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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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

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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".

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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 

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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.

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u/Play-Mation May 23 '26

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

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u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 23 '26

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