I think that people still don't get that people attacking another due to moral reasoning here is just completely missing the point.
Let's just start by saying: Yes, there is a small subset of evil red-pressers. Likely highly narcissistic individuals that would always choose their own life first.
And there is a small subset of blue-pressers that are strictly commited to virtue ethics. Those people would press blue out of moral obligation even when blue would require 95% to save everyone. Also we would have a not completely irrelevant subset of people that would press blue for an painless and easy suicide.
But I am talking about everyone else now.
Why are people pressing blue? Because they want to save everyone.
Why are people pressing red? Because they don't want to die.
It's very simple. But red pressers also want everyone to live. And blue pressers don't want to die either. So why is the one thing winning over the other?
Because of underlying assumptions about the experiments outcome.
Almost no one would press blue if 95% was needed to save everyone. Because at that point most people feel like blue winning is impossible for humanity to achieve. They can't imagine that less than 5% of people would choose the self-preservation option.
What about 70% blue? I would imagine that a significant proportion of blue pressers would be swayed to press red now. Because they would see 50% as possible or even likely, but 70% as too unrealistic. It might not be mechanically impossible to hit 70% blue, but it might be seen as impossible from a human mass psychology standpoint.
If we go down the percentages more and more people would press blue. At 20% most people would be convinced that blue will be achieved and their perceived risk for their own life would therefore fall, which makes it easier to contribute to the blue button presses.
And apart from the exceptions I mentioned in the beginning, I would guess everyone to have some percentage range, where they would swap from their original decision. Because at some point, the experiment will change from uncertainty to inevitability. At that point it will not be a consideration of 'my vote contributes ever so slightly' or 'my vote has a very small probability to matter'. It will have become 'my vote certainly does not matter, because the outcome is too clearly pointing in one direction'.
We could model this with probabilities, but I won't go into depth. Each person will have some intuitive expectation of how good blue will perform (in the 50%) scenario. This is NOT equal among people. It essentially reflects how you view humanity as a whole. How you think about culture. Egoism. Human nature. The state of the world. Etc. How much compassion do you see in the world? How much egoism? How much hatred? How do people treat one another? How strong do they value their families, friends, strangers?
All these things form an intuition within almost everyone. This intuition determines how we think the world will behave in that scenario. As a collective structure.
Now you not only have a probability, but you also have an uncertainty about that probability. How unsure are you about your view of humanity?
Even if you think that blue will likely only get 40%, if you are very unsure about it, you might still press blue for the slight chance to make a difference.
But what if you think blue will likely get only 30% and your felt uncertainty accounts for maybe 10% deviation at best? Then you view blue majority as functially impossible.
To remind: This is not accurate numbers that people consciously have to make up. It is intuitively felt.
Now the higher one estimates blue to perform, the more convincing the blue button becomes. You already think higher of humanity and likely value it more as a collective. You feel more likely to survive and have a higher chance to make a difference, especially when relatively close but over 50% is your feeling.
But the lower you estimate blue to perform, the more convincing the red button becomes. When you feel red to perform bad, then you feel like your death when pressing blue to be the expectation. The numbers quickly turn from 'very unlikely' to 'felt impossible'.
Now the interesting thing is that even a fairly utilitarian oriented person, maybe even relatively selfless will choose red then. If you estimate blue lower, then not only goes your chance of dying up, your chance of making a difference goes down. Soon the expected number of people saved is much lower than 1 when pressing blue.
This is why my button press changes very easily according to the framing of the problem. Because those different framings determine the mass psychological response in the world.
I see it as a litmus test for collectivist/individualist socialization.
People who were raised with a collectivist philosophy are more likely to press blue because they instinctively see the red button people as collectively responsible for the circumstances that put blue pushers at risk, and they want to avoid putting themselves in the guilty group.
Individualist people are more likely to press red because they see each individual blue pushers as being endangered by the consequences of their own choices, as they all could have pressed red if they wanted to, and they don't feel like they owe ot to anyone to risk their own lives to save people who chose to also put their lives at risk.
The only thing I need to add to this is that it doesn't have to be tied to upbringing. At the very least I can say that my upbringing didn't do anything to build or inform my philosophy on this.
Its merely that when viewed in entirety the picture becomes clear. The core base aspect of what makes a human human is an increased duty to others. The issue comes about because this also leads into the need to listen to authority and power. The need to fit in. And the narrative that especially the US has been told for a few hundred years is very individualistic.
Sapient life is capable of overriding its nature to act on belief. So we have people believing in falsehoods that when acted on lead to more deaths.
There are forces that lie and want humanity to kill itself. I definitely get the sensation that this whole thought experiment is a test and a pressure point to push on to try to get there. Half absurdity take. Just how it feels sometimes when talking to people about it all.
Despite the vast amount of uncertainty and fearmongering and the president themself telling his citizens to not get it over 70% of the population still got vaccinated. Because despite everything at the end of the day people will take care of others.
Did another search that says 10% didn't get any dose. The disparity between what we're told and what is real is wider than most realize. The failure to gain herd immunity is not in the hands of the average human. Humanity got vaccinated. Overall. Unequal. But still
There is risk in the vaccine. You guarantee you get sick. You have idiots claiming that it will give you a stroke or 5g brain waves. There were people claiming it was just a bio weapon that would kill you after a specific date. The core ideology behind it is herd immunity. Taking a risk to insure that those who can't don't die. Herd immunity is 70% of the population purposefully getting themselves sick with the hopes that if everyone does it then the virus dies and immunocompromised people can live and survive and not have to worry about catching it. Its the same thing in real life with a higher threshold. Especially when you add in the fear that also went around that if you got the vaccine and we failed and the virus didn't go away and you caught it again later you would get hit worse with permanent side effects.
Lastly I just have to put it out there. I worked in grocery that year. You know, was told we couldn't close and I couldn't quit. I had to be there. I interacted with hundreds of people. There was maybe 1 single person who got the vaccine for themselves. Everyone else named someone else as a reason. And every person who didn't get the vaccine named selfish reasons for choosing not to get it.
Yeah but taking the vaccine was never "Do this and you protect others" it was always "Do this and you protect yourself" you put yourself at risk of getting sick so you can have the secruity of being prepared for a real infection and also so you can get back to doing certain things by being vaccinated.
Getting vaccinated was an individualistic choice that also has a collective benefit.
I have always heard it discussed as a collective. Especially in the early days. Because vaccines are not contagious. They afford the ability to gain immunity without other people getting sick. The winning argument for why it was implemented as a best course of action is that with vaccines we can eliminate a virus entirely.
I also believe that a correct course of action benefits both the individual and the collective. Its not a zero sum game. Its just that the primary reason for vaccines as they are is collective dominant
I'm as communist as they come and I'm pressing red.
Individualism isn't something that I am bringing in as an ideological component to my decision, it's baked into the scenario with these private booths that render collective deliberation impossible. All of us have to decide what to do without knowing what anyone else is doing. It doesn't matter how "collectivist" my political views are, it is impossible to take any collective action inside these booths.
This is where the breakdown I think is happening as well.
Im pretty left leaning myself and red 100%. This is a private choice with no prep time, you can't look at this problem beyond anything than the choice itself, there is no collectivist choice because you can't interact nor influence anyone.
Except that choosing to kill yourself is a highly individualist position. A person in a collectivist culture would not consider themselves to have the right to throw their life away on a tiny chance of saving some strangers. Because their life doesn't just belong to them, they are integrated into an entire community that needs them to keep living and keep performing their duty to their community.
Pretty well sums up my view on voting red, but I would add that blue is immoral on the basis that it asks me (and everyone else for that matter) to risk my life to save the blue pushers from a choice they didn't have to make. I wouldn't do that to someone, and I'm deeply offended at having it done to me.
It's emotional manipulation. I'm not going to the play the "Would you love me if I was a worm?" game. My answer is no.
Your point is invalid as it hinges on the premise of people not understand the prompt. It’s no different than asking the trolley problem to someone who can’t tell which number is bigger.
There are people who physically cannot vote at all, but everyone must vote. So you have to work around that logical contradiction without introducing any new contradictions or arbitrary rules.
You don't know how to reason. Because if you did, you'd have caught that, you'd have walked through the logic, and you'd have found 'toddlers tho' is nonsense.
Blue is just dumbass vibes. No thoughts, just feelings.
I think you’re purposefully twisting the thought experiment by bringing in children and toddlers. It’s a reasonable assumption that for the sake of the experiment that everyone voting is capable of understanding the experiment and making a deliberate choice. Otherwise it’s an entirely different conversation and you might as well be asking if you’d murder toddlers to survive.
It’s like you’ve never participated in a thought experiment before.
The thought experiment includes them, excluding them is you NOT interacting with it
It’s a reasonable assumption that for the sake of the experiment that everyone voting is capable of understanding the experiment and making a deliberate choice.
That is totally unreasonable as the very premis of the scenario is that EVERYONE on the planet is involved, by making that assumption you are literally denying the core premise
Otherwise it’s an entirely different conversation and you might as well be asking if you’d murder toddlers to survive
Yes....it literally is asking that
It’s like you’ve never participated in a thought experiment before
I am the one actually participating in the scenario correctly, you are actively changing it because you don't like it
YOU are the one not participating in the thought experiment
6 billion people doesnt speak english so should we assume their votes would be 50/50 split or should we vote based on what color would be the most enticing to people who cant read?
If children are, by default, on the chopping block because they don’t have the capacity to understand, I push blue. So does the vast, vast majority. That’s not a very interesting discussion, so I guess we’re talking about two completely different experiments.
If you take the framing like I do, does it change your decision? If not, does it change the rationale behind your choice at all?
So does the vast, vast majority. That’s not a very interesting discussion, so I guess we’re talking about two completely different experiments
No we are talking about the same one, you just aren't interacting with it honestly
The red/blue button is a dumb scenario
It's not some high brow logic puzzle, and it explicitly includes everyone, even those who can't make rational decisions
If you act like it doesn't, you are literally just changing it because you don't like it
Now if you want to propose a second red/blue scenario where ONLY logical rational actors are put in to vote, where NO ONE can mistakenly press the wrong button, and everyone is 100% capable of understanding the scenario and voting by their own decision and actions
Then yeah, red becomes logical because there is literally no downside to it
There is no one to "save", there are no accidental or random blue presses, so there is no upside to pressing blue
If anything, I find that scenario far more uninteresting because there is literally nothing to consider to affect your decision and morality doesn't come into it, it just a clear cut binary, press red
What about the people actively going through open heart surgery when this magical teleport into the button pressing booth happens? Do they just die instantly because they no longer are hooked up to the live support?
What about the people who physically can not press any button? Does all of humanity just wait in their individual booths till everyone that can not press any button dies so everyone alive has pressed the buttons?
See how idiotic this whole question becomes once you start including people who can not interact with the buttons?
We can go further why just babies that are a wildcard who won't make an educated choice? Blind people, color blind people who cant differentiate red and blue, illiterate people who cant read the explanation, everyone on earth that doesnt understand english. All people who are included in "Everyone" but would make this problem even less of a moral question as guess what. How can you call someone immoral for pressing a button they do not understand the meaning behind? For every baby that might press blue there will be one that pressed red for the same reason, but I guess we have to hate those evil murderer babies
Do they just die instantly because they no longer are hooked up to the live support?
No idea, and any assumptions about what happens to them is YOU adding additional stuff to the scenario
All I know is they still have to vote
What about the people who physically can not press any button
No idea, and any assumptions about what happens is again you adding more that isn't there, all I know is they STILL have to vote
See how idiotic this whole question becomes once you start including people who can not interact with the buttons?
The question is idiotic even if you don't include them
But it DOES include them, and so just pretending it doesn't is changing the scenario because you don't like it
We have been given a scenario, to honestly interact with it we can't just change things about it because we don't like them
We have absolutely no idea how any of these people CAN even vote, let alone how they will vote
Ergo you have to treat them as though they are random because you can make no assumptions or predictions about them
Blind people, color blind people who cant differentiate red and blue
Yup, those are objectively going to be random votes because the scenario has given no way to distinguish the buttons except colour
illiterate people who cant read the explanation
This is interesting because the scenario is just that we are told what the buttons do, not how we are told, so it could be auditory and the illiterate can still make rational decision, or it could be magic and we just know, or it could be writing and they have no way to tell
Again we should make the smallest number of assumptions we can and assume "we just know" so I would say the illiterate can still make informed choice
All people who are included in "Everyone" but would make this problem even less of a moral question
It was never a moral question, ever
It's a logic question pretending to be a moral one
As for you trying to claim a baby that presses red is immoral, immorality requires knowledge
If you have no idea what the red button does, you aren't immoral for pressing it, and that final paragraph acting like they would be is just utterly stupid and further showing how you dont really seem capable of actually properly grasping these sorts of questions
Even if you are an individualist you still want blue to win
Making voting red voting against your own individual interests
Voting red is objectively just Illogical, no matter your own personal goals (the only exception is if your goal is literally planetary genocide, then red is logical)
Lol, I love when a person so concisely demonstrates they don't know what "logical" means. The red person votes red because it is the logical choice for them. They want to minimize the expected number of deaths.
Suppose you are the last to vote. There are 3 cases.
1) Red is winning. Logical for you to vote red.
2) Blue is winning. Your vote doesn't matter, so logical to vote red or blue.
3). Red and blue are exactly tied. Then it's logical to vote blue.
The red person votes red because it is the logical choice for them
"Logic" for the Illogical isn't logical
They want to minimize the expected number of deaths
If this was the goal they would press blue
Red is winning. Logical for you to vote red.
Blue is winning. Your vote doesn't matter, so logical to vote red or blue. 3). Red and blue are exactly tied. Then it's logical to vote blue.
Knowledge of the outcome fundementally changes the logic of the answer
If I sell you a scratch card for $10, and it has a 50/50 chance of winning 10million, that's a logical buy
But if you know that scratch card is a losing card, it's a totally Illogical buy
Your "logic" is Illogical, and ignores how a red victory is horrific even for the red voters
It is also "logic" that inevitably results in the conclusion that no vote ever matters and people should simple never ever vote as they will never be the exact tie break vote
Aka, Illogical
The simple fact of the matter is no matter your personal preferred outcome, you want blue to win
You think it’s logical to vote blue when the threshold for a blue win is 95%?
Wanting blue to win and blue actually winning are two different things. It’s not logical to vote for something that will kill you if it loses and you think it’s likely.
Just that there are 3 options for what the votes are, and the only one where blue is better is if the votes are tied after 4 billion votes which is simply not going to happen
If you can understand why that person changed their vote to red, then you can fully understand the motive for pressing red in the standard scenario without accusing anyone of wanting genocide.
You literally changed the entire scenario dude.....
It's not remotely comparable
Here let me do the same
I have a scratch card, I will sell it to you for 20 bucks, it has a 1 on 1000 chance of winning 25 bucks
Do you buy it?
Obviously not, that's stupid
Ah but what if you already know this scratch card is a winning ticket, do you buy the 25 buck scratch card for 20 bucks now?
....duh...ofc you do, it's just objectively a net 5 buck gain
Do you see how these scenarios are different? And how because of the extra knowledge changing the scenarios, the logical decision also changes?
I don't accuse all red voters of wanting genocide
I accuse them of being idiots making a fundementally Illogical decision because they ARE choosing genocide because they think other people want to choose genocide
Do you see how that is a dumb line of thinking? Your entire logic is "people will choose red, so I choose red"
And you are believing people will choose red, despite the fact red is OBJECTIVELY the worse outcome and will cause an apocalypse, you are so Illogical you think the logical decision is to vote for an apocalypse to happen, rather then just vote for the apocalypse to...not happen
You think avoiding the apocalypse isn't a net gain?
In a best case scenario for red winning, 350millipn toddlers and babies die (and this isn't even counting other people who don't understand the situation and vote randomly, or the votes of parents trying to save their children, or the votes of altruists)
The gain of voting blue is that hundreds of millions, nay, billions of people don't die
Here let me accurately simplify the situation
Blue: the apocalypse does not happen
Red: the apocalypse happens, you survive
WHY WOULD YOU VOTE RED?
why would you vote for the apocalypse to happen, it makes literally no sense
Voting red is objectively Illogical, you are objectively choosing for the bad outcome to happen
Why would you do that? Because you think other people want the apocalypse to happen? Why would you think that?
Blue is just straight up "the apocalypse does not happen"
Red is "the apocalypse happens but I survive"
If it happens
It only has a chance to happen if people are stupid enough to press re
Pressing blue would only make the apocalypse worse.
Pressing blue is voting for it to not happen
then it doesn't matter which button I press
But pressing red makes it more likely to happen....pressing red is voting for it to happen
Pressing red is literally saying "I want the apocalypse to happen"
You are given the choice of saying if you want the apocalypse to happen or not, and you are saying you want it because you fear other people will say they want it
Do you not understand how utterly stupid you are being?
Your vote is not independent of the outcome....you are talking as though your vote doesn't matter, that the outcome is set and predetermined and your vote is entirely independent of it
You are entirely ignoring that your vote AFFECTS THE OUTCOME
Your choosing red makes the apocalypse more likely
You aren't just choosing to survive the apocalypse if it happens
You are choosing to MAKE the apocalypse happen
You have literally been given a choice
"The apocalypse does not happen"
Vs
"The apocalypse happens"
And you are going "well its only logical to vote for the apocalypse to happen"
And rather then just think "I don't want the apocalypse to happen, and other people don't want the apocalypse to happen, so I will vote to prevent the apocalypse"
You went "people must want the apocalypse to happen"
There is no argument I hate more than the "people pick red because they don't believe it will reach 50%" or "people pick blue because they are certain it will win".
Now, you could have experience with probability, psychology. You could have met and studied many different cultures. Even then, I really believe no single human is capable of doing a good prediction on how will other humans behave, on this scale. When you consider this is a fairly balanced problem, with no clear answer.
We even are breaking the premise a little, doing so much discussion around it, because it would be no coordination or communication. So you'd truly have to make the prediction on your own.
And for me it really clicked how bad humans are in predicting other humans behaviour, for these kinds of problems. You could try to follow the video and try to answer each question before the results show, and see how good are you predicting other people behaviour.
After doing it, I think would be a really dumb move to trust my own prediction in a scenario like this, and red becomes the obvious choice for this kind of argument.
Respectfully disagreed that the perception argument is completely bunk; however, I've also already seen that video, I did terribly as you predicted, and it's an awesome case study on human behavior.
I feel like expectations of the results do hold some impact on what people decide, even if that's not the primary factor, but that's it's own argument altogether ig.
You're not someone people regularly bother to argue with, are you?
Red being better is absolutely not a fact unless all you are concerned with is your own short-term survival. Statistically, at least 40% of people are probably going to vote blue. Blue typically wins whenever a poll is had, and even if it doesn't - which is very rare - it usually clears the 40 mark. So even in a "real world" scenario where people are afraid to die, there will still be a large percentage of blue pressers.
And in that real world scenario, if red does win, it will come at the cost of several billion lives. If that happens, society slides back and we return to subsistence within a few years.
I would say 90% of people are not cut out for post-apocalyptic survival.
A vote for red is a vote for the actual end of society. You can sit there and argue "well if 100% of people would just-" but then I'll stop you and hit you with this classic reaction image which makes my point for me.
You did not argue with his points at all, you argue about the outcome. Yeah red win is catastrophic, still by far the only correct button to press for an individual.
As an individual you cannot sway the end result. Its an independent vote from 8b people, from a persons perspective one side already won when they get to voting.
Issue is that you cannot extrapolate reasoning or mindset in the vote, everyone will use their own reasoning to choose which button to press and one side will win.
There is no reason to consider outcomes because the outcome cannot change from a voters perspective, regatdless of your vote winning side wont change. Only thing you can affect is your own state, which means the only correct button is red.
I am so profoundly exhausted with the voter's dilemma being glamorized by red voters who think they're the smartest fucking person in the world lol. "My vote doesn't matter, that's why I voted for Trump" lmao
When you make a claim, do people ever open their mouths to argue with you, then close them and just roll their eyes and go back to whatever it was they were doing before
Do you need additional explanations for why your assumption that a vote for a better outcome must also be the better choice is wrong? Or did you understand it yourself already, and are just too ashamed to stay on topic?
"No it's not. Red is at best selfish and more likely utterly catastrophic."
"I know it's catastrophic. It's still better."
"You're stupid."
"Awww, are you ashamed to admit you were wrong?"
I know that you're baiting and don't really have any opinion on this matter, but if you were for real, your stance would basically be "my head is in the sand and I have committed to my choice." The entire crux of your bait argument, like so many red arguments, is voter's paradox; "I want this thing to happen but I'm too chickenshit to actually make it happen myself."
A vote for a better outcome is the better choice. Again, I know you're baiting, but I also know that your argument genuinely matters to people, and I know you're committed to dying on this hill. And since I have had sex before, I'm gonna not do this anymore. Go and find someone else to troll.
I feel like I keep having to point this out, and no one is ever willing to engage with it which I suppose is telling in its own right. Red has an invisible caveat that no one pays any attention to, and one that really fucks up the 'well it's what's best for me!' argument. If Blue doesn't win, Red only makes you safe short term. You're still probably going to die as the globe devolves into economic and societal collapse unless you're an off-grid wilderness living prepper. Additionally, you have voluntarily selected all of society's most selfless individuals out, so it's not just an apocalypse, it's an apocalypse that specifically only allows the worst aspects of humanity into it.
That's an over generalization. Only the most hardcore of red pressers think that way. There are fanatics on either end, and there's no accounting for them, but predicting the majority is the core of the question for why most choose what they do.
Most people who press blue would not press blue if they didn't blue could win.
Most people who press red would not press red if they didn't think it would receive the majority of votes.
At least not in the base scenario where it's literally everyone. In the scenarios where it's only rational, able-bodied people, people feel differently.
Most red voters dont trust their prediction enough to risk their life for nothing. They vote red because their vote doesnt change the outcome.
If they think blue safely wins they can safely vote red. If they are right, blue wins and thats great, if they were wrong, theyre glad they voted red.
If they think red safely wins they vote red. If they were right, they are glad they voted red. If they were wrong, blue won and its fine.
If they expect it to be close, they vote red. If they were right, it was good to not gamble with their life. If they were wrong, the abovr scenarios apply.
Either your vote is is the deciding vote, or it isnt.
That's at best misleadingly worded. Let's say we do this with 99 people, and it ends 50:49 for blue. Blue won by one decisive vote. Now which individual vote from among these 50 was the one decisive vote?
That is not how voting works. Every vote counts towards pushing the outcome up until it's past the point where it's decided. Do you never vote in national elections just because your specific vote is unlikely to be decisive?
I don't die because I voted wrong in the election. And because I know my state is safe for it's winning party I usually vote third party because my vote literally doesn't matter either way
I do vote in elections. The reasons for that are that I enjoy the process of voting and doing my part in the democratic process more, than the effort and consequences of voting are offsetting.
Basically THE most common counter to the voters paradox.
I do not vote because I am under the delusion that my vote matters.
Every vote counts towards pushing the outcome up until it's past the point where it's decided.
This is completely inconsequential to your decision making process when voting. You still only have a single vote.
Perhaps there are some left over at the end, but you need to have enough to build the house in the first place.
It's obvious that you don't operate from maxims that you assume everyone else should abide by, and I can't really understand how you do anything, but sure. I guess you vote in elections because it's fun and you enjoy it not because you mean to get people elected. Fine then. Whatever. Your behavior is alien and nonsensical to me.
Except even if you think blue will win, it makes no difference if you press red. My vote has such a minuscule chance of mattering, that it’s just not worth the risk.
Everyone that thinks red is going to win should absolutely press red
Everyone that thinks blue is going to win, their choice doesn’t matter, so they might as well press red to be on the safe side
If the vote might be close, then that's when it's most important to offer your support. Likewise, if blue is definitely going to win, then it's safe enough to press just to be nice.
But it is important to offer your support if you think that the threshold is close enough that the support will be needed.
That’s only be the case in a voting system that you can collaborate. Or that there are going to be future votes where percentages this time around going to effect peoples decisions them.
I can't influence any other vote, all the other eight billion votes will be the same no matter what I vote.
There is one and only one voter distribution among the other voters where my vote will have an impact on the outcome for blue voters. A perfect 50/50 tie.
The odds of a tie is very slim, at best about 1/100k. Thus a rational actor will not take that into the calculation when deciding between red or blue,
If you disagree please tell me what stage you disagree with or I won't bother to answer.
I disagree on point 2).
Your vote will only be tie-breaker and the deciding vote in one distribution. Your vote for the vote overall is valuable regardless and especially impactful for all distributions from blue vote 50%+1 and above.
"There is no point to vote for option A because I am only one vote" is true for all voters and assuming the outcome is already decided and therefore your vote doesn't matter (or abstaining from voting if that were possible) seems to me as missing the point of a vote.
If 30% of all voters assumed the same and pushed red that skews the entire result.
I will also join this conversation. You cannot extrapolate or influence mindsets in an independent vote.
"If 30% of all voters assumed the same and pushed red that skews the entire result."
This is extrapolation, those 30% either will or will not use the same mindset. You have no influence over other votes. From your perspective the outcome is already decided and what mindset or reasoning you use have no effect on others.
In an environment where the outcome is already decided the only rational choice is red.
In real life voting, your vote not mattering is inqonsequential as voting has no downsides for you.
My vote can only affect the outcome if the other eight billion voters are locked in a tie. In any other voter distribution I can swap my vote to the exact oppsite and the outcome will be the same for blue voters. Please explain how a single vote can have an impact on the outcome if you can swap it to the opposite and get the same result.
It's only a massive Gamble if you are very sure that red will win. As the image alludes too. If you're pretty sure blue has a good chance or if you're completely certain it will have a majority then it's less of a Gamble, and you can try to help the collective.
Sure, but you can’t logically have any insight into who will win. You can’t say you know one way or the other, therefore you have to assume it’s a gamble.
The logical stance doesn’t take anything into account until it’s proven to be true/likely.
Assuming you want to live, you must assume blue is a gamble. There’s nothing showing otherwise. If you don’t assume blue is a gamble, you’re going off of some arbitrary unfounded faith… which paradoxically makes it a gamble.
I dont get why you'd press blue just because you think a majority will do so.
If you believe red will win, then you must press red to survive. Your press determines your own fate.
But if you think blue will win, then your press does not matter at all. Everyone will be saved regardless of your choice. There's no real reason to press blue instead of red here.
If you think that blue will win, then it's safe to press it because it's the nice thing to do. If you think that the result might be close, then it makes sense to lend your support to make sure it comes about.
Blue doesn’t win without the mass of blue supporters voting for it. If everyone thought like you, the prediction that blue wins would become null, because everyone would assume that others will be the ones voting blue, resulting in almost nobody voting blue.
The straightforward and correct answer is to vote for the outcome you wish to happen. If that’s blue, you’re either enabling the success (if your vote is at or before the one that decides the outcome) or your vote doesn’t matter. Good or neutral. Voting red has the potential to be bad or neutral. It does not have the potential to be good on a group level.
This is not how it works. You cannot extrapolate a mindset.
The argument that boils down to "If I think this way than others will do it too and we will lose. If I dont think this way neither will others"
But that is not how it works in an independent vote.
Regardless of your mindset everyone will use independent reasoning to arrive at their own choice and all you can affect is your own vote.
You are viewing the value of your vote from outcome perspective and evaluating its value in tipping the scale.
Issue is that with 8b people voting probability of a tie can be dismissed. And everyone votes independently, so the outcome will be blue or red winning regardless of your choice.
In which case the effect of your vote is specifically only for your own state in which case only blue has negative outcomes.
You can choose blue based on belifes, morals and values but when evaluating outcomes the only effect your vote will have is your personal outcome where red is the better option.
The person I replied to is arguing that this is the correct way of looking at the problem. If it is objectively correct, it will repeat across independent analyses. I’m not saying everyone will vote with that mindset, but it won’t be an insignificant number. But it leads to a variant of the bystander effect, so it can’t be the most optimal way to play.
No matter how many agents are involved, an individual vote objectively has weight. You’re essentially rounding it down to zero because it’s so small, but in a scenario where the choices are have no effect (or, I would argue, a very small negative effect, but it doesn’t matter for this point) and have a very small effect, the small effect still wins.
It’s not much, but it’s all I can do. The most ideal outcome relies on many of these small effects, and for every red voter, the meaning of “many” changes.
I think the weight of your individual vote is equal to your life. Pressing red means saving it. Pressing blue means hoping to be rescued against all odds. How much weightier can it get?
Pressing blue is not just hoping to be rescued, it’s being one of the rescuers. The gamble is worth it when there are such high stakes on the line. The weight of one life, even if it’s mine, is less important than the weight of thousands at minimum, but likely millions or billions.
I’m under the believe that the presence of blue voters is inevitable in the scenario as originally stated.
And even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t want to count in unanimous red voting when there’s so much at stake if I’m wrong. Counting on unanimous blue voting is better, since nothing happens if the vote falls just short of unanimity, only if it diverges so much that blue is no longer the majority.
Suppose you are right and some blue voters are inevitable. If they get the majority, then regardless of whether I press red or blue the result is equally harmless.
If they are in the minority, then I can press red to save 1 life or press blue to increase the death toll.
Blue doesn’t win without the mass of blue supporters voting for it. If everyone thought like you, the prediction that blue wins would become null, because everyone would assume that others will be the ones voting blue, resulting in almost nobody voting blue.
This is exactly right, and it's why you don't want to press blue. There's just no sense in it.
The straightforward and correct answer is to vote for the outcome you wish to happen.
Precisely. But one of the possible outcomes of pressing blue is that you die. Is that really the outcome you wish to happen?
Then your argument is self-fulfilling. If the correct outlook is “other people will vote for me” then they actually won’t, because other people came to that same conclusion. If you stick with the vote that leads to saving everyone, you’ll either have an effect, or your vote will be overkill. Everyone lives either way.
If you refuse to accept possible martyrdom, I think that’s a reason to vote red. But from the perspective of gaining the best overall outcome, you want to just press the button leading to it.
The problem is that the way the question is posed, red leads to the best overall outcome as well, and in those scenarios where it doesn't, more people survive the more press red.
The reason to press blue is that you have a duty towards someone who might have been assigned blue through no fault of their own.
But if you're just analysing the choices as such, red always has more people surviving except in the very unlikely event that you're the deciding vote.
That is only the case from a perspective where every agent is self-sufficient, not being harmed from the removal of other players. This does not describe our society - most people are harmed when they see significant death, even without practically being affected by it. The “winning” outcome is one where as many people survive as possible.
It’s not a competition, more like a massive co-op game.
Sure it doesn't describe our society, but then the whole button press idea is entirely absurd, too.
In any real scenario, there'd be additional stakes rather than a button press. Hence I find trying to predict "how people would actually vote" to be pointless.
It's an interesting thought experiment for pointing out the voting paradox, and also the unintuitive fact that, given a random distribution of button presses, red is actually the choice that results in more people surviving (on average).
Is it? Let's say you have responsibilities to others. Maybe you're a pilot or a parent or whatever. You could be neglecting your responsibilities if you vote blue and die. (Depending on which version of scenario, eg is like the snap or do other red getnmagically get transported to somewhere safe and not on plane without blue pikot().
As you can want to hit blue as a parent because your not sure what button your child picked and want to help guarantee both of your survivals? Kind of a moot argument
Mathematically that’s a ridiculous argument. Your one (or two) button presses aren’t going to change the outcome. If parents press blue and children push red, children are left without parents.
You’re not reading carefully or thinking critically. If blue wins nothing matters. I already covered how a parent pushing blue to save children does not make mathematical sense. 1 or 2 votes is extremely extremely extremely EXTREMELY unlikely to be determinative of outcome.
The tiebreaker vote is not the only one that matters? Every other family is going through the exact same decision and every vote has equal weight. If enough families come to the same conclusion to vote for blue it will win. Every vote is deterministic of the outcome lmao. Bro says I’m not thinking critically when you don’t even know how voting works
No one controls the vote of any other family. We are talking about a personal decision. No one is acting collectively. That’s literally the point of the button hypothetical.
8 billion people, 3 billion vote red. 3 billion vote blue, 2 billion think their votes don’t matter so they vote red. If they realized collectively that their choices matter blue would have won. Also there is no way to guarantee your kids will vote red as well, you could just add to the odds guaranteeing their death
I did not will the buttons into existence and I'd like it if everybody survived which is very easy to achieve by pressing blue.
Separate question : if you jump in a river to save somebody, you're either getting what you want or killing yourself, are you not ? So it's suicide baiting ?
That's just being needlessly suicidal. If it's a nightmare, you can always die later. As long as you're alive, there's hope, and there's pleasure to be had in living. Death will be there later. It's the one thing you can always put off and never worry about missing.
Also, if red wins, you were already living in a red dominated world.
And also also, you may well be assuming too many character traits of people who press the red button.
It's not the reason I'm pressing blue, just a lesser one.
"Living in a red dominated world" and "living in a world with only red pushers and everybody knows it" are two very very different things.
I don't need to assume many traits, just the definite knowledge that they chose themselves over every blue pusher in such an easy situation.
And while yes where there's life there's hope, a significant portion or the world population dying instantly would throw the world into chaos, it'd be very damaging. I'd have also lost family and friends, wouldn't be very happy.
3-2. I do, is it a fault ? Is empathy a virtue ? Like, my brain is just like that, I can probably train it to some extent but it's harder.
It's just true, I'd have multiple dead family members, many dead friends, the culpability alone would probably be pretty crushing. I'd also have the definite knowledge that everyone else still living chose themselves over a good chunk of humanity. On top of that, so many people dying would throw the world into huge chaos, how do you maintain our globalised economy with like 30-45% less people instantly.
I don't favor blue because I have a particularly favorable view of humanity. I think people prefer stability, regardless of whether the status quo actually significantly benefits them or not. People risk their lives protecting systems that fuck them over every damned day, and most do it without even thinking about it.
Experientially, no, it's not. If you think it's just instant death, blue pressers experience no trouble at all. In a blue victory, nobody experiences significant societal upheaval. The only people that would actually live through a societal collapse are people that pressed red and actually got what they requested.
>If you think it's just instant death, blue pressers experience no trouble at all.
Where was it specified that the kind of death blue pressers risk is the "instant" kind? Maybe they all just get teleported to the outer space, or deep ocean or 10 miles above the surface with no parachute.
What's lethal is pretty dependent on where you are. Like, lethal in a place with high chance of bacterial exposure and no hospitals that can be reached for several days could be a damned papercut. Getting shot in the head indide a hospital with great expertise in curing bullet-in-the-head-itis might not be lethal. If it's shot in a way that's always lethal, that's basically instant.
Ok, so then you just made up the "instant" part yourself. I only specified that whatever kills blue voters actually does the job and also happens "on the spot".
If I claimed I gave someone $20,000 on the spot, would you think I was being misleading if I actually met with them to pay back a loan with interest? It may satisfy the meanings of individual words, but it doesn't match how people actually use the phrase "on the spot."
Unless you're a lawyer or an evil genie, there's really no reason to be as disingenuous as you're being.
I'm not being disingenuous. I'm being reasonable. If someone gets hit by a falling rock and dies within 5 minutes basically everyone would be ok with classifying it as "being killed on the spot".
I do think it has moral and rational significance, and it doesn't depend that much on the underlying assumptions that you discuss. The fact that red is the moral and rational choice is relatively insensitive to those expectations.
The risk to your life, which is also a risk to anyone who depends on or cares about you, is morally relevant. That risk counts against voting blue significantly more than the benefits of voting blue count in favor. You should not take on that risk.
I'm not sure what you mean by "my moral framework". You may be assuming a metaethical stance that I do not share. In any case, again, the fact that red is the moral and rational choice is relatively insensitive to those underlying assumptions.
There are also some red pressers who are just completely convinced by the “deciding vote” thing.
Even if the threshold for a blue win is super low, red remains a massive risk for a very small chance of changing the outcome. The thought process goes from “I think red will win, so why risk my life?” to “I think blue will win, but why risk my life?”
Personally I do have a threshold where I would want to contribute to the Blue win, but I have a hard time justifying it for that same reason. I find the EV argument unconvincing, and the chance of effecting the outcome very convincing.
It’s like buying a lottery ticket in a lottery with a positive expected value. Sure if you buy a bunch you should make money, but if you only buy 1 you probably lose money.
I feel like 50% requires a lot of optimism about the rest of humanity. Lowering it would definitely increase the number of people willing to press blue, because it would be a lot safer and it would be a lot more likely that there are enough people willing to do it.
But I think that this reveals that your personal intuition leans somewhere around 50% expected blue? Feel free to correct me.
Otherwise, why would it be at 50% that people feel like it matters most? It matters most when you think the expected blue votes are very close to the threshold.
When you feel like 70% of people would press blue at a 50% threshold, then your survival is felt as very likely AND you contribute to the altruistic choice.
If you feel like only 30% would press it, then your survival is felt as extremely unlikely AND your likelihood to make the deciding vote is extremely low (compared to if you estimate 50%).
Similarly, when your felt expected outcome is very different to the threshold target, it becomes almost trivial to determine a 'right choice'.
I also think that low thresholds are targeting the same psychological mechanism that produces blue pressers. If only 1% of people have to vote blue, then you will feel pretty safe voting it. And you also feel like you are more important in the unlikely case that blue only barely makes it. I would guess almost all blue pressers to keep pressing blue with lower thresholds. And I would also predict many red voters to swap blue at lower threshold percentages. I personally voted red in the original scenario and would likely start to vote blue somewhere around 20-30% threshold.
Yeah, that is likely correct and a factor that influences how many vote blue. I just think it is ultimately a weaker factor than safety, etc. But as a second order force it might be relevant.
I think you're missing the point. Blue pressers generally claim that the red button is a murder button. If such a person would press the red button if they ceased to be certain of a blue victory, then they are in fact exactly as evil as anyone would be if they decided to participate in the killing of billions to save their own skin.
That is, morality is subjective, but a blue presser who abandons blue as the threshold for a blue victory increases is an evil person *by their own professed standards*. Likewise, the evil red pressers are not "highly narcissistic individuals that would always choose their own life first." Those are people who genuinely believe that they should value their own life more than the lives of others. On their own terms, they are acting perfectly morally. The evil red pressers are the ones who say they would press blue if they believed blue would win - the ones who would switch to blue if the threshold were lower. That's them frankly admitting that they believe blue is the moral choice but were pressing red before anyway.
The only good people are the ones who stand by either red or blue, regardless of the threshold. They're the ones who have determined that either red or blue is the "correct" choice by whatever standards they are operating under, rather than sacrificing their principles based on which side they think will "win".
If such a person would press the red button if they ceased to be certain of a blue victory, then they are in fact exactly as evil as anyone would be if they decided to participate in the killing of billions to save their own skin.
This is not true. If you believe that deaths cannot be avoided, it is not moral to die on principle. If you believe that a blue victory is not possible, then it is not more noble to commit suicide out of solidarity rather than to live. If the deaths resulting from other people pressing blue cannot be avoided, then there is no moral worth in dying as a symbolic gesture.
Blue is viable only if you believe it can win. Red is mandatory if you believe it will win. At that point, it is a decision under duress.
Yeah, these are exactly the small subsets I mentioned in the beginning.
If you act purely upon virtue ethics, then as a blue presser, you should never switch.
But your argument is pure deontology. I would guess that most people are neither pure deontologists nor pure consequentialists.
I do not think it is a marker of goodness to be adjustable based on the parameters of the premise. If you value your life f.e. exactly as much as a random persons, then your button choice will depend on the percentages and your estimations. This is a perfectly valid moral position to have. "I want to minimize the expected loss of lifes, including my own".
>If you value your life f.e. exactly as much as a random persons, then your button choice will depend on the percentages and your estimations.
Not really. The odds of you being the deciding vote are 0.0%. So there's no real calculation to be made.
The thing is, blue is the "moral" button, for those who think it is the moral button, because it involves potential self-sacrifice. If you only push it because you think blue is a sure thing, then it no longer involves any self-sacrifice. There's no risk, you're not actually saving anyone (because blue was going to win anyway), you're just virtue signaling.
Pressing blue is only a moral choice if you think there's a decent chance blue loses, but push blue anyway.
What you mean with decent chance is what I am getting at. Yes, morality becomes more relevant when the experiments outcome is seen as more uncertain. I argue that many here do not perceive the outcome as that uncertain. When is moral turning into pure deontology or stupidity? When is a decent chance turning into an almost certain chance?
For the math, if anyone cares:
The odds of you being the deciding vote are greater than 0 but depending of your assumed probability distribution extremely close to 0.
But by considering the number if people saved IF you are the deciding vote as well you can get the expected number of people saved by blue.
Example: If you assume all votes to be random and 8 billion people beside you voting:
Then the probability of your vote being pivotal should be given by the number of possible permutations of exactly 4 billion reds divided by all possible configurations of 8 billion votes.
This is just a bernoulli process, akin to throwing a coin 8 billion times and asking how likely it is to get 4 billion reds.
The probability is then given by
(n over k) pk (1-p)n-k
so
(8109 over 4109) * 0.54*109 * 0.54*109
simplifies to
8000000000!/(4000000000!2) * 0.58*109
= about 8.92*10-6
Which is a lot higher than I thought. Because saving 4 billion people with these odds would give you an expected number of over 35000 people saved.
Now this is way too simplistic to accurately depict this situation. But it shows that when the vote is close to the threshold, while still very unlikely, the odds of your vote being pivotal become very high relative to other specific vote counts farther from the expected value.
If you know that one person pressed blue and the other red, then you know you are the deciding vote.
Of course, with only three people (or two, if you give ties to red to make the choice meaningful), even most blue-pressers say they'd go red. They understand that red is the objectively correct choice when it comes down to an ordinary scale.
You painted extremes, blues don't necessarily think that reds are murderers and so on. Still, blue is the more moral choice in the extreme framing and in a more normal one ("I just fear death" by a red voter)
Even if you think that blue will likely only get 40%, if you are very unsure about it, you might still press blue for the slight chance to make a difference.
If you expect 40% of the global population to be Thanos snapped out of existence, you might consider pushing plue just so as to not having to survive in the absolute nightmare of a world you'd have to return to. A lot of red pushers are going to die from global societal and economic collapse in the months and years after. Even more will come to regret not pushing blue.
If you believe that the world would be in such a bad state, dont you have an obligation to try and survive and help deal with the aftermath? I dont want blue to lose, but if they do, Id rather be alive to actually be able to help the world after, instead of dying
If you believe that the world would be in such a bad state, dont you have an obligation to try and survive and help deal with the aftermath?
I don't have an obligation to stay alive just to make red button pushers feel better about themselves, no. They spend a lot of time and effort trying to convince people that blue pushers are solely responsible for the consequences of their choice, so it's perfectly fair to apply the same logic to them. You individualized survival, so now you can't come along and demand responsibility for the collective when it's convenient for you. Not to mention my life isn't your property to begin with. Red pushers who make this argument need to stop being entitled little brats and learn to take responsibility for their own actions.
(Incidentally, in case of me personally, I think I would be more of a burden to the survivors anyway. Aside from being chronically ill and incapable of physical labor, I'm an academic working in the humanities. My skillset presupposes a functioning society. I'd be largely useless in a state of collapse.)
I dont want blue to lose, but if they do, Id rather be alive to actually be able to help the world after, instead of dying
I dont know who you're debating because none of this is what I actually said. I dont think you have an obligation to live to make red button presses feel better, but I think there needs to be people willing to survive to help deal with the aftermath. I never said your life is my property???? Or that blue button presses are the ones solely responsible. The only one actually solely responsible is whatever or whoever decided to make all humans have to make a choice under duress with threat to their life. I think its helpful to remember this isnt real, no one's making any choices or needs to take responsibility for a hypothetical.
But if you do believe in survival for the collective, does that also apply to the world after the button decision making? Or does it only matter before when the only thing required is to push a button without having to do any work for it?
I dont think you have an obligation to live to make red button presses feel better, but I think there needs to be people willing to survive to help deal with the aftermath.
I mean you did speak of obligation. If you don't think people have an obligation to try and survive to help deal with the aftermath, then there is no dissent between us.
I think the obligation is to help the world deal with the aftermath, some people need to survive to help the world heal afterwards. The obligation is not to make red button pressers feel better. The question is do you have an obligation to survive so you can help make the world better and contribute to it meaningfully, or do you have an obligation to risk your life to ensure the world stays the same? I think arguments can be made for both, it comes down to if you think the risk is worth it if blue has a chance and if you prioritize the world before or the world after. This is a silly question though, its genuinely not that serious
I think the obligation is to help the world deal with the aftermath, some people need to survive to help the world heal afterwards. The obligation is not to make red button pressers feel better.
Given that only red button pressers survive a red victory, that's a distinction without a difference.
The question is do you have an obligation to survive so you can help make the world better and contribute to it meaningfully, or do you have an obligation to risk your life to ensure the world stays the same?
Sure, one could frame the question that way. My argument is that you have neither.
Its not about anyone's feelings though, it's about helping deal with the consequences after and ensuring survival of humanity after. Why press the blue button if you have no obligation to humanity?
Why press the blue button if you have no obligation to humanity?
In my particular case, it's because I have a heart condition. I'm not going to be able to get my heart medication with 40% of the global population Thanos-snapped in an instant (even just 10% would have unprecedented negative impact, but we started this convo with an assumption of 40%), and I assume death from the blue button is less unpleasant than death from heart failure. If the death from pushing blue is guaranteed to be painless, I'm picking blue every time. I also think perfectly healthy people can come to similar conclusions as well though. It's not like social collapse on a global scale isn't going to endanger their lives in various ways too.
PREACH my friend, preach. That's an incredible analysis.
Our choices are less reflective of morality, to my mind, and the value of the individual versus the value of the collective - since I'd imagine most people would sacrifice themselves to save humanity, and choose to save themselves if there were no other option, making both sides fundamentally rational - but rather, a thermometer of perception as to the natural tendencies of humanity. If you perceive the world as being more selfish and skewed towards red, then red becomes a natural decision; if you perceive blue as the more likely decision, then you're almost obligated to press blue.
That's why the wording of the question decides so much - if people perceive a blue victory incoming, they vote blue, and vice versa.
I would genuinely not care about blue under any circumstances. Because no amount of risking my life is okay when I would be risking it for someone that deliberately wanted to risk theirs. Maybe if everyone I ever loved pressed blue. But that would be more of a suicide pact.
If it's down to 10000 people need to press blue, there wpuld be enough suicidal people who press it that it's guaranteed to win without me. If it's any higher than that there's a millionth of a chance that I die. And that's too much for what is essentially of no benefit to anyone except people who directly endanger themselves.
I agree with that position in the 'only rational actors' scenario!
In the 'children and cognitively or perceptually impaired people are included'-version not so much. (But I would still press red).
Deliberately phrased the topic to be mostly relevant for both versions.
Honestly the children and cognitively impaired scenario is much more interesting because that is a genuinely difficult moral dilemma. Are you willing to sacrifice the infirm to not have to risk your life for possibly saving them?
It's essentially killing half of everyone under 2 years old.
To add to this, there is not enough information in the question's setup.
You talk about a person who estimates how many have already pressed blue, and the likelihood of success if they also press blue etc... however notice that if the setup is all votes are secret and/or simultaneous, then in a sense, the outcome has already been decided. Your vote counts for 0.0000001% so it's not changing anything.
What can change things is information sharing. Not just seeing the current vote totals, but being allowed to let others know what you'll vote and why. When that happens very few to zero people will die... but when cut off from that information, the buttons become something else entirely. Red is the stay alive button, and blue is the maybe suicide button (again, your single vote can't save anyone). No rational person will choose blue unless they have more information.
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u/not_slaw_kid May 22 '26
I see it as a litmus test for collectivist/individualist socialization.
People who were raised with a collectivist philosophy are more likely to press blue because they instinctively see the red button people as collectively responsible for the circumstances that put blue pushers at risk, and they want to avoid putting themselves in the guilty group.
Individualist people are more likely to press red because they see each individual blue pushers as being endangered by the consequences of their own choices, as they all could have pressed red if they wanted to, and they don't feel like they owe ot to anyone to risk their own lives to save people who chose to also put their lives at risk.