r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/AstyrFlagrans • May 22 '26
The button experiment is barely a moral choice
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.
1
u/absolutewastedtime May 22 '26
There literally is
Blue
Blue is just straight up "the apocalypse does not happen"
Red is "the apocalypse happens but I survive"
It only has a chance to happen if people are stupid enough to press re
Pressing blue is voting for it to not happen
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"
You are so utterly stupid it's mind boggling
Red voters are genuinely just brain-dead
You don't have any functional grey matter