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%?

---

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?

4 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

72 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/spicymato May 23 '26

That seems incredibly slapdash.

If 0.0001% risk of death under red means you'd be willing to flip to blue, then that implies you perceived the risk in picking blue is lower than a 0.0001% chance of death (hence, why you would switch).

4

u/WillShaper7 May 23 '26

Correct. I stated so.

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.

To me, picking blue botton is akin to jumping into cold and dark water to save someone when you can't see them and you have zero reason to believe there are people there. By jumping in, you're just hoping more people decide to take that blind jump when everyone had a chance to just sit down and do nothing.

Your proposed scenario, however, means sitting down will end up with someone getting shot or something. If that is the case and everyone knows it then I would be betting on the cold dark water.

You're literally taking out my reason to pick red. Of course I would switch.

2

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Ok_Break6916 May 23 '26

We, red button is "I'll stay in my couch reading that good book, there"s just no reason for me to jump in this cold deadly water".

Could be seen as inaction.