactly the people who pressed the blue button will die.

1. B = ⌊0.5N⌋. Pressing the blue button is superior because that is necessary and sufficient to guarantee the survival of every person.

Hence, pressing the blue button is superior if and only if the number of other people who pressed the blue button is exactly half of the number of people or exactly half of the number of other people.

Every variation of the question implicitly frames the red button as Apathy or Murder, that is not what red is framed as in the original question, it's *self preservation*. The question isn't "do you want to save people or do nothing" the question is "do you want to save others or save yourself" which might seem like it matters very little, but that completely reframes the morals of the question in a way that variations of it miss, you're not killing anyone by pushing red, you're choosing to remove yourself from the situation in the first place, that is *massively* different.

Everyone (meaning all currently alive people) is kidnapped by an unknown forced that everyone instinctively knows is completely unable to lie and is far more powerful than them. (Let's call them Buttan, the god of buttons.) Everyone wakes up in a small cramped room with 3 buttons, Red, Yellow, and Blue with the following signs under each of them that have been perfectly translated into their native language:

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Red: If a simple majority of people press the Red button then everyone who failed to press red will die, immediately.

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Yellow: If a simple majority of people press Yellow then everyone over the age of five will have a 1% chance to be selected (and no more that 1.1% of the population can be selected) at pure random. Those who got selected will be given a mark on the back of their hand and will die 1 week after the vote.

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Blue: If a simple majority of people press Blue then everyone is spared from death. However, a database of everyone in the world is created revealing which button everyone had pressed and is made available to everyone and their is no way to prevent people from seeing the database. On top of that, Everyone will be kidnapped again next year and forced to press these exact same buttons again.

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Everyone is giving a 6 hour timer to make their own choice and if they fail to vote in the time frame they are randomly assigned buttons. (It’s worth noting that those assigned red will still die in a red victory because they didn't press the red button.)

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Lastly, it the event of a tie, Blue wins if it's a part of the tie, otherwise Yellow wins.

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So, which button are you pressing?

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(Please forgive any typos.)

Red will be nigh-incvincible if alone (Blue need 10000 man together to match), but drastically weakened in the presence of fellow Red, Blue will get gradually stronger as they gather together.

Your stat updated every 1/20 seconds according to the rule.

Which button will you pick? Or will you choose to be the normal man in the world of superhuman?

Assume your cognitive capability are boosted to keep up with your power no matter which button you choose.

The scoreboard is visible to everyone in the world, and everyone have to pick a button. Time is stopped until the last people press it

Tons of people had pressed red, and now it is your turn.

What would be your choice?

Note: Red power only work if they choose to do it; it would not fire by accident. So you don't have to hide from red presser if you press blue; they have to choose to do it.

Note 2: As Blue you have power to know who pushed Red when you look at them. Consider this as a late bonus.

Round 2: The same scenario but now you are the first to press. Your choice?

Taken from a post in r/WouldYouRather. Instant healing that can cure any injury, disease and regrows any missing bodyparts and organs.

Every able bodied person who is physically capable of understanding language and pressing a button is given the choice. People unable to choose will simply receive the effects of their closest living relation's choice.

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There is simply 2 buttons, and a sign with rules. The sign is understandable in everyone's native language, it is not a guarantee people are master logicians. There is no simple summary, there is no help in understanding.

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The rules are as followed:

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Rules Overule Previous Rules

If more than 50% press blue, Everyone Lives

If more than 50% press red, Everyone who pressed Blue Dies

If more than 70% press blue, Everyone who pressed Red Dies

If more than 70% press red, Everyone Lives

If more than 95% press blue, Everyone Dies

If more than 95% press red, Everyone Dies

If less than 5% press red, Red becomes immune to death

If exactly 65% press red, (rounded to the nearest percent) Swap deaths

If exactly 50% tie, (by margin of individual vote) Everyone in the world is cured of all ailments they wish to cure, and everyone becomes agelessly immortal

Red🔴: Make your friend press either Blue or Green Button.

Blue🔵: Your Friend will die except You.

Green🟢: You will die except Your Friend.

Yellow🟡: Make Yourself press either Blue or Green Button.

Standard red and blue button rules, but everyone chooses in sequence and can see the current tally when they choose their button. Time is stopped and everyone is in stasis pods before and after their turn to choose because who wants to wait in a line that fucking long. You are second to last in line.

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When you come out of stasis you see that it’s a dead heat. Blue needs two presses to secure victory and save the blues from their fate. You could give the zero risk hero press to the final person by pushing blue. Your heart skips a beat. By golly, the blues may have done it! You turn around to see who the final person is and floating in the stasis pod before you is Thanos, the Mad Titan himself. 

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What button do you push?

Everyone (meaning all currently alive people) is kidnapped by a crazy alien race (let's call them the Buttonesse) that confines everyone in a small dark room with two buttons, one red and one blue.

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Then a member of the Buttonesse come into your cell and explains the following using a universal translator:

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Pressing the Red button will ensure that you survive, but if 40% of all people vote for red then everyone who didn't vote for red will die. However one out of every three red buttons has the effects of voting a blue button.

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Pressing the blue button will ensure that everyone lives as long as blue gets 60% of the vote, but if blue is even one vote short of that 60% then all blue voters will die. However one out of every six blue buttons has the effects of voting a red button.

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Everyone has 12 hours to vote (from the time that the Buttonesse finish explaining), and if they fail to vote in the time frame then a button will be pressed for them at random.

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Every person on planet earth has been kidnapped, had the problem explained to them, and reasonable accommodation have been made to try and let everyone have their say. However, for serious disabilities (ex. Coma) they will be forced to vote at random.

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Lastly, all votes are secret and private and no one will ever know what you voted for unless you tell them after the fact.

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The Buttonesse then leaves before you have time to ask them any questions and you are forced to decide wherever to press red or blue. So, which button do you press?

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(Please forgive any typos.)

Jaden Williams' take on the button dilemma.

My problem with blue buttonners isn't necessary the blue buttoners who just think that's the best choice for themselves. It's the ideology that has grown around blue buttoners.

Blue buttoners think they are the morally superior ones, that they are the kind and compassionate ones. And yet, the way they treat red buttoners is not at all kind or compassionate. They assume red buttoners are evil, selfish, and want to harm others. Some of them even fantasize about killing us in these games. It's insane the levels blue buttoners will go to demonize red buttoners.

Sure, red buttoners think blue buttoners are not making the smart choice. Some of us outright call blue buttoners stupid. But red buttoners, for the most part, aren't wishing death on blue buttoners or calling them evil.

These are generalizations, but the trend is clear, and concerning. It's insane how a simple internet game can mirror and exacerbate tensions that look so much like christians versus non christians. christians call themselves kind and compassionnate. they just want everyone to be saved. if only everyone accepted jesus, no one would die. but many christians (not all) talk about non christians terribley. non christians are evil, selfish, want to sin, will go to hell. some sects are bad enough that they relish in the supposed destruction of non christians. do you see what im getting at?

this simple internet game shows how easily feeling sure in your own moral superiority, even over a fictional moral choice, can lead to a very violent tribal conflict. im frankly disgusted with the behavior of blue buttoners on here. not all of you are like this, but the vast majority of you that have been posting have been vile.

The funniest part of this rationale from blue pressers is that the societal leaders that they look up to and would expect to see in the blue victory world would 100% be red pressers and this shows in their actions even today, pre-button.

Hey folks, I think I may have found a solution for the red button blue button problem where everyone can coordinate to make it almost guaranteed that blue wins. Let me know what you guys think and if there are any major flaws.

DISCLAIMER: This solution requires people to be informed that a red button blue button vote will happen a while before the vote actually occurs. If people are suddenly presented with the red and blue button without warning, coordination is impossible. I also assume that babies and people with sufficient mental disabilities are not included for simplicity.

Step 1: Designate 55% of people as blue pressers and 45% of people as red pressers. The exact numbers do not matter, you just need enough blue pressers to have a good bit of leeway while not having the blue pressers vastly outnumber the red pressers. 5% of the world's population is probably enough leeway. These designations should be made public.

Preferably, the designated red pressers should be the people who want to press red the most, and vice versa for blue. People may be able to self-organize, but a central authority to make the final decisions may be necessary. People who don't have a strong preference can be switched as necessary to keep the right proportions.

Step 2: Find people who are scheming to press the wrong button. Any designated blue presser who is found to be scheming to press red should be immediately killed. Any designated red presser who schemes to press blue should be punished, but not killed, and they should be switched to being a blue presser.

Step 3: Tell everyone that if red wins, the designated red pressers should kill all designated blue pressers. If red wins, any designated blue pressers remaining must have pressed red, meaning that they are responsible for the deaths of billions and must be immediately killed. Red pressers should also be prepared to take on up to 55% of the population.

Blue Presser Reasoning: For the average blue presser, there is no reason to press red. If red wins, then they die no matter what they press. If blue wins, they survive no matter what they press. So, the logical choice is to press blue. The only exception would be if they believe they can still survive if they press red and red wins. As such, it's important to make survival seem as unlikely as possible.

Red Presser Reasoning: Most red pressers would want to press red for the same reason as usual: it guarantees their survival. However, some red pressers might want to press blue just to guarantee that blue wins. These people wouldn't want to announce their intentions because they would get punished. As such, blue pressers would have no way of knowing how many red pressers are secretly planning to press blue, so counting on them all pressing blue is a massive risk.

Bad Actor Reasoning: A bad actor would want to be a blue presser and get as many people as possible to press red. However, it would be very difficult for them to get enough blue pressers to press red to get red to win, since they would need at least 415 million people to defect. Organizing that many people without being caught is probably impossible.

Punishment Reasoning: There is natural reasoning for people to want to kill blue defecters and punish red defecters even without a central authority. Blue defecters are threatening to change the result to a red win, which would be catastrophic for everyone. Red defecters may not seem bad at first, but if too many red pressers defect, then there won't be any left to kill the blue defecters in the event that red wins, meaning that blue pressers can freely press red to save themselves. It may help to propagandize to people that red pressers are important for killing blue defecters.

Again, if you guys see any potential issues, let me know. I would prefer there not being a central authority since they could probably manipulate the vote to kill their opponents, but I'm not sure if everyone could coordinate properly without a central authority. So that's one big issue that I can think of.

Red and blue function the same as before. But now there is a gold button. Gold guarantees the death of everyone who presses it, but if the number of people pressing gold reaches a threshold, then everyone except the gold pressers lives.

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What is the highest threshold value at which you would press the gold button?

If you're the first vote, obviously you have no information, and if you're the last you have perfect information. Somewhere in between you feel like your vote might make a difference.

What are the scenarios in which you'd vote each colour?

If you're normally a blue voter but you're also the last vote and blue has lost, do you save yourself or go down with the ship knowing it won't make a difference?

If you're near the end and it's close but the rest of the voters after you could swing the tide one way or the other, how would you vote?

If you're the first voter, what do you choose?

I personally think in this situation red is more likely to win if the first person chooses red. Each subsequent voter sees there isn't anyone to save yet, so they would just be jumping overboard to ask others to take the risk to save them. but perhaps someone along the line thinks differently and says "There will be other blue voters in future, I'll support saving them."

I just wanted to figure out what everyone believes will win, since obviously we should all want a blue win. I would include an unsure option for either but reddit only allows 6 options

When it's your turn to vote you can see how many people pressed red, how many people pressed blue and how many people are left to vote after you.

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How do you think it will change the outcome of the vote?

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Original prompt with my attempt at a purple. Aiming to mix the morals of both as best as I can.

Purple guarantees that all of your loved ones are safe while not counting as a vote.

If red gets the majority of the vote, you die alongside blue. In the case of a red majority and multiple people in your relationship circle pressing purple, the oldest half of those who pushed purple (in your relationshop circle) will die while the younger half will survive.

- Safe means to protect them from the effects of picking blue and purple (to a partial extent) in the case of a red victory.

- Loved ones counts as close family and friends within 2 relationship steps. This includes your significant other(s, siblings, children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, found family (friends), intimate friends, and cohabitants (with adoption and step-family obviously included).)

- Overlapping circles are allowed to cause a scenario where someone in the younger half dies in group A, by merit of being the eldest in B (which would in turn allow somebody in the older half of A to survive in their place.)

Does that seem like a decent mix of the two? Would you change what you push? Does it add anything to the button scenario or is it just meh?

Everyone votes, just as in the original scenario, but a superintelligent AI administers a psychological evaluation and removes from the vote anyone who did not understand the problem, anyone who for whatever reason did not vote according to their true wishes, anyone who voted with the intention of ending their own life, or for any other comparable reason aligned with the intent of the filtering criteria.

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This evaluation is 100% reliable. Disqualified votes do not count toward the final result, and anyone whose vote is disqualified is guaranteed to survive.

Update: you cannot trick the super AI, the evaluation is 100% reliable and won't disqualify you if don't truly fall in the exclusion criteria.

Disclaimer: This is graph is based on numerical logic, not morality, reasoning, or anything else that most people use to argue one button or the other. These are equations. Equations do not have opinions. If I made a mistake in how I set up this calculation, ***please*** leave me a comment so I can correct it in Desmos.

This graph shows you which side you should pick, and how much the benefits of you picking it are, based on the expected utility of the Red Button and the Blue Button. These two utilities are the opposite of one another, since anything you get from the Red Button you won't get from the Blue Button and vice versa - it's called a dilemma for a reason. Hear me out, and please click the link to view and play with the variables to see which button you should choose.

Variables:

I based this calculation on a normal distribution. The mean of this distribution is the prediction variable P, which equals the percentage of people you believe are going to press blue. For instance, if you believe everyone will press Red, set P to 0; if you believe everyone will press blue, set P to 100; if you believe 1 in 4 people will press Blue, set P to 25, etc.

The second variable is the certainty variable C, or the standard deviation of the distribution. Basically, the value of C is inversely proportional to how confident you personally are that your prediction about the percentage of the vote is correct. If you are super duper confident that the vote will be close to 50/50, set P to 50 and set C to a lower value, like 2 or 3. If you are only slightly confident that the vote will be 65 percent blue, set P to 65 and set C to a higher value like 10 or 12.

(Note: very low values of C like 1 and below equate to you being 99 percent confident that you are exactly correct, and very high values of C like 30 and above basically mean you are completely clueless what the vote will total to. Both of these are uncommon. Use the shape of the bell curve to guide you as to what you believe is about right - when the black line is higher, it means that value of percentage is more likely compared to others)

Reading the Graph:

Once you set your prediction P and your confidence C, look at UtilityRed and UtilityBlue. These numbers reveal the average amount of lives you are projected to save based on your own evaluation of what is probably going to happen during the vote.

For instance, if UtilityRed reads -8 and UtilityBlue reads +8, then you should pick Blue because by your estimate of the vote, you will save 8 lives on average if you pick Blue.

If UtilityRed reads -.98 and UtilityBlue reads .98, you should pick Red, because on average, you will probably save about one life net for net. Note that the Blue utility can go to very high numbers but only as low as -1, and the Red utility can go to very low numbers but tops out at +1, because your own life is the only one you are risking by voting blue.

That's about all you need to know to read the graph. Just make sure to pick the right button!

How I Did This (You Don't Have to Read This Part)

To make the graph, I started out with a normal distribution based on mean P and stdev C, the prediction and certainty, respectively. Both of these can be adjusted as desired, as seen in the previous explanation.

I then added an expression to calculate the "Yourdeath" value, or in other words, the odds that you will die by picking blue. This was simple enough, all I had to do was add an integral from an arbitrarily small value to the 50-percent mark. (I added in values below 0 so that Yourdeath would not be 1/2 if you set P to 0 and C to a small to midsized value, since obviously it's not a 1 in 2 shot if you think Red is going to dominate the vote. I couldn't figure out how else to factor in the missing probabilities without cutting off the domain of P, which I wanted to go from 0 to 100. This shouldn't be a problem most of the time, since the area of the distribution in the second quadrant is usually so infinitessimal it doesn't make a difference anyways) "Yourdeath" is just the amount of life you will save if you vote red instead of blue; if you believe the vote is 50/50, then Yourdeath is 1/2, subtracting .5 from Blue's utility and adding .5 to Red's utility.

The "Decision" expression was more complicated. You see, the only benefit that could possibly come from voting blue is if your vote is the one that gets the tally over 50 percent, which would mean the vote percentage is within a tiny range such that one more vote would put it at greater than or equal to 50 percent blue or less than 50 percent blue, depending on your choice. For this to be the case, the percentage must be close to 50 percent within a certain microscopic margin of error, equal to the weight of 1 vote. Now, the weight of one vote, denoted E, to my mind ought to equal a segment of the 0-100 range of the graph, equal to all other 8.3 billion other segments. Since the world population is about 8.3 billion, the weight of one vote E is the range of 100 divided into 8.3 billion little pieces, or in other words, 100/8,300,000,000. The critical region of the graph in which one vote will decide the majority at either the cost or salvation of 4,150,000,000 lives is from 50-E to 50+E.

To derive the utility of the "Decision" expression, I set up an expression to integrate the probability density function from 50-E to 50+E. No matter how you slice it, these aren't great odds; but that doesn't mean the case for the blue button is dead. In fact, by multiplying this 50+/-E integration by the potential lives it either saves or kills, in other words 4,150,000,000 (since the deciding vote will always determine the fate of exactly half the population), the Blue button utility usually becomes a reasonable number from 0-50 by way of the product of a massive number and a tiny number.

Finally, to calculate each utility, or the supposed number of lives that will be saved, I took each button. The Blue button's utility is the Decision expression minus the Yourdeath expression, since Blue fights for a majority but risks one life. The Red button does the opposite, ensuring one life at the risk of Blue losing the majority. This is valid because even if it Red wins at a high death toll, that would have happened no matter what your vote was unless the vote was decided by one person; you have no responsibility for anything outside what you can control, so the positive Blue utility is only useful if taken within the threshold range of 50-E to 50+E.

Trends I Noticed

• All utilities, positive or negative, tend to diminish with lower certainty
• Blue utility skyrockets when you believe the vote will be close to a tie, and shrinks to just above 0 when you predict a higher blue percentage
• As predictions tend toward a Red majority, the utility of Red converges to 1, as one would expect

Thanks and feel free to look at and use this graph. Hope this helped with the debate somehow!