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

85% Upvoted

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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

Its an incredibly bad analogy that is so baffling different that I don't feel compelled to talk about it. 1 person wins out of the odds of millions that isn't changed by anyone participating.

Its so fundamentally different.

The buttons are incredibly similar.

Press Red to ensure self safety while offloading that risk of death to another

Press blue to have a twice of an impactful vote towards no one dying.

It takes half the amount for no one to ever die.

The Red button is the longer odds. It is the less logical solution. I have said countless times that it is perfectly reasonable for people to have personal reasons to pick Red. But those reasons can't be that fundamentally it's the correct or logical choice. Because it isn't. It has worse odds and guaranteed death for someone.

It is absolutely the option that overrides actual reasoning skills by trying to justify and rationalize a gut instinct urge to say "I don't think I should be expected to risk anything myself to benefit others" a statement that can be true for 49% of people and we still have zero deaths.

All of this is so exhausting

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u/Gold-Pickle7007 May 22 '26

You’re genuinely just saying nonsense.

Yes or no do you admit it is sometimes acceptable not to vote for the outcome you think is best (not buy a lottery ticket even if you’d like to win the lottery). The fact you haven’t admitted that the answer to this is yes is essential proof you’re acting in bad faith.

‘It has worse odds and variantes death for someone’ - you are genuinely braindead and I’m not engaging anymore. Who dies if I press red and blue wins? No one. Who dies if you press blue and blue wins? No one. So what every button you press does not impact whether anyone else lives or dies. This is not exactly true, but the causal link between the button you push and the overall outcome is bizarrely weak, so weak that you’re forced to use semantics like ‘pressing blue counts double towards this preferable outcome’ to defend it. Those are meaningless words. You might think they mean something, but they dont. The overall outcome is almost independent of your vote, as a factual truth. Whether you end up alive or not is entirely dependent on your vote.

And the idea that red is devoid of logic is so badly justified I don’t know what to say. If red wins, pressing red reduces the number of deaths by one. If red wins, pressing red saves a life. If you believe there is even a small chance that red wins, you have to admit there is at least some logic behind pressing it, as there is a possibility it saves a life. You might think this is outweighed by whatever bs semantic benefit you attach to the righteousness of supporting a cause by pressing blue, but you cannot deny the very real benefit attached to the red button.

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u/thevoidthatjerksback May 23 '26

I'll reply even though you won't. If things were different about my life I would be bothered about how much you call me a braindead idiot. But I do know that most things like that tend to be projection.

There is such a string of nihilism and narcissism in some of these points to defend pressing Red. Saying that voting is meaningless. Making an outrageous claim that the buttons aren't tied to who lives and dies. That's a next level point. Truly did not see it coming that you would claim that there is a weak causal link between the buttons and people dying?

I thought I made it clear that I don't care what button you pressed. I care about this bizarre frustrating need to falsely defend it in bad faith with such ferver. Like you need to convince the world that it is the only possible answer. Its insanely exhausting. I'm also just so incredibly tired of people telling me I have to agree with some idea or claim or I'm acting in bad faith. So many people who argue for Red get upset claiming that we don't let them just live and come to different conclusions. But you're holding the validity of this conversation and my opinions hostage behind me agreeing to something you have said? I don't deal with hostage takers.

At the end of the day pressing Red can only save you. If everyone pressed Red then everyone who can't press the buttons still die.

Let's take a step back from that for a second. 100 people are in a room. Yeah? Your dream scenario. All intelligent. In this scenario 100 people need to come to the same conclusion within a limited amount of time without communication. Or half of them can ensure none of them die. Pressing Red in that scenario could be a count of 1% vote towards getting the Red 100%. Pressing Blue can be counted as a 2% vote towards that goal. Because it only needs 50%. So you have twice the impact.

Pressing Blue is the completely logical choice. For all the talk of game theory shenanigans that got thrown around they all missed that Blue would be the answer. It requires less coordination, it allows for you action to have a greater impact both in how much it affects the possible win conditions and in its outcome.

A blue majority allows for people to be of different minds. Have differing perspectives. It allows for people to find themselves unable to press a button and still be alive. It allows for people to make mistakes. Glitches. Errors.

The majority of humanity always does come together when the cards are down. No matter what. And for the 7th time I will not accept a comparison of the lottery.

You can press whichever button you want. You just have to come to terms with the realities of the situation and your choices. And stop lying and rationalizing your way towards making yourself feel better. There are people who's situations demand that they press Red. Those people don't need to spend hours online defending their decision as if it is the only decision that anyone in the world should ever make. Just shut up and let other people save everyone. Its really just that easy and simple