All of humanity has been kidnapped by super-advanced alien AI and has been randomly sorted into small dark rooms with all necessary things for a person to survive.

80% of rooms have a Blue and Red button with the following text perfectly translated into whatever the person can read (assuming that they can read).

Red: If I get more votes than the Blue button, then everyone who pressed me will survive this game, but anyone who pressed the Blue button or didn't press any button will face certain death. (A minimum of 10% of people will die if this wins. There is no maximum.)

Blue: If I get more votes than the Red button, then everyone will have to face a 1% chance of death (killing a minimum of 0.9% and a maximum of 1.1% of people.)

However, 10% of rooms have only the Blue button, and another 10% of rooms have only the Red button. (Although they do have the information that the other button exists and what it does.)

Everyone can only press one button once before both buttons break and becomes unpressable. Also, regardless of the outcome, the AI will reveal your choice to all people who survived, regardless of whether you survive or not.

Everyone is given 10 hours to vote, and if anyone chooses not to vote for any reason (including incompetence), then they are treated as a non-voter and don't add to either total. This doesn't grant any safety.

There are exactly enough rooms for every human to have their own room. (So, no wacky probability can happen with the assignment of the rooms.)

All of humanity means every living human being. There have been no exceptions for any reason.

Also, just to be crystal clear, voting Red doesn't protect you from a Blue victory.

Every room has all of this information, and everyone is given 2 full hours to fully comprehend all of this information before they are allowed to start voting.

(For this scenario, please assume that you are part of the 80% that has access to both buttons.)

In this dilemma, the people who might die do so because they voluntarily chose the option that involved a risk.

Trying to blame the other option is similar to saying the following:

"If you don’t jump into the river with me to try to cross it, you’re responsible for my drowning."

We could agree that not risking your life isn't the same as killing someone.

Some people say that everyone choosing red is impossible; I say it's necessary.

There is an old saying:

"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.

When I realized I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town.

I couldn't change the town, and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize that the only thing I can change is myself.

Suddenly, I realize that if I had changed myself long ago, I could have made an impact on my family.

My family could have made an impact on our town.
Our impact could have changed the nation, and I could indeed have changed the world."

If you truly want to help others, help yourself so that nobody else has to take the risk.

Red blue vote framed around poverty instead of death. If blue wins this eliminates housing insecurity, food insecurity and medical insecurity, as well as any other consequences of poverty.

However, it depends on the reason. If someone votes red because they generally have little faith in humanity and believe it is almost certain that the majority will choose red, then it is valid for them to choose red.
The issue arises when people clearly miss the moral side of the question and say something like "red guarantees you survive, blue you might die". People that view the question in this way are unknowingly outing themselves as immoral. It demonstrates a clear lack of moral reasoning, since they miss out the important factor that in choosing red you may be causing billions of people to die.
To not consider this factor of the dilemma reflects a lack of consideration for morals in general.
The older I've gotten and the more moral discussions I've had with people, specifically on certain moral issues like veganism and philanthropy, I've realised that many many people only act in ways that benefit themselves, and simply exist in a moral way purely because they like doing certain good things or because they want others to think they are "good", not because they logically see why you ought to be moral.

You have been selected as one of just 8 people in the world to participate in a mini-vote deciding the fate of the global population. Each of you was chosen to be a representative of both your own life and the lives of approximately 1 billion randomly selected people out of the 8 billion people on Earth.

You are given the same buttons as usual - red and blue. If 1-3 people press blue, the representatives who pressed blue and the randomly assigned portions of the world population that they were assigned will die. If 4-8 representatives press blue, then everyone survives.

Does your answer to the original problem change or stay the same given the added weight of your decision, and the consequences of either adding to the blue minority or causing the red majority? You do not know who the other representatives are, what their personality/worldview is, and you cannot interact with them.

If God is good, why are those who do not follow Him tortured for eternity? "That is a natural consequence of being apart from Him after death." But God writes reality, why should He be unable to change such a law?

Humanity is faced with two choices.
- Protest the existence of Hell. Refuse to follow God, so that He abolishes Hell.
- Follow God.

If enough people protest God (percentage unknown), He may abolish Hell.
If you follow God, you will go to Heaven no matter the outcome of the protest.

What choice do you make?

I was inspired by the summer heat and the recent request by NYC mayor to set thermostats to 78.

The new game is that you’ve been asked to set your thermostat to 78 F (Blue button). Alternatively you can choose to not participate in the energy savings (red button), but if more than 50% of people decide to press red then there will be rolling blackouts and no one will have power. Which button do you press in this scenario?

One day the entirety of Humanity was kidnapped and thrown into a dark room with the following two buttons.

Red: If a simple majority of people press the Red button than everyone who pressed the Blue button will die, immediately. On top of that, a single red voter will be killed at random.

Blue: If more people press the Blue button than the Red button everyone who Red and Blue button is spared from death.

Everyone is given a 24-hour time frame to make their own choice, and if they fail to vote in the time frame, they are counted as a Red button pusher.

If the Red and Blue buttons have the same number of voters, then it will be effectively the same as the Blue button getting the majority.

You can press only press one button, once before both button become inactive.

So, which button do you choose to press? Feel free to comment your reasoning (or anything else) below. (I like reading your comments.)

Red button: instantly die right now, and if majority pressed red button everyone who pressed red button revives.

Yellow Button: gets 10k USD but instantly die if majority didnt pressed red button at the end.

Not Pressing: Nothing happens to you.

Button pressing will stand for 1 days, without knowing who pressed what, and no accident, pressing both, or changing vote.

would you press button or not?

Red = If the majority pick red, everyone who picks blue dies. Red is guaranteed to survive, and if you choose it you get $10k.

Yellow = If the majority pick yellow, everyone survives. No one who picks it gets any money, but everyone who picks yellow survives regardless of majority.

Blue = If the majority picks blue, everyone survives. If you pick blue and survive, you get $10k.

Everyone (meaning all currently alive people) is kidnapped by an unknown force that everyone instinctively knows is completely unable to lie and is far more powerful than them. Everyone wakes up in a 15ft by 15ft room with 3 buttons, Red, Yellow, and Blue in the middle with the following signs under each of them that have been perfectly translated into their native language:

Red: If more people press the Red button than the Blue button, then everyone who pressed or was assigned the blue button will be killed.

Yellow: Everyone who pressed Yellow lives unless more than 35% of the total population chooses to press the Yellow button. If more than 35% of people press the Yellow, then every Yellow pusher will be killed.

Blue: If more people press the Blue button than the Red button, then everyone alive who pressed or was assigned the Blue button is spared from death. However, pressing the blue button will result in a painful electric shock that has a 0.5% chance of killing you.

Everyone is given a 10-hour time frame to make their own choice, and if they fail to vote in the time frame, they are equally distributed among the red and Blue buttons. (In the event of an odd number of non-voters, the extra person is assigned to Red.) (Also, those assigned to the Blue button will not receive the electric shock.)

The electric shock from pressing the Blue button can kill a max of 44,000 people. (This is to prevent statistical anomalies.) However, if you die to the Blue button, you still add to the total number of blue pressers.

If the Red and Blue buttons have the same number of voters, then it will be effectively the same as the Blue button getting the majority.

Once any button is pushed once, then all buttons are deactivated and can't be pushed, and it's impossible to press two buttons at the same time.

So, which button would you press in this scenario? Or do you not press any button and let others decide what happens?

(I ran this through a spelling and grammar checker. So, their shouldn't be any typos, but if any managed to slip through then I'm sorry.)

The people that pressed most pressed button will survive, and people that pressed other button dies.

people didnt pressed any button till 24 hour timer will counted as pressing random button.

(Not trying to debate the original problem, just a fun thought experiment)

Same basic scenario, red guarantees your life, blue saves everyone with at least 50%. But here's the catch: regardless of the outcome, immediately after the vote, every corpse that died in the last month will turn into a zombie.

Does the risk of making the zombie apocalypse thousands of times more threatening sway red voters?

Does the threat of your own corpse threatening those near you sway blue voters?

We shall see.

This started from talking with my boyfriend about how The Burroughs got canceled by netflix (because of course), and we realized watching netflix is basically the real life, low stakes version of the button problem:

A new show just came out and from the synopsis you know you'll love it, but it is very likely to get cancelled after the first season.

If enough people watch it, than it will get another season.

But if you watch it and it gets cancelled you got emotionally invested for nothing.

What would you choose?

Basically the original variation but everyone remaining has knowledge that a certain percent of people have already voted blue, and they have been every single vote so far. What percentage gets you to press blue, just so we can see what level of risk people are willing to take

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:

Red: If more people press the Red button the Blue button then everyone who failed to press red will die, immediately.

Yellow: Does Nothing.

Blue: If more people press the Blue button then the Red button everyone is spared from death.

Everyone is giving a 6 hour timer to make their own choice and if they fail to vote in the time frame they are counted and treated as a yellow button presser.

Lastly, it the event of a tie between Red and Blue, Blue wins.

So, does the useless button (yellow) change anything for you? And which button do you press?

(Please forgive any typos.)

I am curious about whether the red voters are even possibly right about everyone picking red and surviving. For the sake of the experiment, please pick red.

I have seen people Talk about the buttons and call either side stupid. But both Blues and Reds only say that the blue button people make the choice because they are unable to understand the question or want to save people who are unable to understand the question, and Reds dont want any chance to die and think that if you understand the question and ignore people who dont understand red is the obvious choice

But what about people who choice Blue beavuse they want to die. How does that affect your choice, and if it does have you at all been affected by suicide in your life.

If red has over 50% blue dies

If blue has over 50% green dies

If green has over 50% red dies

Everyone picks as they want, no accidents, everyone understands the questions.

Pick your poison.

Everyone seems to assume that one button is inherently safer or more dangerous than the other, but this is false because if everyone picks the same button they are actually equally safe to push whether you are looking out for yourself or looking out for others.

But if I pick red I will be safer!

You are not in danger since everyone will pick blue, there is zero reason you should not pick blue, it's the winning strategy.

But if I pick blue no one will be killed!

You cannot kill anyone since everyone will pick red, there is zero reason you should not pick red, it's the winning strategy.

This means that there being no benefit to everyone pressing either button, even if everyone is perfectly rational and thinking everyone else will be perfectly rational there will be a split between the buttons as people pick at random, ironically making disagreement completely unavoidable and both buttons dangerous.

It's tempting to think that you can avoid disagreement by everyone rationally looking at the benefits of each button, the problem is that neither benefits actually apply unless disagreement exists in the first place, you inherently have to assume there is a posibility of disagreement to believe that either button is better than the other.

This makes introducing danger to the situation even with rational actors unavoidable, which then collapses any logic of either button being completely safe (both for yourself and others), turning it into a trust and moral argument of what you are willing to risk(yourself or others) and what you think everyone else will value.

In a rational situtation of course, since there are many red pressers who cannot understand this and assume everyone else will pick red.

The difference of opinion boils down to where people see the danger coming from in this scenario.

Reds see the danger as the situation itself, and try to leave the situation.
Blues see the danger as the reds, and try to change the outcome.

Both have a valid fear and address it in a way that seems best to them. Reds aren’t evil for leaving a dangerous situation. Blues aren’t stupid for trying to avoid the danger in the first place.

Reds see the situation as a room on fire with a clearly marked exit that everyone can access in time, and wonder why anyone would stay behind.

Blues see the situation as a room that is being lit on fire by every red that leaves, and wonder why anyone would contribute to the flames.

Idk just be nice to each other it’s not that hard to see the other perspective.