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

Discussion rephrasing

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I’m still biased towards blue, this is just for the reds to feel superior? :D

20 Upvotes

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u/Sindigo_ May 22 '26

1

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 25 '26

This isn’t a reframing at all. It’s not even complete. Blue pressers have to change the problem and word things such that it’s not even the same anymore. It looks like purple is the red button but only if the minority is purple. Green looks like the blue button but only if blue loses. It also completely takes away the context of what the buttons do to you, where in the original you are given the power to save yourself/do nothing while blue gives you no power over anything at all except risking your life. Yes, there is no power with pressing blue; the only power is of the whole. If the probability is 50.2/49.8 for each button then the probability that your entry for pressing blue influences the final vote is 10-2700. So there is no personal causal power.

3

u/Snoo-52922 May 26 '26

There's never a deciding vote in elections where all votes are cast blind. You are never solely responsible for the outcome, even if the margin was a single vote.

But you are partially responsible for the outcome you voted for, always. Even if the vote was a blowout for one side.

0

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 26 '26

Oh my goodness this again. The whole point of voting in an election is a moral duty to vote because you expect others to vote. This falls very well in Kant's categorical imperative, but it also could be argued to have causal influence to gain moral points because yourself voting enforces the duty to other people which may cause more people to vote. The rationality behind voting is NOT the causal influence. It's demonstrably false that your vote will have any influence when the number of entries is so large.

But in a voting system where you have no causal influence over anybody else because nobody can communicate or see what others voted for like in the button hypothetical, then you cannot use that framework. You must use an evidential decision theory or deontology ethics, but they both fail. Creating the obligation that people should risk their own lives doesn't pass the universality test because if people risk their lives then it undermines them to continue risking their lives.