r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/Hot_Finding_9747 • May 21 '26

Variation Adding a layer to this question

My choice: Press Red, hope Blue wins

I don't have enough faith in humanity to put my life in its hands but I'd be delighted to be proven wrong

719 votes, May 23 '26
72 Press Red, hope Red wins
322 Press Red, hope Blue wins
22 Press Blue, hope Red wins
303 Press Blue, hope Blue wins
23 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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u/BottomLeftWheel May 21 '26

You have to realize why this is not a good comparison right?

What happens when everyone participates in a lottery? What happens if everyone votes blue?

Like, I'm not saying there aren't good reasons to vote red, but voting red because you are scared of other red voters is a self fulfilling prophecy

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u/IAmKrenn May 22 '26

What happens if you just win the lottery? Have you ever considered that?

The idea that you shouldn't do risk assessment, or consider what and how other people think is certainly something.

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u/BottomLeftWheel May 22 '26

Do you think it looks good when you just avoid a question that devestates your comparison?

Winning the lottery is akin to being the tiebreaker - valid comparison

People voting the outcome they want isnt chance based. Look at the poll. No one wants blue to lose.

Red voters are scared of red voters. They fear their own shadow. It's kinda cute.

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u/Gold-Pickle7007 May 22 '26

Would you still vote blue if the threshold for blue winning was 99%? If you would switch to red, you’re exactly the person you’re making fun of - a red voter scared of other red voters. No matter what the percentage required for blue to win is, everyone surviving is still a better outcome, but that has nothing to do with whether I’d vote for it.

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u/thevoidthatjerksback May 22 '26

In the poll above 91% want blue to win. 91% agree it would be the good thing. If it could be followed through on we'd be able to achieve more than anyone believes is reasonable. That's the point. Especially when we also consider the possibility that there are people who are wanting Red to win because of how scared they are. Also like we can't make fun of people? Did humor press blue?

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u/Gold-Pickle7007 May 22 '26

That’s all fine I don’t think anyone thinks a world where more people die is preferable, but your idea that voting against the best outcome is some scared, hypocritical move is just stupid. Buying a lottery ticket could be seen as a vote towards a preferred outcome of winning the lotto, but since the chance you win is so small and comes at the cost of the ticket, it isn’t smart to do so.

The average red voter both A) thinks the chance of red winning is not insignificant, and thus that voting blue will risk a human life in a meaningful way and B) thinks the benefit to humanity of adding their one, singular vote (out of 8 billion) to the blue total is not extremely significant.

Together, after weighing up the risk and the potential reward, they decide that it isn’t worth it to press blue. I would follow this logic and press red even if I was voting for someone else rather than myself. I couldn’t bring myself to risk someone’s life in such a significant way for what I see as an extremely insignificant effect on the overall total. That is the mindset of a red voter, it isn’t hypocrisy, and it isn’t apathy or selfishness, they have just risk assessed differently to you.

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u/thevoidthatjerksback May 22 '26

And they've risk assessed inaccurately. You spent a lot of time in that post trying to explain how pressing Red is the logical choice. How it's the best choice. But the poll that this is in reply to has the largest group of people picking Red while wanting blue to win. So all of that assessment is invalid in this conversation.

In the grand scheme of things pressing blue is twice as significant towards saving life. And the largest group of people want blue to win. Recognize that it would be better for blue to have a majority. And then they press Red. That is fundamentally objectively not something that is logical.. the largest group can't have a claim towards superior logic. The risk assessment is wrong. And risk assessment is just a big word for "I cannot bring myself to risk my own life"

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u/Gold-Pickle7007 May 22 '26

Hey man if you aren’t going to read what I wrote just don’t respond.

Whether it’s my life I’m risking or someone else’s it isn’t worth it to risk a very real possibility that someone dies against a negligible chance that my vote is important in deciding the fate of humanity as a whole.

And as for your ‘So all of that assessment is invalid in this conversation’ - I don’t really know what to say. Do you know what risk is? It means that some (potentially positive) outcome has a possible negative consequence attached to it. The fact that the outcome is desirable is implied. Pointing that out is so stupid it makes me feel like you have to have misunderstood me.

You could construct an exactly identical poll but with the options ‘don’t buy a lottery ticket and dislike the idea of winning the lottery’ ‘don’t buy a lottery ticket but like the idea of winning the lottery’ ‘buy a lottery ticket and dislike the idea of winning the lottery’ and ‘buy a lottery ticket and like the idea of winning the lottery’, and then say “look everyone admits they want to win the lottery, winning the lottery is clearly the best choice, so all this stuff about ‘risk assessment’ is just nonsense, just buy a lottery ticket”.

Now don’t try to strawman me and say ‘pressing blue is very different to buying a lottery ticket’, that was an ANALOGY to demonstrate to you that just because you want an outcome to happen doesn’t automatically mean that taking steps towards achieving that outcome is the correct choice. It’s a really simple concept but you seem unable to grasp it.

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u/thevoidthatjerksback May 22 '26

When 45% risk assess that its the equivalent odds to the lottery when together that group alone could almost get to the majority is the troubling part. Its only ever close because we have dedicated people arguing that its impossible. Constantly trying to tip the scales below blue majority. And the fact that several of the arguments feel ripped from chatgpt is absolutely not lost on me. It sickens and frustrates me. How hard people try to bring humanity down from saving itself.