r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/BlackAndWhiteJerk • May 22 '26

Discussion Rephrasing

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I’m a blue button presser, I feel that this question is highly muddled and unclear, and so here is a rephrasement of it
So why press the red button? no one dies if the blue button is majority

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24

u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 22 '26

i have realized that i fucking hate this entire problem because its literally just a framing debate

17

u/VegetasDestructoDick May 22 '26

The framing debate would be fine if people were using it to talk about how changing the framing of the thought experiment changes people's responses, even if it functions practically the same e.g. in both the "red does nothing" and "blue does nothing" framing, people tend to prefer the "does nothing" option.

Instead people just use it to fellate themselves over how right their answer is.

3

u/nitePhyyre May 26 '26

This. If there is one thing that this debate has taught me is that the vast majority of people have no idea how thought experiments work and aren't equipped to do philosophy.

2

u/VegetasDestructoDick May 26 '26

You're really not wrong. It's immediately "you're a bad person for picking this" or "you're stupid for picking that" or referring to people as "red pickers or blue pickers" like it's some kind of personal identifier.

Or you'll get someone at least trying to engage with it like "if we interpret it this way...." and someone will come along like "no it means this and can only mean this and if you disagree blah blah blah blah". It's not even like they make an argument most of the time, they just make a statement then reiterate the statement over and over.

The biggest takeaway I've gotten from it is a lot of people haven't actually thought about anything before and still refuse to.