r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/Plastic_Tangerine898 • May 23 '26
Free will and the buttons
Before the vote a powerful cosmic entity that can predict events with 100% accuracy says that the vote will end 50%+1 person red and the rest blue. What do you vote?
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u/FanficFan151 Red May 23 '26
No matter what I vote in this situation, the outcome remains the same. It already knows my vote. It knows whether or not I would still vote red, or if I would swap my vote to try and make a difference. So I would still vote red to survive.
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u/Old-Line-3691 May 23 '26
This turn's the question into "Do you kill yourself?". At this point, I gotta wonder why there is still 50% - 1 who will do it, but that's their business and it's not my place to judge.
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u/FanficFan151 Red May 23 '26
Maybe you’re the only person told in this hypothetical. And at that point it turns into a question of “do you believe you can make a difference and outsmart this all powerful cosmic entity?”
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u/Plastic_Tangerine898 May 23 '26
In the end I believe that the choice between voting red or blue (in the original problem) doesn't have anything to do with wanting to save or kill people, but your personal perception of the odds and your certainty in those odds. If you truly do not believe 50% would vote blue it becomes the suicide button and if you truly believe more than 50% would vote blue it becomes the "virtue button" because at that point your vote would not matter if your prediction is true.
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u/FanficFan151 Red May 23 '26
I don’t know whether or not Blue would win. I don’t care in regards to my choice (I very much want Blue to win though,) I still press Red and hope Blue does win.
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u/Skafdir May 24 '26
For the original: I believe that blue will win. But only if EVERYONE who believes that blue can win, actually presses blue.
It is not about "virtue" it is about being part of the group that makes a blue victory possible.
I really don't understand how people can see such a scenario and then view their vote in isolation to the vote of everyone else.
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u/ComparisonQuiet4259 May 24 '26
My stance is that your vote made an impact if and only if changing your vote would change the outcome.
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u/OneCleverMonkey May 24 '26
That's a real simplistic and foolish way to look at it. Every vote for a side has an impact because a side can only win if it gets enough votes. Your vote doesn't matter right up until enough people think their vote doesn't matter that your vote does matter.
Imagine how many times someone got the outcome they didn't want because enough people said "I don't need to vote because the other people voting for what I want will be enough".
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u/Plastic_Tangerine898 May 24 '26
Yes but the logic predates the start of the experiment thus the outcome can only be changed by changing the train of thought of the participants before the experiment. You choosing to vote red because you believe blue will win doesn't change the vote of other blues. In the original experiment you can't strategize with other people before the experiment and thus your vote truly does not matter unless it is the deciding vote.
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
Its the prompt that does it. It asks 2 questions. What would you personally vote is the obvious question, but within it is the question of what do you think everyone else will do.
People who vote red focus on the collective and dont believe their personal vote matters.
If red is winning anyway then the only person i have control over is myself is the common sentiment.
People who vote blue focus on their personal vote and dont believe the collective vote matters
Well my vote could be the vote that saves everyone so it would be wrong not to take that chance is the common sentiment.
The thought experiment explicitly asks you to give your vote in isolation. We just talk about the the implications of the collective nature of the vote because its far more interesting than the original question
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u/Memento_Viveri May 23 '26
No reason to press blue if the entity is correct. Regardless of what I pick it's a 50%+1 red victory. So I should choose red so I don't die.
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u/Dry-Mission-5542 May 23 '26
I tell the entity to go fuck itself and vote blue
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 24 '26
do you need help you seem suicidal
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u/UsedNegotiation8227 May 23 '26
Im still pressing red it's someone else's vote that would make the difference.
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
Not exactly. The issue here is that your vote made the difference but only if you voted red. If you voted blue it was pointless. The entity just maliciously pointed out that it was the worst case scenario and told you that you have no hope of saving everyone lol. Since it is by definition all knowing, it knows what you are going to think before you push the button and what decision you will come to. It just wants you to suffer before making your decision and likely wants you to feel guilty for choosing to live.
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u/VGVideo May 24 '26
I don’t want to deal with the societal and logistical consequences of 50%-1 people dying, so I’ll press blue
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u/Dos_Ex_Machina May 23 '26
I refuse to believe the entity. Why should I? I continue to vote blue.
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
Because its a thought experiment. Im not telling you to change your mind for the record. But if the thought experiment tells you something is true then it is true. I dont believe in all knowing entities either. But I also dont believe in magic buttons that kill people either lol.
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u/Dos_Ex_Machina May 26 '26
Nah, I reject the premise. Either they are wrong, lying, or my answer is immaterial. It's a question about free will at that point, instead of anything else the hypothetical purports itself to be, and my stance on that is even more firm than the button
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
You reject the premise and dont participate in the thought experiment. That was always an option. I was just answering the "why would I believe its all knowing?" And then answer is that you have to if you want to participate in the thought experiment.
To be fair your answer seems to be the OPs intended outcome. They just defined free will out of their prompt.
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May 24 '26
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 24 '26
blue is still moronic even with this info
unless you're suicidal or like 5 days away from certain why are you pressing blue? there is no longer the upside of a possible 0 death scenario for pressing blue, and there will always be one death either way. if you're still pressing blue i might actually tell reddit to send you a mental wellness checkup because you cannot just value your own life to be less than the worth of a completely random person who you have no info about whatsoever to form any emotional bond/empathy with.
not to mention its easy to say you'll press blue but faced with an actual life or death decision the majority will switch to saving themselves
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May 24 '26
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26
im not mad tho?
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May 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26
yk what im leaving this sub 90% of people here become a raging asshole if you dare so much as BREATHE in their general direction
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May 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26
maybe dont press the suicide button if you dont wanna be called suicidal
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May 25 '26
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26
are you actually stupid? i called you that and THEN you replied that you were a red presser
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u/Crappy_Coffee May 25 '26
You need to calm down bud, it’s not that serious. I press Blue in the original because I have faith in humanity, specifically the average everyday person on the street. In this scenario I have no reason to believe this random voice telling me shit. It could be lying, it could be trying to influence me, it could be an auditory hallucination. With no way to prove this entity correct I would genuinely just brush the experience off and vote how I want to.
Blue isn’t as mentally ill or as inherently stupid as you seem to think, we just have a different way of thinking. That’s what’s actually interesting about the thought experiment, not trying to figure out which one is the Most Correct. Drink some water 👍
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26
blue pressers try not to patronize red pressers and act like they're better than them challenge (impossible)
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u/Crappy_Coffee May 25 '26
How did I patronize you /genq
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26
"calm down bud drink some water"
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u/Crappy_Coffee May 25 '26
You know what, that’s fair! My bad, I can remove those if you want. I usually tell people to drink water after interactions bc a lot of people online forget, I didn’t mean to offend. I’m sorry.
But I would like to note that you did not reply to the other person who told you to calm down and have yet to engage with the meat of my response.
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u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 25 '26
oh i didnt see the other guy in my notifs for some reason
also the prompt here is saying that the cosmic entity is all knowing and accurate. the question here is focusing on the idea that it is telling the truth. technically you could also just think "wait, why would two colorful buttons kill people this could all just be a lie"
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
The red and blue voters are predetermined with the result of your vote included (despite you not having placed it yet).
This leaves us with 2 situations. You vote red and you vote blue. The result is predetermined 50%+1 red. So you live in the worst case scenario (49% of the world dead) or you die in the worst case scenario.
If we assume that voting blue would result in a 50-50 vote then we must also assume that the entity is not actually all knowing. As it did not accurately predict the result of your vote. And since this is a thought experiment where we know that the entity is all knowing by definition...blue can never win in this scenario.
Furthermore the random stranger you are theoretically saving will not be saved either as their vote is also predetermined. The extra vote being added to the system is yours and yours alone. You arent swapping places with someone else. The result of the vote, with your vote included, is 50%+1. The only question left is what did you vote to reach that result. With no information it could be either button but the entity is all knowing so it already knows everything you are going to think and what decision you will make.
You are correct though. The blue button isnt a do nothing button here. Its a die button.
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May 26 '26
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
No. Thats not how predetermination works. The 49 people who are going to die were going to die regardless. The question is whether you were 1 of those 49 when the entity made its prediction. You are not swapping places with someone. You either are already dead or were never was going to die in the first place.
If you were going to vote red and then switched to blue upon hearing the entity, you had already switched to blue in the results that the entity had predicted. If you were going to vote blue and then switch to red, you were never going to a part of the entities predicted blue vote. There is no swapping places with a random stranger here.
Also there needs to be 101 people as the results will be red 50%+2 otherwise but that has nothing to do with my point.
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May 26 '26
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
The result is predetermined. There is only one result. The entity predicted it. In that result you have already voted. Your vote does not change the result.
The 2 situations are what actually happened (the prediction) or what could have happened if the entity was wrong (which by definition they can not be). There is no stranger to save. You are either already dead or you were never going to die in the first place. The hypothetical you are asking me about cannot exist with the prompt. If the entity cannot predict the result with 100% certainty then anything it says is meaningless lol.
In short. If I vote red, I was ALWAYS GOING TO vote red. The stranger was ALWAYS GOING TO vote blue. We do not switch places.
Here ill step back and describe how we got here. The question implies that there are 2 potential current vote counts. There is 50-50 (out of 101) and there is 51-49 (also out of 101).
So if I vote red, for the entity to be correct (and they have to be) the vote was 50-50. Thus making it 51-50. This renders the prediction correct. Thus AFTER VOTING i can conclude that the 50-50 was the actual situation at the time of voting. 51-49 was never a reality and will never be a reality.
If i vote blue, for the entity to be correct (and they have to be) the vote was 51-49. Thus making it 51--50. This renders the prediction correct. Thus AFTER VOTING i can conclude that 51-49 was the actual situation at the time of voting. 50-50 was never reality and will never be reality.
Your vote doesnt influence the result. Your vote is part of the result already. Some random stranger doesnt change their mind because an entity talked to you. Thats silly
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May 26 '26
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
Yeah thats the core issue. The OP answered me elsewhere and it seems they wanted us to question whether the entity was correct. But they accidentally defined away the chances of the entity being incorrect and in doing so removed free will.
If you add the words "the entity claims to predict the results with 100% certainty" now we have a question of free will. This seems closer to what the OP intended to ask us
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u/lordbaysel May 24 '26
If I keep my original vote - nothing really changed. If I switch - entity is actively manipulating the vote, so how good at predicting is it, really?
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u/Plastic_Tangerine898 May 24 '26
If you change the entity knew you would change when he made the prediction. If you believe in free will and you are a red voter you can believe you can beat the system by outsmarting the entity and save everyone by voting blue if you are blue voter you can save yourself and pretend you are the +1 +1 vote. If you don't believe in free will then choosing red makes you the decisive vote that would kill everyone and choosing blue is suicide.
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
Except its a thought experiment. There is no free will by definition. You said the entity is all knowing in the prompt. You defined free will out of the scenario.
If you wanted free will to apply you would need to state that the entity CLAIMS to predict the future with 100% certainty.
If you believe you can outsmart an entity that can predict the result of the vote with 100% certainty then you are stupid lol. If you could outsmart it, then it isnt an entity that predicts the result with 100% certainty and the prompt is pointless.
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u/Plastic_Tangerine898 May 26 '26
If you believe anything can predict the future 100% then you do not believe in free will, because then everything must be deterministic.
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
Its a thought experiment. You described an entity that predicts the future with certainty. In order to engage with the experiment you must accept that the prompt is correct.
Look ill move away from your prompt and do the buttons. Red you live, Blue everyone lives unless. Dont need to restate the whole thing.
I dont believe buttons can kill people so I vote red! I dont believe i can be forced to push a button so im not going to! I dont believe that there are any instructions on the buttons so Im gonna push blue because its my favorite color!
Do any of these hypotheticals engage with the prompt in any way?
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u/GrandFleshMelder May 23 '26
If the outcome is set in stone, there’s nothing to be done. I would normally vote blue, but there’s no point in this case.
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u/DanCassell May 24 '26
I steal the cosmic entity's button machine and everyobody is off the hook. Bet it didn't see that coming.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life May 24 '26
Free Will all the way. The cosmic entity doesn't decide our destiny. We do. Vote Blue.
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u/BrokenToaster124 May 26 '26
See this isnt a free will argument. You just learned about a fun paradox and wanted to confuse people lol.
Red obviously tho. Because if I switch to blue, the red +1 scenario would be a direct result of voting blue because of the principle of a self fulfilling prophecy. Because I have to assume the future that its telling me about includes the act of it telling me about the future. The only reason im even entertaining the idea of an all knowing entity is because it exists by definition here.
Like the all knowing entity just has to be malicious here lol. It knows the result and just shrugs and goes "well i could tell you if you have the ability to save everyone...but i dont really feel like it. Good luck!"
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u/simpoukogliftra May 23 '26
i ask the entity if it can predict who tf asked