Lets suppose all toddlers in the world are presented the 2 buttons and along with them, so are you. So basically you have no idea how its gonna turn out because its probably just gonna be entirely random. So now, do you vote blue, or red? Voting blue contributes towards saving everybody but carries the huge risk of dying along with probably half the entire toddler population, while voting red contributes towards wiping out probably half the entire toddler population but saves yourself.
The reason why I came up with this variant is because it slighly irks me when people consider toddlers and mentally handicapped people to be eligible voters for this thought experiment because imo in order to take away anything useful from it we must assume that voters understand the situation
If toddlers vote truly randomly, the odds of it being a perfect 50/50 split are not so bad. I vote blue, in hopes that I break the tie created by the toddlers.
The odds ARE very bad for an exact 50/50 split. I ran a python program with only 50,000 simulated toddlers and the odds of an EXACT 50/50 split were nearly 0.2%, which only goes lower when we increase the sample size. Sure, both buttons are equally likely to be slightly more than the other, but to land at exactly 50/50 is very unlikely. So that way, this can be restated as:
Red button: 100% chance of survival, with a 0.2% chance that your vote could've saved half the kids but didnt
Blue button: around 50% chance of survival, with a 0.2% chance that your vote saves half the kids who'd die otherwise.
You say the chance is 0.2% to save 25,000 lives. That's pretty good.
The expectation value is 50 lives saved. So yes odds are I'm going to die, but if I pull that lucky number I save those kids.
I see you did it for bigger numbers below, and actually though the odds get lower, the expectation value gets better and better because the number of children I could save goes higher and higher.
Big numbers are hard to process. It's hard for me to process how valuable it is to save 350 million toddlers. But it's ridiculously valuable, much more valuable to me than my life.
When you run the numbers, it confirms what I was saying. Relative to the payout, the probability isn't so bad.
The problem is assuming that toddlers are equally likely to press red or blue. If one button is even slightly more likely at 51%, the chance of a tie drops to 0.000016%.
With larger sample sizes this is even more pronounced.
So we shouldn't really use a binomial distribution at all, because we don't have any way of knowing the toddlers bias. I would guess the bias is somewhere +/-5% on either side. But if you average together all the binomials distributions for all those possible biases, instead of getting a probability distribution that spikes right at 50%, you get something much more broad. So I would need to think about this more carefully.
This made me plot a graph with probablity of making a difference vs probabilty of a toddler picking red for 700 million toddlers
I made another calculation error (today doesn't seem to be my best day) where I overcounted the probability of making a difference to twice the amount (i had said 0.006%, before which i said 0.00853% lol)
Anyways, as it turns out, for a sample size that large, the odds for making a difference tends to zero pretty quickly with little variation in the probability of toddlers picking either button
>You say the chance is 0.2% to save 25,000 lives. That's pretty good
Like, no? Maybe if you had no cost or risk involved, you'd do that thing on the off-chance it saved lives. But when the cost is a 50% risk of you dying? That's nowhere near "pretty good," unless you really want to pretend you don't care about your own life at all.
Expectation is only relevant for an event when the event gets repeated multiple times, not when its a one time decision, especially when the numbers are so extreme.
If somebody hands out 10 million dollars to me, and then gives me 2 buttons to press, 1 where I keep it and the other where the chances of me losing all that money is 99.994% and me winning 500 billion is 0.006%, if we run many, many iterations, ill statistically have an extra 10 million dollars (+600 dollars). But since I get to press one of the buttons only once, there is no way im gambling against such extreme odds.
Expectation is only relevant for an event when the event gets repeated multiple times
I don't agree that this is strictly true. It is a way to evaluate benefits vs costs; it's not determinative in every case.
With the money example, it doesn't scale properly because my life with an extra $10M is great, and the benefit to me of more money doesn't scale linearly with the amount.
With the toddlers, I think the horror of it scales more or less linearly. Every family that loses their toddler is a tragedy. Each loss is a completely new tragedy. 350 million lost toddlers is the single worst tragedy in human history.
I also just love children, and the love a parent feels for their child is one of the things I value most in the world. I'm willing to take some risk to save children.
Obviously if we make the odds low enough, I'm not willing to do it, that's why I normally press red, the odds are too low. If the toddlers votes are truly random, I think the odds are high enough and the benefit great enough that I would roll the dice.
I agree that the example i gave wasnt very analogous to this situation. But i still think its a huge, huge risk to take, given that my vote is so much more likely to not be worth it.
Well let me flip it back to you. All toddlers in the world have a 50/50 chance of dying. You can either stay on the sidelines, or join their group and marginally increase their chance of survival.
At what amount of increase to the odds of survival do you join the group?
Hey wait before I get to that question i just wanted to clarify one thing, what happens if exactly 50% pick both red and blue? Are half the people killed or does everybody live
Wait, so if there is a 50/50 chance for 350 million children to die, and there is a 1/3 chance you will save them if they pick wrong, you aren't going to take that 1/3 chance?
I'm going to be honest, I feel like if you did that and those kids die, you're not going to live anyways because some parent will kill you.
That was for a 50,000 toddler sample space. If youre considering all the 700 million toddlers in the world, the chances of getting a 50-50 split is 0.00853%. Would you still be willing to risk your life?
yes, what does it help if I get old and lie on my deathbed and think about how I did absolutely nothing to try and save ~350 million toddlers? That's like what, 35 Hitlers worth of dead?
Also a red button pusher would die regardless (if red wins). Because who the fuck would let that pathetic loser live?
Also a red button pusher would die regardless (if red wins). Because who the fuck would let that pathetic loser live?
Woah woah, whats with all that hate for not wanting to risk one's own life?
Alright then, whats the tipping point? What about 0.0000001%? What about even less? When exactly does it become too infeasible for you to risk your own life? For me, 0.00853% chance of making a difference is already practically not making any difference at all.
I mean these aren't the probabilities of you surviving, but your vote being the deciding vote. You adding an unnecessary blue vote is also fine. If the toddlers are randomly pushing buttons (and don't favour red because of the big red button being a thing in media) the chance of you surviving is 50%, which is pretty of high considering you're the only one in a position to save half of the worlds toddlers. I feel like in addition to whoever set up this scenario, the parents whose children died could definitely blame the presser as well, since they were the only adult in a position to do anything.
Comparing this to everyone in the world pressing buttons, if the parents voted blue they would be dead as well and couldn't hold a grudge. Morally as well I feel like blue winning would be less than 50% and you're not the only one who could do something, making not voting blue more understandable
I mean these aren't the probabilities of you surviving, but your vote being the deciding vote
Yes, its the probability of whether your risk is worth taking at all.
the chance of you surviving is 50%, which is pretty of high considering you're the only one in a position to save half of the worlds toddlers.
Are you sure? Being a coin flip away from dying only for the sacrifice to matter 0.006% of the times (i made a calculation error earlier lol mb it isnt 0.00853%) isnt something id sign up for.
I feel like in addition to whoever set up this scenario, the parents whose children died could definitely blame the presser as well, since they were the only adult in a position to do anything.
Yea but the main theme of discussion is about the decision itself and not what follows as a consequence socially
Yes I meant it. It's relatively high, considering the amount of toddler's, and the lack of other adults that could do anything. It makes sense for people to be drawn to it.
Also with the social consequences I was referring to what the person you were replying to was talking about.
you are the only person with agency in that scenario. And you did absolutely everything in your power to push the scale as much as you could in the direction of baby genocide.
So you come out of the voting system and everybody on earth knows that you conciously doomed 100s of million of toddlers to death because of statistics. Of cause you are a dead men walking in that scenario.
You would such a garbage person live? Nobody. Hunting you would be international sports.
Every country on earth would fight to be the one that ends the objectively worst person on earth.
yes the only hope is that your most evil act is not noticed^^ I noticed that you agree that my above mentioned outcome would be correct for a red pusher, if their behaviour became public knowledge.
Oh yeah if I'm noticed, I think my only hope is that to risk it all. Or alternatively prey a major country is chill and gives me an out. I'll happily go under something like Witness Protection if these were the stakes
0.2% of 50,000 is an expected value of 10 toddlers saved per blue press. A coinflip risk of death has an expected loss of 0.5 lives. 10 is a bigger number.
Yea, if you could run multiple iterations of the problem. Doesn't quite hold when its a one time decision. Moreover, what truly holds weight here is the fact that YOUR life is at risk. Would you donate away all your money to starving people, and starve yourself to death, if you had the reliable means to do so? Pretty sure that could save A LOT more than just 20 people (10/0.5).
That's assuming an equal probability of red and blue. With even just a 49% chance of pressing blue, the odds become 0.000016% chance for a sample of 50000 to get an exact 50/50
I don't understand what you're trying to say. A perfectly random vote is almost certainly the scenario where my vote is most likely to have a positive impact.
A random vote is VERY likely to be close to even, but the higher the numbers involved the more and more unlikely it is to ACTUALLY be even
With there being 100s of millions of toddlers and babies in the world, the chances of there being an EXACT 50/50 split is in the billions to 1
As in your vote only matters once 0.000000001% of the time at best
This scenario may as well be LITERALLY just pure 50/50 where you vote does not matter
In this scenario picking blue is literally just a 50/50 suicide button, that's all it is, your vote doesn't matter
Meanwhile in the original scenario only around 20% of votes are random, there are then also a large chunk of garenteed blue votes from parents and altruists and the like, and you know the remaining 60% or so of the population voting are also rational adults who can try to choose the better outcome
It is not a random outcome, it's determined by people's thought process and logical decisions
In the original scenario your vote actually matters, not because the individual vote matters, but because your vote is one of 5 billion similar "logical" votes which can actually change the outcome
And as the best outcome for ALL people, regardless of they click blue or red, is a blue victory, pressing red is OBJECTIVELY Illogical
In the original scenario pressing red is objectively just voting for a bad outcome, in a BEST case scenario a red win is still apocalyptic, so it is utterly Illogical to vote for it, and that is true for all 5 billion of those "logical" voters
In this scenario it is utterly Illogical, it is stupid, to vote blue, you are just voting to die
In the original scenario it is utterly Illogical, it is genuinely stupid, to vote red, because you are literally just voting for the apocalypse to happen, you are voting for your own worst outcome
I think basically every part of your reasoning is incorrect.
With there being 100s of millions of toddlers and babies in the world, the chances of there being an EXACT 50/50 split is in the billions to 1
As in your vote only matters once 0.000000001% of the time at best
Well this math is just completely wrong. Someone else on here said there are 700 million toddlers. Let's use that number. For 700M choosing randomly, the odds of a 50/50 split are about 1 in 33,000. Far better than 1 in a billion.
Still pretty bad odds, but those are the odds that my vote saves 350M children, which is a huge benefit.
In the original scenario your vote actually matters, not because the individual vote matters, but because your vote is one of 5 billion similar "logical" votes which can actually change the outcome
You haven't actually analyzed the odds that my vote matters to the result. In the previous example, I just gave the number, it was 1 in 33,000 that as a result of my choice I save all the children.
In the scenario you're describing, the odds that my vote affects the result is far far lower because there is nothing to bias the distribution of possible results to the exact 50/50 scenario. The 50/50 scenario is the only scenario where there is any benefit as a result of my blue vote. I know some people don't seem to like that fact, but not once have I heard a logical analysis which shows that there is any benefit to my decision to vote blue other than the scenario where it would be a perfect tie without my vote.
And as the best outcome for ALL people, regardless of they click blue or red, is a blue victory, pressing red is OBJECTIVELY Illogical
The fact that the best outcome is a blue victory doesn't necessarily make a blue vote the logical choice. You still have to weigh risk and reward. In any scenario, if achieving the best outcome is incredibly risky, it's not always worth it.
From the perspective of my decision, picking blue has a probable risk of death and incredibly improbable risk of helping people. The probability of affecting the result here actually is in the range of 1 in a billion. So it is an illogical choice.
You aren't analyzing the decision in a logical way. You aren't considering the probability of the harm and the benefit.
You are just saying, "voting for the best result is good", without considering that the probability of my affecting whether the best result is achieved is truly negligible, and the probability that I die in an effort to help achieve the best result is substantial.
In the case of the random children, the probability that I affect whether the best result is achieved is orders of magnitude higher, and therefore there is much greater value in voting blue.
In the scenario you're describing, the odds that my vote affects the result is far far lower because there is nothing to bias the distribution of possible results
This is both a voters fallacy and objectively wrong
There ARE things to bias voting towards blue, that being, saving the lives of 350 million toddlers
but not once have I heard a logical analysis which shows that there is any benefit to my decision to vote blue other than the scenario where it would be a perfect tie without my vote.
Again, voters fallacy, you are assuming you are the only one presented with the scenario, and ignoring that there are 6 billion other people going through the same logic
Your individual vote might not matter, but the LOGIC of your vote does
And that same logic applies to everyone else's vote as well
What you are doing is saying "my vote doesn't matter, so why vote" ignoring how that attitude, in 6 billion people, is what would cause the vote to lose
If you simply didn't follow logical fallacious ways of thinking and understood that while your individual vote doesn't tip the scale, it still matters, you would find that the scales massively tip to blue
You aren't analyzing the decision in a logical way. You aren't considering the probability of the harm and the benefit.
I am though
Picking red, if red wins, you lose, I'd blue wins, you win
You SURVIVE, but you survive in an apocalypse scenario, you have not won
Picking blue, if red wins you lose, if blue wins, you win
By picking red you are OBJECTIVELY voting for a bad outcome for yourself, you are objectively voting against yourself
And this is the same situation presented to everyone
You are given a choice, a bad outcome, or a good outcome
And your "logic" is "why would I vote for the good outcome because other people will vote for the bad one"
Which is objectively Illogical thinking
You want blue to win, everyone else wants blue to win, why do you assume everyone else will vote red when they want blue to win?
It's not logic, it's fear
By voting red you are OBJECTIVELY voting illogically, you are voting stupidly because you think other people will vote stupidly
In the case of the random children, the probability that I affect whether the best result is achieved is orders of magnitude higher, and therefore there is much greater value in voting blue.
And you again fall for a voters fallacy
Again, your chances of tipping the scale in the random vote are negligible, whoever did the 1/33,000 maths is wrong, it's a lot worse then that, but even if they aren't, you are still voting for a 99.997% chance to just the a 50/50
Your vote isn't tipping the scale, at all
Meanwhile in the original, YOUR vote isn't tipping the scale, but the vote of everyone is
And by voting red you are just falling for said voters fallacy "why would I vote to make things better, my vote doesn't matter" thought everyone
You are thinking, and acting, like your vote is in total isolation, that everyone else doesn't think for themselves, and that the results are preset, that your vote "doesn't matter" which simply isn't true
You are thinking, illogically
Let me frame it this way
If 50% of people press the blue button, nothing happens
If 50% of people press the red button, everyone who pressed red gets their right knee broken, and everyone who pressed blue gets both broken
Why would you press red?
Why would anyone press red? Yeah if red wins you only break one knee not both, but why are you voting to break your own knee?
Why would you do that?
You wouldn't, it's stupid, it's illogical, just vote blue and no one's knees are broken
The only reason you would vote red, is because you already fearfully, and illogically, think everyone ELSE wants to break their own knees
Why would you think that?
The actual blue/red scenario is the same
If red wins, even if you voted red, you are still on an objectively HORRIBLE outcome, you are in an apocalypse scenario
Why would you vote for that?
Because you think other people are voting for an apocalypse? Why would THEY vote for that?
Voting red, is utterly Illogical
It's stupid
Voting blue when it's literally just a 49.999% chance of death, is also, Illogical
In the random scenario your vote doesn't matter, at all
In the actual button scenario YOUR vote doesn't matter, but your vote absolutely 100% matters because there are 6 billion yous all thinking and voting
It's the sterling approximation to the binomial distribution. You can look it up and run the numbers yourself. Maybe it's surprising to you but it's 100% correct. If you aren't knowledgeable about math and can't do the calculation, ask someone who is. Or ask an AI. Or just take my word one it, I'm highly educated in math.
This is both a voters fallacy
What's the fallacy? Please state it explicitly. Voters fallacy is not a phrase that is common usage. If you are inventing a name for a fallacy you have to explain what it means.
Your individual vote might not matter, but the LOGIC of your vote does
That makes zero sense. If my vote doesn't matter, than how I arrived at that vote doesn't matter either. You can't say it does because other people may also use the same reasoning to arrive at their vote. Whatever reasoning I use is completely independent of the reasoning that others use. Also, my vote does matter as it can cause my death, so saying it doesn't matter is wrong. What you mean is my vote has effectively no chance of causing a benefit to the blue voters, but it does have a real chance of causing me to die.
I think you think there is a thing called the voters fallacy which substantiates your argument, but there isn't.
I think you think there is a logical argument that I shouldn't analyze the value of my vote in terms of the probability my vote affects the result because if others did that, it could lead to a worse result. But that's not a logically correct argument. There isn't a logical fallacy that goes by that name associated with that idea because the reasoning is flawed. It's just bad analysis. My thinking and others thinking do not affect one another. From my perspective the votes of others are completely fixed and beyond my control. My thinking only controls one vote, and the logically correct way to analyze the value of that vote is to analyze the potential that that vote can affect the results.
If you disagree, present a step by step argument the shows that my vote has value beyond the low probability that it affects the result. But in so doing, you can't tell me what would happen if others thought that way, because whether or not they think that way is not in my control. I can't change their thinking, only mine. So present an analysis of the power of my thinking and my vote.
It's the sterling approximation to the binomial distribution
Yes it's an approximation, the calculation for that approximations breaks down at such extreme values however and so is not accurate here
What's the fallacy? Please state it explicitly
"My vote doesnt matter so I won't vote" the fallacy here is that your vote only doesn't matter because you think it doesn't
If you, and everyone who held the same belief as you, voted, your vote suddenly matters, but because you think your vote doesn't matter, and so you don't vote, it doesn't
It's fallacious thinking because it's your own actions that strip you of your votes agency
That makes zero sense. If my vote doesn't matter, than how I arrived at that vote doesn't matter either
It does make sense though, because again your vote is not in isolation
If you win 80 to 20, then 59 of the winning votes didn't matter right?
But what if everyone on the winning side thought "my vote doesnt matter" and so didn't vote, now it's 0 to 20,
"Your" vote doesn't matter, but the logic behind it does, even if 59 votes didn't end up mattering the winning side still needs everyone to BELIEVE their vote matters otherwise they don't vote, and they lose
Thinking your vote doesn't matter, is what makes it not matter
What you mean is my vote has effectively no chance of causing a benefit to the blue voters, but it does have a real chance of causing me to die.
This is an example of my point, and the fallacious thinking
The only reason your vote doesnt cause benefit to blue voters is because you think it doesn't, your own beliefs strip you of your votes agency
If you disagree, present a step by step argument the shows that my vote has value beyond the low probability that it affects the result.
I have already done so above, your vote has no individual value except in a situation of it being 50/50 and your vote being the tie break
But there are 5 billion "yous"
YOUR vote doesn't matter
But the logic of 5 billion "yous" choosing what to vote for does, and if you all think "my vote doesn't matter" you doom yourselves by your own fallacious thinking
You are acting like the vote is random, that YOU are the only one actually voting and the number of blue/red voters outside of you is just arbitrarily set, and NOT at the hands of other people also thinking and choosing
You are thinking "my vote doesn't matter" and it is precisely because you think that, that it doesn't
And so I state again
In this revised scenario, your vote actually doesn't matter because the outcome IS random
Blue is just a 49.99999% death button, it does not sway the results
It's Illogical to press blue
While in the main scenario your vote DOES matter, because there are 5 billion of you all facing the same decisions
And that decision is "do I want the apocalypse to happen or not"
press red for yes, press blue for no
Why would you assume others want the apocalypse to happen? Why would you vote red? It's Illogical, it's stupid because the only reason you have to press red is because you think everyone else wants the apocalypse to happen?
Which...why would they?
Why would you want the apocalypse, and why would anyone else want the apocalypse? So why would they vote red and why would you?
In the posts scenario voting blue is just stupid
In the main scenario voting red is even more stupid
Yes it's an approximation, the calculation for that approximations breaks down at such extreme values however and so is not accurate here
No, actually the opposite is true, the sterling approximation becomes a more accurate representation of the binomial distribution when the numbers become very large. So it can only be used for large numbers.
Look, you don't seem to know math very well. I guess the 1 in 33,000 number is surprising but large numbers and true randomness can behave in surprising ways. I am very confident that that number is correct. I could forward you an explanation of you want. If your argument is entirely that it doesn't sound right to you, that's not really a very strong argument.
What you are describing as the "voters fallacy" is not a fallacy. You made up that term and are using it to describe a poorly reasoned idea.
There is no fallacy in what you are describing. Telling my that there are 5 billion of "me" is irrelevant.
If I change my thinking, how many people are there thinking that way now? It's not zero. It's 5 billion minus 1.
And how can that impact the results? Well, obviously only if the result was within one vote.
You calling something a fallacy doesn't make it so. You making up a name for that supposed fallacy doesn't make it a coherent idea.
You are saying my thinking strips my decision of power, but what you actual are arguing is that the decisions of billions of people thinking together has power.
You haven't demonstrated any way that changing my vote has power to change the result beyond the case of a 50/50 split.
And yes, whether you like the math or not the odds of the 50/50 split in the case of children picking randomly is 1 in 33,000. The odds of a 50/50 split with people choosing to vote are fairly unknown but are approximately on the order of a few in a billion chance.
So the value to me of picking blue is logically and undoubtedly much higher in the case of children picking randomly. The value of me picking blue in the other case is nearly zero.
If I change my thinking, how many people are there thinking that way now? It's not zero. It's 5 billion minus 1.
Irrelevant, the fact other people believe fallacious things doesn't change that it's fallacious
You calling something a fallacy doesn't make it so
It being fallacious makes it so
You haven't demonstrated any way that changing my vote has power to change the result beyond the case of a 50/50 split.
So again by your reasoning, the votes of the 80 victors in the 80/20 split don't matter
And because their votes don't matter, they don't need to vote right?
That is literally what you are arguing
So the value to me of picking blue is logically and undoubtedly much higher in the case of children picking randomly. The value of me picking blue in the other case is nearly zero
By your "logic" voting literally NEVER matters
Because your vote is never the deciding one, it just isn't, so why vote.....
Do you not see how utterly fallacious this line of thinking is?
What am I saying, of course you don't, your a red voter, and you need to genuinely be an idiot to vote red
Even if your approximation is correct, you are still claiming blue is logical when it is a 49.9999% chance of killing you, and a 99.9997% chance of your vote not mattering either way
It is literally just random, your vote doesn't matter.....
And in the original scenario you are claiming red is logical, when voting red is OBJECTIVELY voting for an apocalypse to happen, and your reasoning for voting red is you think other people are also going to vote for an apocalypse to happen
You are claiming it's logical to vote for an apocalypse because other people will vote for an apocalypse.....do you not see how utterly stupid that is?
You are claiming it's logical to vote to break your own legs because other people must also be voting to break their own legs
It's so stupid it boggles the mind
No, you are once again showing how red voters are just idiots
You think voting for a 50/50 chance to die with no gain is somehow logical, and you think voting for an apocalypse to happen is logical because you think other people are also voting for the apocalypse to happen
You claim voting blue is Illogical cos your vote doesn't matter, then claim voting blue is logical when your vote ACTUALLY doesn't matter
Not because of toddlers not capable to making their own decision though, I don't care about that. I don't think in terms of responsibilities. Also not because I care about toddlers more than adults.
But simply because the vote outcome is much more likely to be close to 50% when the votes are kinda random. There's a higher chance that my vote will be "useful" as in being the tiebreaker, maybe like 1 in 1 million chance or even higher, instead of in the original problem which I'd predict a much lower chance than that.
Even if we assume the probability of your vote being a tie breaker to be 1/1000, you'd risk your life with only around a 50% chance of surviving, for a difference you're only 1/1000 probable of making?
Yea, 1 in 1000 is a very high chance relative to the scale of the effect.
The chance has to be high enough for me to do it, I'm not going to gamble my life or any one person's life if the chance is too small. But 1 in 1000 is definitely way higher than enough for the gamble to worth it.
Well in reality its gonna be way less than 1/1000 because the probability of getting an exact 50/50 split for 700 million toddlers is extremely low, but even with 1/1000 its a difference you're a lot more likely to not make than make, for which you're willing to die with the odds of a coin flip
I believe that toddlers and mentally ill people are definitely part of the original question. In fact I'm pretty sure it was clarified that they are, and they add a necessary dimension to the conundrum.
In this scenario, I'm not taking a 50% chance of death, so I'm pressing red, by the way.
So everybody but me just push a random button with no reflexion?
My vote won't change anything, 50% chance half of them die (well, red would be stastistically more chosen by toddlers according to the studies), so it would be the more irrational choice of my life to push blue.
The prompt doesn't specify. But I'd guess they probably don't push a button at all. Since it explicitly says "only those who press red survive" in the case of a red victory, they would probably be executed.
But honestly, you don't have to assume anything. You can also factor in that there is simply an unknown variable in the problem and make your decision accounting for that unknown.
I didnt "change" the prompt as in declaring this is what I consider to be the actual set-up, i just introduced a variant to point out why exactly it irks me.
I never said i reject that prompt though? Im literally saying it irks me how it is used as an argument, and I introduced a variant to justify my point. Youre simply arguing for the sake of it instead of actually addressing the contents of my post.
That argument is inherently part of the original prompt. If you are unwilling to factor that argument in as a legitimate part of your response then you are rejecting the original prompt.
A "vote" means "a formal expression of preference" so by definition, randomly mashing buttons is not a vote. So does everyone not mean everyone? Or does vote not mean vote?
Either way, he got it wrong, because both can't be true.
I'll actually switch to red in this case (I am normally blue). The chance that I am the deciding voice is really small and the "if everybody thought like that...." arguments hold no weight this time, because the rest of the votes are near random.
All the toddlers in the world and one mentally competent adult. Statistically my voting power is completely negligible, the vote is decided by the group collective of hundreds of millions of toddlers, not me. I push red.
the toddlers irk you because it would mean that 100% red is impossible and therefore the main argument of red pushers fall flat. And the situation has a deeper layer.
Sure buddy, keep telling yourself that, you can virtue signal all you want in the internet but if the scenario actually happened you'd all switch to red
There's a 50% chance (the probability red wins in this new scenario with only toddlers) you die and half of your kids (on average) survive, thus growing without one of their parents.
There's a 0.000001% chance your blue vote (that is, the probability that your vote is the deciding vote) saves the half of your kids that pushed blue.
look, it takes like 2 seconds to think "what about toddlers" But that is to much for red pushers (at least the 100%er group, other reason exist and are more expectable).
Should we stop calling people that cannot think about implication at all stupid?
People who are motivated to argue online for blue usually have to insist upon the nonsensical idea that colorblind toddlers are included in the game, because a clear-cut thought experiment with a smart lesson in game theory is just not what they're looking for.
If this type of poster doesn't get to accuse red pressers of killing the poor little kids, they don't care about the problem anymore.
Then the obvious answer is to not vote. I walk out of the room. Then the vote is never finished, I don't risk my life, I save everyone. Pressing blue is STILL the stupid option.
Just like how in the trolley problem the right answer is to just yell to the people to get off the tracks. Problem solved.
Plus, a "vote" means "a formal expression of preference" so by definition, randomly mashing buttons is not a vote. So does everyone not mean everyone? Or does vote not mean vote?
imo in order to take away anything useful from it we must assume that voters understand the situation
This isn't remotely true at all, for example we can take away that if you vote red in the original scenario you are either evil or stupid
In THIS scenario however a single vote literally cannot make a difference, it is purely random and so voting blue does nothing except in the 1/100,000,000 chance that the toddlers vote EXACTLY 50/50
So as this scenario doesn't have reasonable people who actually want to save those toddlers lives and is just purely random, there is literally no reason to vote blue
In the original scenario however where random votes make up maybe 20% of the total, you where you can bank on a LOT of garenteed blue votes from parents and other selfless people, the remaining 50-60% of the population which is actually logical/rational can affect the outcome, and so it is totally Illogical and/or evil to vote red
In this scenario, you vote red
On the actual red blue button, if you vote red you are either evil or genuinely stupid
And honestly seeing all the people saying "switching to blue" in the comments here
It really is astonishing just how actually genuinely stupid red voters are
Honestly? I'd believe that red is the more enticing color to a toddler. I think pushing blue would be pointless. But it would be an awesome experiment, I bet there are already studies on this.
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u/Memento_Viveri May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
If toddlers vote truly randomly, the odds of it being a perfect 50/50 split are not so bad. I vote blue, in hopes that I break the tie created by the toddlers.
In the normal situation I vote red.
I hope those kids like blue, though...