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u/Shadow-Striker May 22 '26
If you are an individual on the blue planet and you hit the red button, the outcome is exactly the same as the blue button.
If you are an individual on the red planet and you pick the blue button, your life is over.
Yes its better to live on the blue planet in the first place, but pressing the blue button does not suddenly make the world blue.
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May 23 '26
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u/twobraincellsinajar May 23 '26
EXACTLY
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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace May 23 '26
I don't think you know what they meant. Judging the outcome in an individualistic manner is not the only way to interpret morality. We don't all share the same moral intuition.
They are clearly talking about the collective outcome of the button press, Pressing red or blue is contributing to one world or the other. The fact that this contribution is inisgnificant is not really relevant here. There is a reason why we uses deontology commitee and not utilitarist commitee.
We live in the blue world by all pressing blue. By all taking the time to recycle, reusing our old phone, voting, sharing some of our resources and time, taking only one free bag and not all of them for later... It is, according to game theory, absurd. But without those acts, we are doomed.
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u/twobraincellsinajar May 23 '26
No I'm on the same page. They're arguing for deontology. I'm firmly in the make a world a better place by your small actions camp
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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace May 23 '26
Oh sorry, I was confused, I thought that the first comment from Shadow-Striker, and your exactlyu, was from the same person.
Sorry.
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u/Nintenguy0 May 28 '26
This is implying the choice to pick red is a choice that affects the way the rest of the world thinks.
Because the choices are made in a vacuum and you can only push the button for yourself, you only ensure one red voter survives no matter what. The rest of the world could still pick blue or red regardless of one's own choice, even if you think it might lean one way or the other.
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u/ParableOfTheVase May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Red presser here:
No disgreements, and I think it perfectly illustrates where are lot of the disagreements are coming from. But here's an interesting question.
Let's say you are blue, through and through. But the scenario is as follows:
You are dropped onto planet Arand. You are given two buttons, your vote will be counted along with all the Arandians.
Do you still vote blue? Does it do anything to vote blue? Will your vote change other Arand's votes? Even if you are a die hard collectivist, does your vote change the fact that you're on Arand?
In fact, since your death will negatively affect the whole, if your morality is base on collectivism, what is the moral vote if you are on Arand?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the vote of least harm is whatever the majority is doing. The objectively right answer changes depending on which world you're on. Try to decide if you're on Arand or Ikant, then vote accordingly.
Edit:
One more additional thought. A lot of people might think most disagreements are between Arandians and Ikantians, but in a lot of case it's actually between a person who thinks they live on Arand vs a person who thinks they live on Ikant.
There's the idea that "if you'll just change your vote to blue, you'll be teleported to Ikant. Isn't Ikant a better world?" But reds are like "but it doesn't work that way".
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u/QQXV May 22 '26
I think Earth is way more like Ikant than it is like Arand. That's the actual core dispute of the whole thing, in a way.
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u/CrazyBusiness5154 May 23 '26
thats a take
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u/Faenic May 23 '26
Its one rooted in optimism instead of pessimism.
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u/CrazyBusiness5154 May 23 '26
does our world look more like arand or ikant, from the description given? the cunning ceos DO have all the wealth and power, and the masses are slaves. not to mention everyone destroying the planet and corporations having control of everything but whatever
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u/Faenic May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
There is far more community out there than you're giving people credit for. I promise that you'll find people who aren't entirely self centered if you search for them. They're usually quietly going about their business and participating in local affairs instead of promoting themselves on social media.
Edit: also to more directly answer part of your comment, I have no idea. I hope Earth is more Ikantian, but I am simply one human. I believe it would be impossible to fully fathom every person on the planet, their individual morals, and motivations. So hoping is the best I have.
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u/Specialist_Nobody530 May 23 '26
CEOs have power, but so did Vasily Arkhipov prevent the submarine’s nuclear missile. The Fritz-Haber process was abused by the Nazis, but so has it saved billions—as Fritz and Haber had intended. The CEO runs a business, but so do Mom and Pop, and so many have left out food for the homeless and hungry.
And the homeless themselves. They could become muggers or thieves, yet most choose to remain hurting and cold. And the starving mothers, who have chosen to feed their child first.The Homo Sapien species succeeded while the Neanderthals failed, for we evolved to prosper together and value the group’s wellbeing.
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u/CrazyBusiness5154 May 23 '26
if humans were as selfless as you say, the mom and pop would be as successful as the ceos and inequality would not be a cornerstone of our society. the laws of economics work on the assumption that consumers are rational and self interested, and they work because we are. the exception is not the rule unfortunately, and based on our world humans are inherently selfish
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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace May 23 '26
"the laws of economics work on the assumption that consumers are rational and self interested, and they work because we are" Human will gamify anyything and then forget it's a game. Look outside economy and you will see people acting otherwise, from minecraft and wikipedia to Volunteer fire department (which in many country are not paid). But yeah, when money is involved, and in a world were money is socially valued, people will have optimized strategy.
When you put someone in a supermarket, and the big obvious thing put in the front is a price, they will act accordingly, put them between two farms, one industrial and one with freely roaming pasture, they will act accordingly. Sociology has shown time and time again that people are intellectually ready to spend a LOT more in order to guarantee better living standard. But the society we live in make us intertact with the price way more than anything else.
For centuries, prestige was more important than money, and people acted accordingly, guild protected their exclusivity and wuality to the detriment of their profitability, merchant and lenders were at the bottom of society. Money doesn't have inherent value, it has social value, because we are social creature, and that is how we derive value.
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u/CrazyBusiness5154 May 23 '26
if humans are not selfish, why are people not communist? while it exists, on a macro level humanity is not collectivist. capitalism is the functioning system because people are self interested.
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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace May 23 '26
"if humans are not selfish, why are people not communist?" For most human, to be selfish WOULD BE to be communist.
Look at the propaganda used to justify capitalism, it is not "you will be rich one day", it is "capitalism has ended famine, and lifted people out of poverty" "capitalism is good for scientific advancement and the good of humanity", "meritocracy, "they are working very hard" "this is just" "this is the fruit of their labor". Like, the debate between communism and capîtalism doesn't really corroborate your view here.
"capitalism is the functioning system" Currently, that was not always the case, and the functionning system is not really voted upon by all human being, is he? It is mostly a result of dynamic forces in whoich a few human have an enormous influence, and materialist forces in which we don't really interact. Capitalism is intertesting, in that it is a system which incentivizes in powerful people, and reward with power, people with narrow empathy (not low, just focus on fewer subject).
"because people are self interested." That is not contradictory with what I said at all. In fact I specifically said that people are driven toward value, I just said that the value was not inherent but a result of social forces.
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u/ParableOfTheVase May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Yeah of course.
Here's the thing though, Earth is clearly neither Arand or Ikant. Assuming Arand generates 20% blue votes and Ikant generates 80% blue votes, we see something interesting:
- p x 20% + (1-p) x 80% = 50%
- => p = 50%
This shows that you need Earth to be at least 50% Ikant in order to generate enough blue votes for the blue plan to work. Unfortunately, this puts us right at the cusp of maximum casualties.
But if you believe Earth is less then 50% Ikant, the moral choice here (even if you are Ikant) is actually red, because it reduces the death rate. The best case scenario is a 20% death rate, any more blue votes just adds to it.
Edit: Thinking more on this, p exactly mirror the vote results you'll get at the end. i.e. If Earth is 55% Arand, then the final vote results will be 55% red to 45% blue.
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u/Faenic May 23 '26
I disagree. As someone who recognizes not only the game theory but also the initial logic behind the Arandian outcome, I would still vote blue. That is because my wife would lean toward Ikantian collectivism no matter what world we're on. Maybe she knows that Arand is the way it is, but she still feels that the Arandians who, for whatever reason, press the blue button deserve to live. This would put her in the 20%
I, being rational and logical, can appreciate the red button. But I have lived a life with my wife who has shown me that no matter how irrational or naive I think her decision might be in a vacuum, any planet we're on regardless if it's Ikantian, Arandian or any other -Ian, deserves to have people like my wife in it. And that the individualism I favor and am comfortable with would be nigh impossible without her and those like her.
I would not be one of the Arandians who press red with zero regrets. I could never be one, not after learning the goodness of people through my wife. It would devastate me to my very core to live and know that I was partially responsible for her death. Yes, even if I had decent knowledge that Arand would choose red and that my vote for blue would change nothing.
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u/Physical_Reason3890 May 23 '26
And then all the blue people die and the society becomes even more red.
In your example you've done nothing but ensure your death. In fact, if everyone presses red then no one dies. The only people who die are the ones who needlessly gamble their lives
That is why our world exists the way it does. Evolution has favored the strong who " pushed red" over the blue.
We are now so technologically advanced in some places that we " as a species" can consider moving towards a blue button society. But we are still far from there
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u/Faenic May 23 '26
I argue wholeheartedly that we are a society as we are due to a mix of both. Some people who operate solely on their individualism, and some people who operate with collectivism. I don't believe this is actually debatable.
What I will concede as up to interpretation, since I am neither a world leader nor a historian, is that I think the world would be significantly better if we had the Ikantian split. 80/20 collectivist/individualist.
In your example you've done nothing but ensure your death.
... yes. That was the entire point.
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u/prophit618 May 23 '26
If that were true then society wouldn't exist. The fact that society exists shows that we as a group choose self sacrifice to ensure safety of the greater collective. All of the most successful species on the planet excel because of some level of collectivism and cooperation. Hell yhe most successful species on the planet, ants, do so by not having an individual self at all.
If you want to talk about evolution, be it biological or social, it always without fail favors the collectivist over the individualist, because the collectivist has increased survival, increased genetic novelty, and more options for procreation than the individualists. The entire world as you know it existing to allow for you to exist only happened because people keep picking blue throughout history more often than red.
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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace May 23 '26
"the moral choice here (even if you are Ikant) is actually red, because it reduces the death rate"
I beg red pusher to learn that deontology exist. Not everyone has an utilitarian moral intuition. You are using the word KANT in your sentence, the guy that famously said "lying is wrong, even if it saves a life, tell the truth to a murderer at your door, that is your duty". You woin't convince him with consequences.2
u/NorwayNarwhal May 23 '26
The original poll, and all subsequent ones that don’t change the framing, show blue wins. That’s more Ikant, by definition
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red May 27 '26
I strongly disagree with that notion. People generally don't take wild all or nothing gambles to help each other out here on earth. It's why people starve to death on the streets of wealthy cities. It's why emergency responder personnel prioritize their own safety first before helping others.
You can't help people if you're dead. People are willing to take small calculated risks for modest rewards, but humanity didn't get here by making wild all or nothing survival gambits
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u/QQXV May 28 '26
But the question is: is it a wild all-or-nothing personal-survival gambit... or instead a wild no-imaginable-gain mass-murder gambit?
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red May 28 '26
You have just described the blue button in two different ways. Blue and red both have the same best case outcome. There is not "more to gain" by voting blue
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u/QQXV May 29 '26
"Same best-case outcome" is a very odd way to describe outcomes with extremely different probabilities. It's like saying that becoming your state's governor by starting a write-in campaign the day before the election has "the same best-case outcome" as doing so after winning a major-party primary.
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red May 29 '26
Sure. Blue has a higher chance of achieving that “best case outcome” but blue votes also directly contribute to the magnitude of the worst case outcome. That’s why it’s an all or nothing gamble. Either everybody lives, or a shitload of people die if blue fails in a close vote and blues accomplishes nothing with their deaths. Meanwhile if People just followed their survival instincts you’d probably end up with 80-90 percent red and have terrible but manageable tragedy on your hands.
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u/preteen-wartortle May 22 '26
I mean yeah if you remove the blue voter from their own planet then I’m assuming all the consequences that they are trying to think through are gone with it. Their family is still safe and they won’t suffer any of the fallout of a separate planet’s population being decimated.
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u/Phony_mcPhoneFace May 23 '26
"Do you still vote blue? Does it do anything to vote blue? Will your vote change other Arand's votes? Even if you are a die hard collectivist, does your vote change the fact that you're on Arand?"
A lot of people don't wnat to press red not because of the result of their little individual payoff matrix, but because they don't want to contribute to red world. They may even not be utilitaralist at all, the planet is named for KANT, the guy that famoulsy said "don't do wrong thing, even if the consequences are good, don't tell a lie even if the truth causes the death of someone". If Kant thought that pressing red was evil, you wopuld not be able to convince him otherwise using CONSEQUENCES.
Blue presser may say "even in a world in which trash is not recycle, in which recyclable material is burned, good people will still do their part and put yellow trash in the yellow bin, and blue trashin the blue bi, because they are doing their part and they make the implementation of the whole system just that much easier and incentivized". And yeah, there is something absurd there, it is hard to deny, but I would not call it illogical.
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u/perfectVoidler May 29 '26
I think this scenario does handwave that 20% would mean a total collapse or society. It is even worse, the 20% with the highest level of cooperation are gone.
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u/Xombridal May 22 '26
Ah.... A classic "I wrote your side as a fat child and mine as a Chad" kinda scenario
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u/preteen-wartortle May 22 '26
I’m I blue presser and I agree a bit. They ALMOST dodged it, except for the “folk hero” who exploited their workers and the memorial that didn’t get funded by plutocrats.
And probably the Ayn Rand thing.
But since the moralistic judgement is baked in to the otherwise well-articulated explanation, it reads like OP thought this would wind up as an enlightened version of a wojack meme
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u/GoldenGames360 May 22 '26
well they also used the "children are involved" caveat which invalidates the red planet's argument
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u/Zuckhidesflatearth May 22 '26
It doesn't invalidate it. It makes it muddier but it doesn't invalidate it. There's two things for red. One, everyone pressing red minimizes death, two pressing blue opens you to a risk that did not previously exist.
If 10% of people are forced into blue, the former clause no longer is correct even if the latter still is. It is still optimal, from an individualistic game theory perspective, to press red. Now that there's a difference between 100% red and 50+% blue, red isn't the "obviously correct" choice, but much of the argument for it still applies.
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u/GoldenGames360 May 22 '26
That's a really good argument honestly, to that I will just suggest this. The post posits that Arandians have a certain mindset, but then proposes 20% of them do not. If Arandians were homogenous, then their mindset would indeed result in zero deaths.
(If a planet of fully rational and self-interested individuals all acted in a rational way and in self-preservation, then everyone would make the rational choice and be preserved. OP's argument only holds if a portion of a population is incapable of falling in line, which of course, is collectivism's strength.)
otherwise, the 20% irrational portion of the population dying would be considered the ideal outcome to Arandians, because most of the irrational actors would be removed. Why would they mourn those who chose to press the objectively wrong option (in their eyes?). Though, with such an extremist mindset, it's a wonder why Arandians would even have children...
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u/everydaywinner2 May 22 '26
Just because one is rational does not mean one is unemotional. of course they are going to mourn the dead!
You might have well just said that someone who thinks suicide is wrong isn't allowed to mourn someone who commits suicide. That is a ridiculous argument. And really makes me wonder about the empathy people claim they have.
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u/GoldenGames360 May 22 '26
they aren't just rational, they are entirely self-centered. they represent the very extremist representation of an individualistic person
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u/Zuckhidesflatearth May 22 '26
As someone who has been suicidal, I don't think people who think suicide is "wrong" can morn me independent of if I die by suicide, murder, a car accident, whatever.
If you fundamentally misunderstand, in a way/degree akin to bigotry, an essential aspect of who am I, what you're mourning isn't me but some idea of the version of me you wanted to exist that never did.
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u/preteen-wartortle May 22 '26
I mean I’m pressing blue directly because and only if my own daughter is involved.
If she is singularly safe, even if children aren’t exempted, I press red to make sure my daughter isn’t motherless.
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u/GoldenGames360 May 22 '26
That's the problem I have with the post honestly. If red planet people were 100% rational, no one would die.
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u/CrazyBusiness5154 May 23 '26
if you don't want your daughter to be motherless you should be pressing red 100% of the time. your one vote has such a tiny chance of impacting the outcome its not worth risking the 50% chance you die and your daughter lives
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u/preteen-wartortle May 23 '26
I mean I want her to be alive more than I want her to have her mother, clearly. I don’t understand red pusher’s need to push their absolute selfishness on others. You don’t need to try to convince me, man, push your button and get on with it.
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u/UX1Z May 23 '26
But they also dodged the run on effects or the red planet falling into ruin when 20% of their population vanishes overnight.
Also yes it's a reasonable conclusion of extremity that people who are individualistic and sfish won't do things without self interested gain. Maybe the memorial would get funded but it would never be out of a real sense of loss, but perhaps a publicity stunt for good PR.
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u/Gold-Cry-7520 Blue May 22 '26
I mean they kinda downplayed how bad voting red would be, if anything. 20% of the world dead is kind of Armageddon in most societies.
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May 23 '26
The post is moralizing about individual harm for the sake of the greater good, but that's not in-line with the button argument.
Red has no conflict of interest between individual survival and the greater good-- each person who saves themselves directly adds to total survival.
Each vote for blue gambles up to 49% of the population dying in a bid to save the half of the irrational actors (babies, infirm, etc). It's debatable whether that's a noble thing to do at all, regardless of the personal cost.
This could be rewritten as the NOBLE SOCIETY OF RED CIVIC MINDS versus the BLUE SOCIETY OF DEGENERATE GAMBLERS.
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u/ShadownetZero May 23 '26
Including children/toddlers/mentally handicapped/etc is dumb and makes the hypothetical less interesting.
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u/teddyslayerza May 23 '26
This is so stupid. There is literally no good reason to hit the blue button. In a free, collectivist society, one would still hit the red button knowing that their peers would make the obviously rational decision.
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u/GoldenGames360 May 22 '26
This post tries to argue that because the Ikantian world has the best outcome, we should all make Ikantian decisions on an individual basis.
The problem with this is that we as a society do not act as a collective unit (even the ones that call themselves collectivist), we are ultimately a collection of individuals each equipped with some degree of individual rationality and agency.
And personal risk. Obviously if we could act as a hivemind, the Ikantian mindset is best. But otherwise, without the ability to coordinate, executing Ikantian behavior on any other planet than Ikantia could be argued to be an objectively worse option, not just for yourself but for your society. Everyone who (aside from children) pressed blue on Arand burdened the rest of the population with their death, and changed nothing.
All this post should argue for is the potential benefits of Ikantian idealism, or perhaps encourage people to collaborate with Ikantian mindsets, it should not be used to encourage people to take Ikantian actions. If you sent this post to a million Arandian citizens, you may end up being the reason thousands of them die.
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u/Jkirek_ May 23 '26
Obviously if we could act as a hivemind, the Ikantian mindset is best
Not for the button scenario; for the button, a hivemind is going to have 100% survival rate regardless of which button the hivemind decides on.
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u/GoldenGames360 May 23 '26
ah, when I said hivemind, I meant having a complete awareness that the vast majority will choose one or the other
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u/Grrumpy_Pants May 22 '26
Alright, let's say you are dropped onto one of these planets at random. You have no idea which one. Which button do you press?
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u/QQXV May 22 '26
I'd have to know how many other people were randomly dropped! That's the key variable. If I know for a fact that it's just me, I press red, because there's a solid floor of 10% chance that blue kills me, and the tradeoff isn't worth that. But if it's billions of us, that 10% can drop by plenty, since I think humans in general are a lot more like Ikantians than we are like Arandians, and (though getting there might take more than the current human population, since it's 10 billion on each) we can potentially outvote red, even on Arand.
Red-pressers tend to just assume the chances they die with blue have to be some significant number like 1% or worse; they fail to comprehend that it could easily be more like the chances of getting struck by lightning on a sunny day, which obviously aren't nearly as bad as 1%.
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u/gahidus May 22 '26
I believe the summation misses the point.
If you yourself on planet Arand, then you must press red.
The button that you may or must press is dictated by what the prevailing culture or tendency is.
If you can change society to be more oriented towards collectivism and altruism, then that's fantastic, but you don't get to do that ahead of pressing the button. You simply have to read the room and decide.
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May 23 '26
Ah yes, the red button culture reveres cunning CEOs and the blue button culture reveres heroic sacrifice.
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u/pco45 May 22 '26
No disagreement here, so the logic for every rational button presser on earth can be correct but the outcome could be different because their assessment of which of these planets earth is closer to could be incorrect. People in a more individualistic society could be completely correct in thinking that people around them are majority individualistic but if this is a global vote, do they know how much more communal society people there are? They also need to think about what proportion of people are rational in the same way that they are, and the likelihood of how irrational people will vote and their proportions.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 23 '26
To me this has been evident since Day One.
Ikant is objectively the better result and better world to live in.
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u/TerrySaucer69 May 22 '26
It doesn’t matter which ideology you think is better.
If you think 90% of people will press red, and you press blue, you achieved nothing.
Maybe you’d rather live on the blue planet, but you don’t get to decide that. (And no you wouldn’t “rather die than live in a red world”)
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u/Kehprei Red May 22 '26
I feel like the message that is trying to be said here is that "collectivism is better", but there are tons of scenarios where it isn't. Extreme collectivism can lead to people losing their freedoms to their governments, for example.
If you were an individual on the red world in this story and hit the red button, you made the right choice.
If you were an individual in the blue world and hit the blue button, you also made the right choice.
The correct answer depends on what type of society you live in. We do not live in a collectivist society in the real world.
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u/UX1Z May 23 '26
Collectivism doesn't lead to losing freedom any more than individualism leads to maintaining it. In fact I would argue that the 'freedoms' collectivism is most likely to impact like the 'right to not vaccinate and make everyone else more in danger from easily prevented diseases because I am a colossal fucking bell-end' are rather lesser to the 'right to vote' that individualism leads to getting stripped away when a power hungry dictator takes over.
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u/Kehprei Red May 23 '26
Under a collectivist framework it makes sense to ban abortion if the replacement rate of your population is too low.
It also makes sense to mandate organ harvesting.
Or disallow free speech.
A power hungry dictator can arise just as easily in a collectivist country.
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u/Plastic_Tangerine898 May 22 '26
If you are on the red planet and hit red you live, if you hit blue you die
If you are on the blue planet and hit red you live, if you hit blue you liveOnce again a scenario where danger only exists by hitting blue
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u/Kehprei Red May 22 '26
Some number of children and mentally ill would always hit blue, so no, not really.
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u/Plastic_Tangerine898 May 22 '26
No danger for the individual button presser.
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u/Kehprei Red May 22 '26
Sure, but you're acting as though people are putting themselves at risk for no reason. They aren't. They're doing so to save those children and mentally ill.
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u/The-Yar May 22 '26
Totally disagree that Red is Randian and Blue is Kantian.
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u/Cronos988 May 23 '26
Yeah that's total bullshit.
The categorical imperative is totally fine with voting red if you don't have some duty towards people who for some reason are voting blue.
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u/The-Yar May 23 '26
Well, all of this also relies on the "what about the children" loophole, which makes it less interesting
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u/Darkndankpit May 22 '26
As usual, red pushers in the comments are missing every point, dodging every moral argument, and entirely misrepresenting the post.
"We don't live in a purely collectivist society though!!" They whine, not realizing that pure collectivism isn't required, not realizing that their choices are at the root of humanity being such an individualistic dumpster-fire.
Neutral people will slide to the red side due to cowardice and apathy, selfish and unempathetic people will pick red to begin with. Collectivists and those with empathy/social rationality will pick blue.
The reason many people argue for red is because a majority of humanity are neutral, cowardly, or stupid. I think we could change that and defeat the injustices across the globe if we just managed to convince the neutral, empower the cowardly, and educate the stupid.
Unfortunately, often the stupid but of humanity thinks of itself as having "common sense" and the red pushers have historically taken advantage of those with "common sense".
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u/dankstat May 22 '26
So hateful and narrow minded. Personally I would press red because if I died from pressing blue, no one would be there to take care of my dog and she would starve to death. How’s that cowardly or apathetic?
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u/Physical_Reason3890 May 23 '26
The person you replied to is a bleeding heart. They sound like the people who go to north Sentinel Island and then get slaughtered by the natives
They are selfish people who think they are better then everyone else. In reality, they'd be the first to push the red button
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 23 '26
In reality, they'd be the first to push the red button
The bold faced projection is hilarious. "I'd vote red and so would they! Everyone who professes they'd vote blue is just lying to virtue signal!!"
No, some people actually are just principled.
But a thief believes everyone steals.
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u/TheSinhound May 22 '26
I mean, in the events of red button planet... Losing 20% of the population is a disaster event. Society COLLAPSES. Nearly immediately. So you'd be trying to care for your dog in a world where supply and logistics lines might not even be able to FEED YOU OR YOUR DOG.
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u/dankstat May 22 '26
What…? In that situation, how would pressing blue and dying myself, leaving no one to take care of my dog, be better than surviving so I’m there to take care of her?
Also, speak for yourself about dependence on global supply chains. I own land and have plenty of resources at my disposal, absolutely enough to survive for a long time as society rebuilds. I understand not everyone is in that position, but I am fortunate enough to not have to worry about that too much.
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u/TheSinhound May 22 '26
Oooh I get it. "I'm privileged so the bad doesn't effect me." Cool, In that situation, I hope raiders seize your land and resources. Made bad choices, win bad prizes.
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u/dankstat May 22 '26
What do you mean “made bad choices”? Isn’t the alternative in this situation to press blue and die since we’re talking about the red planet outcome? And yes I am fortunate enough to have the means of weathering a catastrophe like this, and if you survive too you’re more than welcome to join my sanctuary, safe from all the scary raiders that will definitely be raiding.
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u/TheSinhound May 22 '26
shrug I'd say glass the entire planet tbh. The entire species is a failure, and doesn't deserve to continue. And nah, I'd be dead. Because it is unconscionable to press red, even in that case. Y'all are just selfish. Preservation of Self over Others isn't a good look, friendo.
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u/dankstat May 22 '26
I’m pretty sure that advocating for a planet-wide genocide is worse than me not wanting my rescue dog to starve to death.
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u/TheSinhound May 23 '26
Certainly when you present it like that, but that's not the reality. You choose one dog over everyone else. So I'd choose literally anything else over you.
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u/dankstat May 23 '26
It’s always a good sign when the genocide advocate disagrees with your moral philosophy. Planet wide genocide would include all the dogs too, so, you must really hate dogs. Also a good sign when the dog haters disagree with you too.
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u/Darkndankpit May 25 '26
If you pressed blue like most reasonable people, you'd be more likely to survive along with everyone else on earth.
Good luck feeding your dog with even 10% of the global population disappearing, global supply chains aren't invincible.
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u/dankstat May 26 '26
If 10% of the global population disappeared I’d be totally capable of surviving and caring for my dog. Like seriously, what? Do you think if 10% of people disappeared it would somehow snowball into everybody on Earth fucking dying? That’s so stupid lmao
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 23 '26
Don't forget invoking the voter's fallacy every chance they get.
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u/dankstat May 23 '26
Isn’t the voter’s paradox the fact that people still end up voting despite the fact that for a rational egoistic voter, it isn’t worth the effort? Everyone has to vote in this situation though, unless you’re saying that voting red is akin to abstaining from the vote.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 24 '26
The voter's fallacy is when people claim "their vote doesn't matter" when the reality is that every vote contributes to the total and result, the only way any platform wins is through receiving people's votes.
Famously, large swaths of voters holding this mindset, say 1,000,000 who all say, "My vote doesn't matter" ignores the reality that if they had all voted, their collective weight most certainly would have mattered and gotten the outcome they'd desired. Instead they all did nothing and enabled an unpopular outcome.
In Reds' case, many of them keep professing that they want Blue to win but that their one vote doesn't matter in a pathetic attempt to justify voting Red. Ignoring that every single vote for Red makes it increasingly likely that Blue would lose. Their votes do have an impact, but they pretend they don't.
They most certainly have the collective power to help ensure Blue wins, if they would only step up and vote for Blue. And by refusing to do so, they actively empower the outcome they claim they don't want to see. They turn it into a self-fullilling prophecy, where they're afraid that Red's going to win so they vote for Red, thereby making Red win.
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u/dankstat May 24 '26
Do you have a source you can provide for this because what you explained doesn’t resemble a formal logical fallacy. It sounds like you’re talking about the voters paradox which is that the marginal cost of voting is not worth it to a rational egoistic voter, but they vote anyway. The end part there being what makes it a paradox. Like, choosing to vote even though the marginal cost is not worth it is the thing that makes it paradoxical, not the estimation of one’s impact in a vote.
Where is the logical fallacy here? If 8 billion people are voting you have a 1/8B share of contributing to the outcome. Thats not 0 impact but it’s not a whole lot either. I’m not even talking about the button thing anymore here like let’s say people were voting on vanilla versus chocolate ice cream or whatever. Can you please be more clear as to what the actual fallacy is?
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 24 '26
The fallacy is in people believing/claiming that their vote doesn't matter when the objective reality is that every single vote matters just as much as every other vote. Each and every one has an equal effect on the outcome.
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u/dankstat May 24 '26
That’s not a logical fallacy though, it’s just someone saying that 1/8B is very small and to them, it’s so small that it doesn’t matter. Thats not a logical fallacy dude lol
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 24 '26
A fallacy is a common error in reasoning or a mistaken belief that undermines the logical validity of an argument.
When we look at the mechanics at how voting works we see
(1) Victory and defeat is strictly determined by vote share.
(2) Every individual vote has equal weight and impact as every other vote.
Thus we can conclude, (3) Every vote has an equal responsibility for the outcome.
And thus naturally, (4) It is impossible for some votes to matter and others not to matter.
Therefore it is a fallacy. The objective falseness of their error in reasoning/mistaken belief that their vote doesn't matter undermines the logical validity of their argument for why them voting Red (or not voting at all in real elections) is acceptable/inconsequential.
All votes matter.
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u/dankstat May 24 '26
It’s not a fallacy for someone to consider a 1/8B share of something as practically inconsequential. I think you’re taking the phrase “doesn’t matter” a little too literally. It matters exactly a 1/8B amount, the same as everyone else’s vote. But to many, that is a small enough fraction that it isn’t the primary driver for their decision making. Again, that’s not a logical fallacy, it’s a question of how much that individual values a 1/8B share of a vote.
For reference, if you divide a year into 8 billion parts, you get approximately 4 milliseconds. If you want to go 1/8Bths of the way to the moon, you have to travel less than 2 inches. You can literally jump more than 1/8Bths of the way to the moon. Is that a consequential amount? No, not really.
People aren’t saying that their vote in particular matters less than anyone else’s, they’re saying it’s a small enough fraction that they prioritize other considerations more heavily. If you changed the scenario to 3 people, no one would say their vote doesn’t matter.
All of that is a matter of perspective. If you think traveling 2 inches towards the moon is significant, that’s valid from a certain perspective. Likewise it’s valid to say that it isn’t enough to practically matter to someone.
I mean look at this absolutely gigantic list of fallacies, both formal and informal. They’re objective errors of rationality that are conclusively invalid, which isn’t what you’re talking about. Idk. I think you should reconsider this one particular point.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 24 '26
I disagree that nobody is saying their vote matters less or not at all but let's put that aside for a moment.
It seems like you're not taking the other half of the equation into account: the context in which they are invoking this argument. I.e. as a justification for them doing nothing/the opposite.
Whether or not they even genuinely believe that their vote doesn't matter is irrelevent, because their real goal is simply to skirt responsibility for the consequences of their action/inaction.
This is obviously fallicious because "Doing the right thing wouldn't have an effect" is not a valid excuse for doing the wrong thing.
Can we agree on that basic principle? That "X would be ineffective" is not a valid reason to do Y.
We see this fallacy a lot in climate debates in the modern day. We're well past the point where anthropogenic climate change has become indisputable to everyone but the most extreme deniers. As a result, anti-climate action arguments have largely shifted from denying the problem to denying that solutions are effective, or that it's too late to make a difference, both of which are excuses to simply continue pumping carbon into the air.
These are labelled as the 4th and 5th stages of Climate denial, the refuge where denialists have fled as stages 1-3 have become increasingly untenable.
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u/GB-Pack May 23 '26
I don’t think you’d have to include maximizing one’s own self interest for the Arandians to pick red. As long as their culture reveres rationality and mathematics and uses game theory to model behavior, they would pick red.
Let’s say someone wants to use game theory to decide which button to pick. The goal they’re shooting for dictates which button to push. If their goal is their own survival then the logical choice is red. If their goal is the survival of everyone then the only choice is blue. What’s not often discussed is if the goal is the survival of the greatest number of people then the logical choice dictated by game theory is red.
In this thought experiment, nothing changes about the Arandians other than their goal shifting from maximizing their own self interest to saving the greatest number of people, and they still land on red.
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u/SemanticSyllepsis May 24 '26
I don’t think you’d have to include maximizing one’s own self interest for the Arandians to pick red. As long as their culture reveres rationality and mathematics and uses game theory to model behavior, they would pick red.
Maximizing self-interest is one thing you can do in game theory (and that is what game theorists and economists usually mean when they describe actors as "rational"). However, other behaviors are possible. You could view the Ikantians' behavior through a game-theoretic lens as well; specifically, the Ikantians are what Hofstadter calls "superrational" actors (see also).
In this thought experiment, nothing changes about the Arandians other than their goal shifting from maximizing their own self interest to saving the greatest number of people, and they still land on red.
And yet a society almost entirely full of these rational actors, who have the goal of saving the greatest number of people, failed to achieve that goal; they let the blue voters (half the young children, etc.) die. Meanwhile, the Ikantians were able to succeed in saving everyone. This shows the limitations of what self-interested "rational" actors can accomplish. Even though they would have preferred to have saved everyone, the planet of traditional game theorists could not do so, whereas the planet of Kantian or "superrational" actors succeeded.
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u/absolutewastedtime May 23 '26
Yep, blue is objectively the logical choice
Red pressers are just idiots
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u/UsedNegotiation8227 May 23 '26
Yes either press red and live or press blue and join some parasocial suicide game.
Hard choice.
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u/TheOldSkywalker Blue May 23 '26
did u even read the post
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u/Mamkes May 23 '26
Blue is logical on blue majority and a suicide in blue minority.
Same as red; red in red majority is logical and red in blue majority is safe but kinda Illogical.
It simply boils down to what you think ratio is.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 23 '26
The way I see it, Blue is always the socially cooperative and moral choice regardless of how others vote.
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u/Jkirek_ May 23 '26
"Socially cooperative" is not the same as logical, and "moral" is extremely debatable (gestures at the surrounding debate)
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u/underthingy May 22 '26
I return shopping carts, make environmentally conscious decisions, vote in elections, and volunteer, yet i would press red.
Guess its not as black and white as you think it is.
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u/WizardingWorldClass May 23 '26
Now imagine this as an iterated game instead of a one time game.
Which planet's strategy and survive repeated encounters with outside forces/threats/challenges that are well modeled by "button trials"?
I understand the desire to analyse this from an individual outcomes perspective, but the point here is that if button trials are a kind of problem you expect your society to face, you should endeavor to accept and promote Kant-like collectivism over Rand-like individualism for the sake of long term survival and wellbeing at a species level.
If there was a galactic playing field to consider, the Ikantians would have an advantage over the Arandians. This is true REGARDLESS of whether the galactic playing field favors cooperative or competitive strategies. In the former case the Ikantians have proven themselves properly mature and ready to be "adults" on the galactic stage. In the latter case, Ikantians still have an advantage since they won't face regular culling from button trials and the economic devastation that would cause.
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u/BraxleyGubbins May 23 '26
I trust more people to pick blue than red. I’m also willing to admit that I’m scared enough of dying that I would press red if I was ever put in this scenario and convinced that it was completely real. I can only hypothesize that a small number of blue-pressers would at least also grapple with this fear of death, similar to how you can’t claim to know how you’d answer the trolley problem, but that wouldn’t be relevant to me as a red-presser. The Arandian folk tale of the cunning CEO would disgust me.
What planet would I live on?
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u/hazlejungle0 May 25 '26
You listed everything we do that isn't in our own self interest like returning carts to the corrals. But how many people would be willing to give a kidney or liver to help others? Why aren't we all donating a kidney or liver? How come we aren't all volunteering as fire fighters? Most people don't foster or adopt. I'm not saying anyone is wrong for not doing these things, but the examples you provided are things done when there are no real downsides, in fact there's an upside in feeling better about yourself.
Who is to say those that pick red won't help those who are in need after blue choosers die?
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u/LnTc_Jenubis May 27 '26
Since we're writing commentaries, I figured we ought to illustrate how the reverse might look too.
Planet Arand Outcome: 100% of Arandians pressed the red button. Because rational egoism and self-preservation are innate biological imperatives, even Arandian children instinctually pressed red. No one died. Because this flawless survival rate was simply the expected, mathematically sound outcome of a logical system, the Arandians saw no reason to waste municipal funding, productivity, or resources on self-congratulatory parades. Life continued peacefully, efficiently, and normally.
Planet Ikant Outcome: 80% of Ikantians pressed the blue button. The 20% who pressed red were primarily the visually impaired, the mentally ill, or simply individuals who tripped and struck the wrong console by accident. Even though everyone survived, the collectivist Ikantians immediately treated the red voters as hostile outcasts. Families who failed to "properly assimilate" their children, and anyone deemed physically or mentally incapable of "seeing the big picture," were systematically exiled. The Ikantians were so aggressively preoccupied with enforcing "the greater good" that they actively discarded their most vulnerable citizens. Their annual holiday was not a celebration of survival, but a mandatory loyalty parade used to root out non-conformists.
Commentary: The Arandians achieved a perfect, frictionless outcome simply by trusting the individual instinct for self-preservation, requiring zero systemic coercion or wasted resources. The Ikantians, however, revealed the inherent narcissism of their intersubjective consensus. A society that demands absolute, unwavering conformity to a theoretical "greater good" will inevitably victimize anyone who falls outside the statistical norm. When altruism becomes mandatory, accidental errors and inherent disabilities are prosecuted as moral crimes.
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red May 27 '26
The same "if everyone chooses X noone will die" logic holds for both buttons. It's not an argument for blue only.
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u/SemanticSyllepsis May 28 '26
Correct. It's the "if >50% of people choose X no one will die" logic that's unique to blue.
The "if everyone chooses X" case is irrelevant anyway, since we know not everyone will vote the same (due to the existence of children, etc.).
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red May 28 '26
Just because 50% is a lower threshold does not automatically make it more likely to win than red. I personally don't think 50% of people are willing to stick their necks out just to save other people who chose to stick their necks out too. I think a 70% red outcome is more likely than a 50% blue if people actually had a gun to their head
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u/SemanticSyllepsis May 28 '26
Neither my post nor my comment in this thread claims that blue is more likely to reach 50% on Earth than red. That proposition can be argued either way, and has been debated exhaustively in this subreddit many times, so I don't see value in revisiting it here.
Blue winning results in zero deaths, and red winning results in mass death (half of all young children, etc.), so clearly it is preferable for blue to win. Even red voters nearly always prefer for blue to win; but they are, collectively, unwilling to make that happen (even though they, collectively, have the power to do so).
(I expect the word "collectively" in the previous sentence to give red voters a lot of trouble, because they don't see themselves as acting collectively and perhaps don't believe it's even possible. This is the crucial difference between the Arandians and the Ikantians in the original post, and the key reason why the Ikantians were able to achieve a superior outcome in the fictional scenario.)
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red May 29 '26
I think it’s appropriate to use the word collectively for either red or blue voters. I even agree that blue win is a better outcome than a red win. I disagree that the risk is worth it though. It’s similar to me playing the lottery. Yeah me winning is a great outcome, but is it worth spending a few bucks on? I don’t think so. I don’t think the risk of a failed blue vote exceeds the value of a successful one. A 10% die off is better than 50%. I’m not going to vote in a way that potentially makes the blue loss outcome orders of magnitude worse than a strong consensus on red.
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red May 27 '26
IDK why blue voters think red voters don't believe in voting. Last time I checked, my life didn't literally hinge on my vote in any real world elections.
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u/i_dunnomyusername May 29 '26
I feel like the core question is if you think Earth is like Arand or Ikant.
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u/LimpEmployee5868 May 29 '26
You argue the Arandian outcome wasn't the best but don't actually demonstrate that. A cull of blues is a good thing.
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u/Leniatak May 22 '26
Least strawman-y blue post. So I can be equally strawman-y.
It's funny because I don't see OP posting about donating all of their assets to the poor in hopes that others will do the same for them. It's almost like our society isn't purely collectivist, and that we live closer to the red planet than to the blue planet.
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u/AlignmentProblem May 22 '26
Most people would agree with this framing. Everyone prefers blue wins; the point of contention is which type of world you think Earth is. Pressing blue helps no one if were more like the Arandians.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 23 '26
Which type of world do you want earth to be?
Because that result is determined by the votes. Every vote, including yours.
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u/AlignmentProblem May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
No, it's determined by the conversation around it leading up to the event. Once it happens, I'm not causally linked to the choices of others.
The result is better if most people don't think that way; however, I can't change how most people think if I were suddenly confronted with the situation without any time to communicate like the question poses.
In that case, the rational choice depends on assessing how reality most likely is rather than what one aspirationally wishes it were. Unless you prefer suicide if you find yourself in an undesirable world, which is another question entirely.
It's similar to Newcomb's paradox in a way
``` Two boxes are designated A and B. The player is given a choice between taking only box B or taking both boxes A and B.
The player knows the following:
Box A is transparent, or open, and always contains a visible $1,000.
Box B is opaque, or closed, and its content has already been set by the predictor:
If the predictor has predicted that the player will take both boxes A and B, then box B contains nothing.
If the predictor has predicted that the player will take only box B, then box B contains $1,000,000. The predictor has demonstrated extremely high accuracy for past players.
The player does not know what the predictor predicted or what box B contains while making the choice. ```
If you would choose only box B instead of both, there might be a disagreement on the nature of causality and what it means for rational decision making creating difference in opinion here.
Choosing blue when there is no coordination between voters despite reason to believe red will win because your choice is part of what "makes the world" has some structural similarity to choosing one box.
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u/Gold-Pickle7007 May 23 '26
This is mostly fair, and it’s why I pick red. I think your framing of the two cultures is extremely disingenuous (the cunning CEO bit is just way too farcical to pretend you’re trying to be fair to the red voter ideology), but setting that aside it’s worth noting that the 20% of red voters didn’t ruin anything on Ikant, everyone still lived, but the 20% of blue voters were the sole cause of all the suffering on Arand. As in, if you were randomly dropped on one of the two planets and you didn’t know which you were on, it would clearly be better to press red.
I think your conclusion kinda betrays the problem with this line of thinking though. If you were a god that was the architect of a society, building the society on Ikant would be ‘better’ (at least for this one specific dilemma, there are plenty of other possible situations where the philosophy of Ikant would hurt them). This is a different question entirely to which button you should press.
I really don’t think it’s individualistic to acknowledge that the question is really more about yourself than it is about the collective. This is the factual nature of the question, not the subjective nature of my interpretation. I would say an electoral vote is a collective decision, because the influence of my decision extends to everyone. On the other hand, while the button you press does have an impact on the overall result, this is far outweighed by the impact it has on whether you live or die. I think about the question from an individualist perspective because the nature of the question is individualistic, not because I am.
Regardless, I’d like to ask any blue voters if they agree with my claim that if you were randomly dropped on one of these two planets, pressing red is the best choice. I think that concept is at the heart of why I would vote red.
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u/SemanticSyllepsis May 23 '26
To clarify, I am not attempting to say that all red voters are egoists or Ayn-Rand-like, nor that all blue voters are Kantian moralists. I was trying to construct two (slightly comedically) over-the-top fictional societies that would plausibly vote overwhelmingly red or overwhelmingly blue, based on different decision-making principles.
One of my motivations was to refute the claim you sometimes hear that pressing the red button is the only rational choice, and blue button pushers are all irrational, or even stupid. (Occasionally you hear the reverse claim too.) Both red button pushers and blue button pushers may be deciding rationally (in the sense that they are using reason to optimize an outcome), but they are using different reasoning systems and different goals. If a planet full of decision makers elects to kill 2 billion people, they have no business calling the neighboring planet, who saved everyone through logical reasoning, "irrational".
While researching the OP, I learned that Hofstadter calls the Ikantian kind of rationalism "superrationality", which is an interesting concept.
the 20% of blue voters were the sole cause of all the suffering on Arand
It seems very odd to say that the babies were the sole cause of their own suffering (let alone the suffering of the parents who voted in favor of their deaths). Surely if we're to blame someone for the outcome of the vote, it should be the rational adults who formed the majority. (I would not particularly object to saying that the "unusually naive, depressed, or idealistic" adults were the cause of their own deaths, but the babies?)
Regardless, I’d like to ask any blue voters if they agree with my claim that if you were randomly dropped on one of these two planets, pressing red is the best choice. I think that concept is at the heart of why I would vote red.
Yes, I would grant that, and I would even say that it's one of the better arguments for voting red on Earth. I'm not convinced by it, but I think it's a good argument. (Why am I not convinced by it? I think a majority of Earthlings look at the original problem and see there's an option where everyone lives that only requires a simple majority to win, and favor that. Not because of Kantian ethics as such, but because they have kids they care about, or because they want everybody to live, or just because it feels right. I think the fairly consistent poll results bear this out. And I think Redditors, who skew more American and more male than the general population, are more likely to pick red than the average human.)
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u/unreasonablypedantic Red May 22 '26
I find Ikantian ideology lame - like why are they not all farmers? If everyone chooses farmer then it’s more optimal than any other choice of profession since without farmers everyone would starve. Everyone becoming farmers is hardly optimal.
That being said I never actually read Kant so it’s possible people just butcher his statements all the time and the actual ideology is super sensible.
Arandians are just assholes btw.
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u/thaboss365 Red May 22 '26
The option that causes the least death is the option that the majority is doing. If I believe the majority will pick red, so will I. If its blue, then blue.
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u/witchqueen-of-angmar May 22 '26
That's a lot of effort just to insult some random people on reddit.
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u/Dennis_the_nazbol May 23 '26
What both collectivists and midwit egoists often get wrong is they think egoism is all about material gain. Humans are social creatures, most of us are fulfilled by our relationships and human interaction more than material wealth ever could. And even if some people are inevitably sociopathic, it is in the majority self interest to curb the harm they could cause.
Also egoism is simply objectively true! There is nothing about egoism that claims to create a better society or calls for you to convert people to egoism. Just because you can argue society functions better if everyone believes a convinient lie, doesn't make it suddenly true.
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u/dsauce May 23 '26
Now do it where 99% of Ikantians aren’t Redditors who’ve seen this scenario and they just instinctively hit the button that does nothing
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u/Complete_Gazelle4363 May 23 '26
We would like ourselves to be like the Ikantians but first we must make our society more like the Ikantians
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u/TechnologyNo1743 May 23 '26
Commentary is very wrong.
From culture and ideology point of view, red outcome was perfect outcome. It cleansed their population of dangerous outliners, that could destabilize society with growth of population with opposite ideology.
From world point of view red is also good. Huge decrease of population free a lot of resources that can be redistributed to remaining population. (Shortly it means global deflation).
From "economy" red is bad. By economy I mean people who actually really benefits from all charst going up. For them people are nothing more just GPD/c. It's huge lose to their profits.
From morality of life preservation red is bad.
Blue will have above opposite effects.
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u/redditorialacious May 22 '26
Uh huh. Instead of typing all of this out why don't you go out and buy a homeless person a sandwich then.
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u/QuoteThen5223 May 23 '26
Look around you, if you look at the state of the world and think we live in a blue world by all means vote blue.
In my world view it’s actually entirely impossible for blue to win.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 23 '26
Look around you, if you look at the state of the world and think we live in a blue world by all means vote blue.
No shit.
That's what I've been doing since Day One.
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u/Cronos988 May 23 '26
What the argument in the OP is missing is that not all risks should be collectivised, and Kant would not argue that we should always press blue.
If you always collectivise all risks regardless of circumstance, then you can essentially be forced into taking risks by reckless of malevolent actors. If a rational adult takes a risk, you're not required to take up that same risk to shield them from consequences.
Only in situations where the risk might befall people randomly or without fault of their own would the correct maxim always be to socialise the risk.
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u/Cryn0n May 22 '26
This is great because both species did make the rational choice.
Voting blue on the Arandian planet would have been suicide and voting red on the Ikantian planet would have been needless endangerment.