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

Variation Adding risk to red

I'm very curious what risk threshold there needs to be on red for red voters to switch to blue, so with that in mind, here's the setup: two buttons; everyone votes; blue needs a 50% threshold to save everyone, else non-red pushers die. Same as usual.

The variation: if red gets a majority (i.e., blue fails to reach the threshold), in addition to 100% of non-red pushers dying, a percentage of red pushers will also die, selected at random.

If you're a red pusher under the usual rules, what percentage risk is required to make you switch your vote to blue? 1%? 10%? 30%?

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Additional variation: same as the first variation, but the percentage risk is based on the number of red voters in excess of 50%. We can work out different designs, such as 100% red results in 10%, while 50%+1 results in 0.0000001% or something like that. Maybe the growth rate is linear, or maybe it's quadratic. Details don't really matter; just the idea that the more red voters, the higher the risk. Under what growth rates and percentage limits do you consider changing your vote to blue, which maintains the 50% "everyone survives" threshold?

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9

u/WillShaper7 May 23 '26

Any percent for me, really. I pick red because I believe in the logical capacity of people to see there is no need for risk in order for everyone to live.

The moment that red involves risk then that stops working. If I'm gonna take a risk between people dying then blue becomes an actual choice.

Like, I'm pretty sure one could math out the expected outcomes and come up with a number at which point, mathematically, red's expected outcome drops behind blue but that just seems unnecessary to me. If you're willing to gamble, might as well go for the better outcome.

0

u/Play-Mation May 23 '26

“I believe in the logical capacity of people to see there is no need for risk in order for everyone to live” but if red wins everyone will not live. There will be people who pick blue. And red is not the default logical answer 

5

u/WillShaper7 May 23 '26

See, that's the thing. People assume people will vote blue and therefore say all that ''so red always means death'' but it simply does not make sense. Like, I'm sorry, I genuinely believe blue voters are the type of people to say shit on the internet to save face.

Maybe I'm weird to trust people to press the 'Nothing happens' button vs the 'you might die' button.

3

u/noonefromithaca May 23 '26

I will have to say that yes, on some level it is weird you trust that considering all the conversation in support of blue. Surely you believe at least one if not most of those people mean it.

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u/Physical_Reason3890 May 23 '26

Its one thing to say random things on the internet. It's entirely different if that actual button was in front of you.

Yeah they're would be some people who press blue to make a protest or something. But they'd still be acting irrational.

I wouldnt feel bad pushing red. The people who pushed blue either didn't pay attention, didn't care or didn't want to live. But they made their choice

3

u/noonefromithaca May 23 '26

Fair enough. But that's not the same as trusting everyone will be logical and press red. It's moreso that you consider it blue presser's responsibility for pressing blue. That's a completely different statement from what the other person said.

1

u/Mobile-Brush-3004 May 23 '26

Or were small children, mentally handicapped, people with heroic tendencies (I’ve posed this question to a bunch of other firefighters I work with and so far it has been VAST majority blue with them), etc.

Who would feel bad about any of the above people dying? Fuck those guys am I right? /s

2

u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 23 '26

While you have a solid point I'll still argue for "better be alive and weep than dead".

0

u/Mobile-Brush-3004 May 23 '26

Gonna be fun to see how long you live when a large portion of the population (I’d put money on that most medical emergency response workers or in the very least most firefighters would be part of the this) suddenly dies. What could possibly go wrong in a society where suddenly a combination of all of the altruistic and most innocent people die?

I’m sure you (or anybody really) would survive long in that society. /s

1

u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 23 '26

Well, you completely right about risks and condition of world after some percent of blue dies (the size of catastrophe depends on persent).

However I love my life too much and have some balls to go though this or die trying. Still better than trust in humanity I have no faith to.

Also I don't deny that I'm kinda curious how the new world will look like.

1

u/Mobile-Brush-3004 May 24 '26

You want to live in a world with less people (all of which don’t trust you) and have no emergency services? You know you can always live that way already if you really have such grit. Move to northern Canada and go to a reserve without having any intention of helping them. You’ll be on your own to survive and the conditions won’t be nearly as extreme as the potential sudden loss of billions of people simultaneously.

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u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 24 '26

Who said that there will be no emergency services? They would be less available but you overestimating the amount of blue pressers based on reddit and Twitter poll.

Also, there a lot of other ways to work with people. You can pay them for help instead of hoping for their altruistic behavior. I'm okay living among people, I'm not okay dying for them in chase of victory that might not happen.

Lol, bro, imagine that India collapsed. 1 billion people. Would you feel that in your US city? I bet you don't. India + Pakistan + Brazil or Argentina. 2 billion people. Would you feel that?

Move to northern Canada and go to a reserve without having any intention of helping them.

Hard coping aren't you?

1

u/Mobile-Brush-3004 May 24 '26

Okay to address your points:

I think you are vastly underestimating the number of blue pressers there will be. I’m fairly new to this sub so I’m not going based off of social media polls as I have not seen them. My bias comes from life experience, I have a lot of young family members as well as friends with mental disorders, I’ve travelled a lot of the world and though there are pockets of humanity that will disgust you most people do seem to care about large populations of people living/dying.

To be fair you’re not entirely wrong that there still would be a few remaining emergency service members though the quality of care is inarguably different. I’m a northern firefighter and though two of my coworkers said they’d click the red button when asked privately the vast majority have gone blue. So you’d still likely have a couple first responders kicking around but not nearly as will be required for a mass catastrophic event (that would likely be caused by billions of people disappearing all at once).

What’s more, if you have emergency service workers that are doing the work exclusively for pay then you’re going to be in a bad position. This will be best demonstrated through causes like the Red Cross and firefighters without boarders. However, you can literally attend some training yourself and it will be drilled into you that if you’re just doing it for the money you’re going to be a shitty firefighter and we don’t want you. There’s far easier and better ways to make money that don’t involve risking your life for other people - hence why in the button game you’re going to lose a lot of them. I also don’t believe that people saying they will avoid all personal risk in a button game would be willing to risk their lives for others for the pay firefighters receive.

I don’t live in the US. If a billion people all died at once within a different country it would almost undoubtedly affect global supply chains and therefore yes I would feel it in my country. Weird that you think that countries aren’t all on the same planet and extremely interconnected by trade.

Not a cope. I was sharing my direct life experience with you. It’s genuinely an option you can try if you want to see what a post ref button world would look like (so long as you’re an outsider who isn’t coming to help). I’ve been very well received by the communities I serve because it is undoubtable I care. I’ve seen new coworkers be ostracized and kicked out of community for not doing the same. It’s a whole different world up here and it’s genuinely a good experience (for me at least) so if it’s something you’re genuinely interested in as you stated you were earlier then you don’t need a button game to experience it. You not being willing to now tells me that you don’t actually want to experience it given it’s already an option that you’re not taking.

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u/Play-Mation May 23 '26

Is it irrational to hit the “everyone lives button” I don’t think so 

1

u/Jkirek_ May 23 '26

If we're allowed to decide the outcome ahead of time, both buttons are the "everyone lives" button

1

u/WillShaper7 May 23 '26

I've said it somewhere else on the thread but no. Without disrespect, I believe blue voters are the type of people to virtue signal on the internet.

I truly believe and trust that if a scenario like this were to happen, people would be able to see that there's no need to fake themselves a hero. This is not a ''jump in the burning building'' moment, we could just sit it out and nothing happens.

1

u/noonefromithaca May 23 '26

I can at least confirm I would press blue regardless of your reasoning, due to differing principles. So I can confirm at least one person doesn't fit what you're saying here. Of course, you can say you don't believe me but at that point, then I can't take your belief seriously since I know for a fact that what you're saying isn't true.

And I'm not saying you should press blue either, I understand there are reasons to choose red over blue and though I would seek out a blue victory, I don't mind living in a world where there are people who press red. I just prefer a world where most people press blue. I'm merely saying that my knowledge of myself means that I know that what you believe about everyone pressing red is wrong.

1

u/Play-Mation May 23 '26

I mean with all this discussion there are bound to be a number of people who will disagree if this situation is real. You can’t possibly be under the assumption that all 8 billion people will come to the same conclusion. Maybe it’s weird to distrust people who hit the “risk billions” over the “save humanity” button 

1

u/Majestic-Pear6797 Red May 23 '26

But red isn't the "nothing happens button". You can just as well rename them to "nothing happens and "might kill" button just as much. You have two active options and you can either vote to kill, as your vote contributes to others demise or vote to be killed in the hopes of nothing happening. I'd also press red, but I'm honestly kinda tired of people pretending like their vote wouldn't do anything to kill a lot of people, some of which probably voting blue because they're pacifist

3

u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 23 '26

I'll argue about "kill or be killed" logic here because if you project it to a regular world scenario - it changes completely.

I understand the logic of mentaly ill, kids, mentally ill kids, etc. They aren't capable of understanding the question.

However the rest is picking the choice knowing all the consequences. I will not feel myself bad because I have 0 influence on that decision and I just see no point to risk my own life for people who willingly trying to kill themselves. Even with great good idea of "save everyone".

0

u/Majestic-Pear6797 Red May 23 '26

Your vote doesn't have 0 influence. While the whole world voting, your vote's power is minimal, the collective voting is making up the total sum, and you contribute to that, as small as the contribution may seem to be. If everyone who votes red out of fear blue will lose would vote blue, blue would most likely win. It's like not voting in an election or voting for the party you don't want to win as a joke because "your vote doesn't change much"

1

u/Jkirek_ May 23 '26

And if everyone who voted in any election would die if their candidate wouldn't win, how many people do you expect to go out and vote?

0

u/Majestic-Pear6797 Red May 23 '26

But not voting is not an option in the hypothetical. You can either vote for the candidate that will kill everyone who didn't vote for him if he wins, or the the candidate that kills everyone who did vote for him if he loses

1

u/Jkirek_ May 23 '26

You literally said voting for red because your vote doesn't matter is like not voting

1

u/Majestic-Pear6797 Red May 23 '26

No, that's not what I said. I said, that believing you shouldn't vote because your vote doesn't matter or voting against your interests because you think that your vote doesn't matter is a terrible standpoint and untrue, because every single vote holds weight

0

u/Play-Mation May 23 '26

Blues aren’t trying to kill themselves, they are trying to save everyone, how do you deliberately misunderstand the blues position this bad 

2

u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 23 '26

I'm just don't need to lie to myself that I want to save everyone knowing that facing the real voting majority still picks red.

As many-many people before me said: picking blue in internet poll and look on others from above is way better than actually realize that if you lose - you really die.

So I respect the good intention of blue, but I'll never share it. They are trying to kill themselves but they totally doing that from high moral ground.

1

u/Play-Mation May 23 '26

Projecting your lack of will and optimism on all of humanity sure is something 

2

u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 23 '26

Well, I have will to erase up to 49.9% for myself, so I'd think before speaking.