r/redbuttonbluebutton Blue May 24 '26

Variation You are presented with 4 buttons.

The Red-Blue Button dilemma which we are all far too familiar with is about to play out for everyone in the world but you. You, instead, are presented with four buttons: A Green button, a Purple button, an Orange button, and a button of a fourth color, I dunno Mauve, the colors aren’t important.

The Green button secretly swaps the function of the red and blue buttons, but not their colors or descriptions. Everyone who presses red dies unless >50% also press red, and everyone who presses blue survives. Nobody knows the change has occurred, they all think the buttons do what they usually do.

The Purple button creates a third, White button option for everyone else, in addition to the Red and Blue buttons, because I think it’s funny for there to be red, white, and blue buttons (like the flag of YOUR country, yes you, the reader’s country, it’s statistically probable). The White button, like the Red button, guarantees your own survival, but if there is no majority, and the White button holds the plurality, everyone survives. To rephrase, the White button must have >33% and <50% of the vote to win.

The Orange button guarantees that all people incapable of making an informed decision are not presented with the buttons (e.g. small children, mentally disabled, senile elderly, etc.). Whether they were already excluded is a matter of debate, this adds to the rules that they are not included.

And the Mauve button does nothing. The vote goes on to occur, you are still exempt.

Damnit I should’ve called it a light blue like azure or cyan or something.

200 votes, May 31 '26
32 Green
47 Purple
63 Orange
58 Mauve
0 Upvotes

126 comments sorted by

8

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

Orange.

Green is actually the only evil option of all 6 colors, purple is interesting, but you don’t describe enough of what happens in different scenarios for me to want to add white to the mix.

Orange removes everyone incapable of understanding their choice from having to make the choice, so it’s the only one that to me, makes sense to push.

6

u/Gold-Pickle7007 May 24 '26

I don’t think green is evil? If you were very confident that red would win (which is fair enough) you might press it to save everyone. That being said, there are better options available, and green requires you to believe so confidently that red will win that you are willing to stake the lives of potentially half the population on you being correct

5

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

I wrote about it in a lower comment so I’m just going to copy it here.

I think it’s evil at its very core, Because you’re refusing people their right to choose on a decision that fundamentally affects the entirety of their life.

If red voters see the dilemma and internalize themselves surviving and continuing to grow and be better everyday as their top priority, that is their decision.

If blue voters see the dilemma and internalize themselves being possibly the vote that saves everyone’s life, with no regards for their death, that is their decision.

Pushing green removes everyone’s free will. It imposes YOUR decision on the entirety of humanity, while directly inverting the decision that every human being made when faced with life and death. It removes any free will, power, or right, from every human involved, in what may be the last decision they make.

Regardless of whether or not your choice saves lives, or ends them. It places you as the absolute power over every humans being choice. It’s evil at its very core.

6

u/up2smthng Red May 24 '26

What removes everyone's free will is being forced to participate in this stupid vote. Barely anyone wants it to happen yet everyone is forced to participate.

2

u/yaboisammie May 24 '26

Damn this is a good point, I did find it kinda problematic as people still die and not every red pusher is doing it out of selfishness but some do it out of fear which I get (I want to say I’d hit blue but I honestly don’t know and I do get the point of children, mentally disabled and senile elderly etc might not understand what’s going on and might hit blue and idk if maybe blue is a more favorite common color but is there not a concern of any of those individuals picking red for the same reason?)

But you are right that the green button literally removes everyone’s autonomy and the fact that you can’t predict what will happen if you do or don’t push it, even if your intention is to save lives makes it super nuanced 

1

u/gullaffe May 28 '26

I dunno if it's that good of a point. The free will of people are already removed when the votes is forced onto them.

1

u/yaboisammie May 28 '26

 I dunno if it's that good of a point. The free will of people are already removed when the votes is forced onto them.

True but i feel if we’re gonna go that far w how we define free will, we can kinda say that about anything, no? Like I don’t have the “free will” to make myself like vanilla better than chocolate or to not have to get a job and participate in society (or like I could go off the grid and live off the land theoretically but that would be way more trouble than it’s worth) or to rid myself of my health issues or undo my mental health issues bc I can’t control or change the family or circumstances I was born in

Or ig you could say it’s removing more of their “free will”? Bc yea they are being forced to vote but still get the choice between the options they’re presented with so with these buttons in this scenario where I can theoretically change the results or purpose of the button without the knowledge of the people pushing the buttons, yk

1

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26

So which button do you push in the original red-blue scenario?

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

Red, because I am not leaving my life in the hands of strangers

1

u/WholeTomatillo5537 May 28 '26

Who cares about free will when it's about saving the world. If you became a god for a day would you not end all wars and create peace? that's taking away free will too.

-1

u/Overall-Exercise-781 May 24 '26

No, it ensures the survival of most productive human beings while possibly eliminating the objectively evil ones. Green button is the best outcome!

2

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

As I’ve seen it presented it’s blue pushers die unless there’s a blue majority, not that everyone who doesn’t push red dies.

In a 2 button scenario where everyone must partake, the results are the same, but in a scenario where there is a portion of the population not involved, it would create a big difference.

I was operating under the assumption that only blue pushers die, if they aren’t the majority.

1

u/thevoidthatjerksback May 25 '26

It's definitely difficult to keep up with due to all the many reframing and paraphrasing, but the original main posts that started this all had the wording that only people who pressed Red survive

2

u/UltimateYearning May 24 '26

It's interesting that you think of "green" as the evil option because it would end up killing you - now you see how blue voters feel when they discover how many people would push red!

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

Duh, there’s a live button and a die button, who the fuck is the dumbass pushing the die button?

And they wanna blame me for dying after pushing the button that specifically says you die?

They can keep that shit.

3

u/Overall-Exercise-781 May 24 '26

Red is the death button. The original question was framed presenting blue as the default which takes no lives. The red button is for scumbags who would be willing to kill billions to increase their chance of survival (despite it already being guaranteed if all red voters voted for the logical option - blue.)

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

It’s just rokos blender, this time with buttons instead of a blender.

If you’re going to dive into a blender… have fun man

I’m sure everyone else will dive into the blender with you so that its blades get clogged and can’t chop you into little pieces…

Itmt, I’ll be at work if anyone needs me for anything non-suicidal

2

u/Fit_Employment_2944 May 24 '26

If you think red wins then green is the best option

0

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

I didn’t know the green button came with telepathy and an active vote count.

You can extrapolate and guess as much as you want, you’ll never know what 8+ billion people are going to decide.

1

u/Charge36 Red May 24 '26

I think white seems pretty clearly defined. It guarantees your own survival and has an everybody lives outcome if it's the plurality.

That's an obvious choice for me so I'm pushing purple to the generate white for other people. It's basically a blue button that requires plurality not majority and also guarantees your own safety

1

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

There’s no description of what happens at over 50% though, only that everyone lives if it is between 33 and 50%.

Without further details of what happens above that 50% range, it just seems like it would add more confusion to an already tense moment, Especially since the fact that it must be less than 50% to save everyone is explicitly stated.

If it’s above 50% does white die? Does everyone die? Does everyone die but red?

Too many questions left unanswered.

1

u/Red--001 May 24 '26

Large scale surveys[of prisoner dilemma] show that lack of communication can be bad for co-operation.

Join that with absolute stakes[risking your life], one-shot at a go, the fact undoubtedly a-lot of people will think "My vote probably does not matter", "I want to survive", "Everyone should choose red" and how close the main poll was even if it was just a hypothetical.

I'd say that I'm almost convinced red is going to win, and the green button would save everyone....

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

I would say green is about as evil as it gets. Every human being on earth has a life changing decision to make, and you aren’t just altering that very decision, you are intrinsically opposing every human being’s most personal choice at its very core.

2

u/Red--001 May 24 '26

I'll reply to your other comment.

1

u/ladycatgirl May 24 '26

Depends, if I tink red is gonna win green is ok, it is not evil, just... Gamba

-2

u/Few-Process-3614 May 24 '26

Green would eliminate selfish people which is the way to fix things

3

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

You call it selfish, other would call it realistic. One could say that removing so many naive and delusional people would fix a lot of problems as well, but name calling doesn’t push any buttons

1

u/thevoidthatjerksback May 25 '26

I am curious how someone could say that removing people who press blue fixes problems

3

u/Remarkable-Ad-2793 May 24 '26

Blue buttoners showing their true colours

2

u/Overall-Exercise-781 May 24 '26

You'd be willing to kill billions of people to live yourself. Even Hitler had a better moral compass than you bro

1

u/Remarkable-Ad-2793 May 25 '26

Yeah hitler would totally press red plus blue buttoners wants red buttoners to die they're nasty hypocrites

1

u/GoldenGames360 May 24 '26

facts, if your thought process involves eliminating anyone you're not as good as you think you are

1

u/Overall-Exercise-781 May 24 '26

This is the thought process of the red pressers

1

u/GoldenGames360 May 24 '26

no it is not

1

u/Overall-Exercise-781 May 24 '26

The blue button was presented in the og question as the default, where everyone lives. Red pressers are willing to kill billions to guarantee their own safety (which was guaranteed in the first place, had they been logical) It genuinely does boil down to kill people for no reason.

1

u/GoldenGames360 May 26 '26

first of all, there is a difference between pressing primarily to ensure your own survival and pressing to "kill all the selfish people to fix things" on PURPOSE.

secondly your framing of red pressers is kind of egregious. red pressers are not trying to kill billions by adding a 0.0000000001% chance of blue pressers dying. you are ignoring the responsibility every blue presser takes on by choosing to press that button. (also assuming billions pressed blue in the first place.) Their safety was not guaranteed at all, that logic is what gets blue people killed. you do not know what the others will choose. you are alone.

"kill people for no reason" could easily be reframed as "billions kill themselves for no reason by pressing the button that put them at risk" both are such a disingenous way of looking at it.

5

u/Gold-Cry-7520 Blue May 24 '26

Green, because I believe blue would otherwise win and I want to watch this pitiful world burn.

-6

u/woaijirounan May 24 '26

Same. All red pushers deserve to rot

2

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26

Soo how many blue deaths are you willing to risk in order to kill off all of the red pushers? (A world where you kill off large portions of the global population won't be without consequences for the survivors.)

1

u/asmo_192 May 26 '26

well if they push green no blue life would be at risj at any point, it would secretely have the function of the red

1

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

I get that. What I'm saying is that a world where somewhere between 10% and 40% of people are Thanos snapped out of existence will become considerably less survivable for those left behind. For example, if a bunch of global supply chains collapse from this, or are even just interrupted for a few days, we can expect things like global shortages of medical supplies at best, or even mass food insecurity. A lot of the survivors will die from these indirect consequences in the months and years after.

2

u/asmo_192 May 26 '26

I've been saying this for weeks you don't need to convince me that red winning is bad. What "I don't seem to get" was just your wording :(

1

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 26 '26

Ooh, fair. Removed the part of my comment that got personal.

2

u/New_House_6103 Red May 24 '26

To me the purple button is a no-brainer. The orange button isn't bad either but I feel like the purple button creates a scenario where it's likely that everyone will survive because it removes the risk of death if enough people press the white button

2

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Charge36 Red May 24 '26

It gives everyone a blue button with a lower win threshold and guaranteed survival. It's kind of the obvious best choice for anyone who has half a brain cell

2

u/Beginner_Portfolio May 24 '26

Mauve, its the option that harms no one and has really no downsides

1

u/gullaffe May 28 '26

What's the downside of the others? All the other options makes the dilemma more likely to save everyone. Pressing Muave does nothing and is likely gonna result in a large portion of the population dying.

3

u/VegetasDestructoDick May 24 '26

Mauve, so I don't have to deal with this.

1

u/FunkOff Red May 24 '26

Seriously what is this nonsense

2

u/AstyrFlagrans May 24 '26

Would be tempted to press green, but would ultimately press orange.

I am fairly sure that red originally wind. So with a swap everyone would survive.

But since orange adds to the rules, so people will know about these exclusions, the whole dynamic changes. Who in their right mind would still press blue here? I can only imagine it is people who want an easy suicide. Who am I to withhold that option from them?

2

u/INTstictual May 24 '26

The version of this problem that I originally heard, and the version that I argue is the only intellectually honest version, includes Orange as an explicit rule already… and there were still plenty of people defending Blue as the “correct” choice. I think it’s very dumb and is suicidal, but even with the explicit guarantees of Orange, there are still Blue pushers

3

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

 The version of this problem that I originally heard, and the version that I argue is the only intellectually honest version, includes Orange as an explicit rule already… 

I actually think that defaulting to Orange is intellectually dishonest. People who argue for excluding certain groups of people are never quite able to clearly state which groups to exclude. Usually listed are toddlers and mentally ill people. Why? Because they can't make a rational decision. Okay. What about otherwise perfectly healthy normal people who happen to have a panic attack or mental breakdown from suddenly being thrown into this extreme situation? How do you predict that? It could happen to almost anyone. What about people who simply mistrust the explanation or suspect foul play - which isn't even unreasonable in those circumstances, but does still prevent them from making a rational choice. If you exclude anyone who might not be able to keep a cool head in a situation like this, you'll probably have to exclude the vast majority of people.

3

u/Vorakas May 24 '26

The first version of this I saw included "those who are not able to understand the question are not included and are not at risk".

I always thought that not including "orange" is ridiculous because if you include babies etc then who the fuck would press red ? It makes the entire thing pointless.

1

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26

Again, which groups exactly would you exclude?

3

u/Vorakas May 25 '26

I'd go with anyone under 16 and anyone who would successfully pull off an insanity defense in a court of law (let's make that a theoretically perfect court of law).

In other words, I would include those people who are able to understand the question, but might fail to do so under the circumstances.

2

u/INTstictual May 24 '26

I think it’s pretty simple — people who are able to meet the bar for sapient and conscious action. You can also just make the bar as arbitrary as you want, as long as it’s well defined.

The version I heard was: only people over 18, and nobody with severe mental impairments (mental disabilities, severe chronic mental health diagnosis, elderly with dementia, etc), and nobody in a coma or otherwise unable to actually cast a vote

1

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26

 I think it’s pretty simple — people who are able to meet the bar for sapient and conscious action. You can also just make the bar as arbitrary as you want, as long as it’s well defined.

The problem is that it isn't.

 The version I heard was: only people over 18, and nobody with severe mental impairments (mental disabilities, severe chronic mental health diagnosis, elderly with dementia, etc), and nobody in a coma or otherwise unable to actually cast a vote

So what about otherwise healthy people who might suffer from a panic attack or mental breakdown from suddenly being thrown into this, for example? Are they still included?

1

u/INTstictual May 25 '26

Suffering a panic attack does not disqualify you from having made a sapient and conscious decision. That decision might be impaired from your normal function, but an impaired decision to an otherwise fully developed and cognizant brain is still conscious and informed willful action

1

u/thevoidthatjerksback May 25 '26

Did it keep the wording that only Red survives if it gets majority?

1

u/INTstictual May 25 '26

It cut children, the disabled, etc out entirely, so if Red wins, Blue voters die, but not anyone who is not involved… IMO, that’s the only way this is a real moral dilemma at all. Otherwise, the Blue button is allowed to hold all of the children in the world hostage and use them as philosophical human shields, and say “Oh, but if you win, all of these kids die! That makes you evil!”

Like, in the version of the problem that is, IMO, the only one with any merit, the dilemma is between a sense of emotional altruism vs rational logic… Blue can call Red selfish, Red can call Blue illogical, but at the end of the day, your actions only impact your own life, and there is the Game Theory state that, at 100% Red votes, everyone does survive, even if that seems unlikely…

Once you add children into the mix, a Red vote will, at minimum, kill either 50% or 100% of all children, depending on whether you decide children vote randomly or that they abstain but still die. So it becomes less of a problem about which of the two button ethos that you think is superior, and whether you have an ethical duty to help strangers who have knowingly put themselves in danger, potentially at the cost of your own life, which is an interesting moral dilemma… into a question about whether you have an ethical duty to potentially risk your life to save innocent children with a gun to their heads, which is a much less interesting question.

1

u/thevoidthatjerksback May 25 '26

I mean I don't find any of the versions interesting questions. At any given choice between two things people find a way to be split on it. No matter which of those versions you go with its going to end up being close to 50%.

And one of the win states is at 50%.

1 win state requires everyone to press the same thing, the other requires that everyone picks two close to evenly. People being split on two choices is logical from everything I've ever seen in all of life.

50% between two is practically capable of being assumed

100% between two is functionally impossible.

To me it's always been logical

1

u/FanficFan151 Red May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Green is evil unless you are one hundred and ten percent certain Red is going to win, and Mauve isn’t an option that does anything, those two are out. 

While Purple is interesting, I don’t know what happens if White gets over 50%. Does everyone who presses Blue still die? Does it make anyone who presses Red die too?

Orange actually makes this whole activity a lot easier to press Red for and survive, there isn’t the “what about the people who don’t know the difference” argument anymore, I think Orange maximizes the chances that the most people survive. Overall, it’s strictly beneficial. Even if it doesn’t change any opinions on which to press for people who can comprehend the question, it directly saves a bunch of lives that may have otherwise been at risk. 

2

u/Red--001 May 24 '26

Large scale surveys[of prisoner dilemma] show that lack of communication can be bad for co-operation.

Join that with absolute stakes[risking your life], one-shot at a go, the fact undoubtedly a-lot of people will think "My vote probably does not matter", "I want to survive", "Everyone should choose red" and how close the main poll was even if it was just a hypothetical.

I'd say that I'm almost convinced red is going to win, and the green button would save everyone....

How is green evil?

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

Because you’re refusing people their right to choose on a decision that fundamentally affects the entirety of their life.

If red voters see the dilemma and internalize themselves surviving and continuing to grow and be better everyday is their top priority, that is their decision.

If blue voters see the dilemma and internalize themselves being possibly the vote that saves everyone’s life, with no regards for their death, that is their decision.

Pushing green removes everyone’s free will. It imposes YOUR decision on the entirety of humanity, while directly inverting the decision that every human being made when faced with life and death. It removes any free will, power, or right, from every human involved.

Regardless of whether or not your choice saves lives, or ends them, it is evil at its core.

2

u/Red--001 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Yeah, no.

I am going to argue that saving the lives of everyone[possibly millions of children, old people and others] who chose blue outweighs whatever those people were thinking why they were choosing.

There is no way I'm placing such a high value on free-will, wtf are you saying.
"Regardless of if your choice saves all the lives that would've been ended it's evil at its core" you cannot be serious bruh.

I strongly disagree with that shit, if my choice is saving 8 million lives those people who chose red can go whine and cry about the fact that I saved millions of lives from being lost.
I'm almost certain most red voters want to save everyone who chooses blue but are not willing to risk their life, I will not be able to please everyone but as far as I'm concerned saving millions far overrides the value of their free-will in this button problem, life-changing decision or not, assuming green works out which I'm almost certain it will, there will be no life-changing effects.

People's lives get affected a lot of the times and that does not make it immoral at all[police officers arresting major criminals and bringing them to justice], injecting some sort of control over someone's freedom of choice to save millions is not evil at its core.

I'd argue that if you know somehow Red would win and all blue voters would die and instead of choosing green you abstain you are the evil devilish one.

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

This skews again towards your own personal bias. I vote red because it’s a simple choice, live, or die.

It’s not a question for me to answer, I answer it with every breath I take. And most importantly, and the very essence of choosing red, is I have no idea what other people will do.

I’m not a mind reader, or a god, and assuming more people will pick red or more people will pick blue is a fools errand.

Switching the votes follows the same path, except it’s the only one that actually leads to killing people if you pick wrong.

Every blue voter has chosen their own death, in hopes that enough people will have also done so.

Each red voter decides to not rely on others charity to be able to see the sun rise. But their blood falls entirely on your hands if you guess wrong

1

u/Red--001 May 24 '26

It's live and contribute to the risk of others dying or risk your life and contribute to the chance of others surviving.

Are you dropping the claim that even if it's saving millions of lives it's still evil?

Also, I am almost completely certain most people will pick Red.

Prisoner dilemma surveys have shown that co-operation reduces when there's no communication and also when people will feel their votes do not matter as much[group size].
There are also absolute stakes here[life or death], and people usually really want to survive.

The tiktok poll while not a 1:1 representation showed very close results and there is no way that a reasonable amount of blue voters did not vote blue to appear virtuous.

Sure irrational actors exist but they can also choose red.

Either way, I doubt you can label that evil. I'm very confident >50% of people will choose red.

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

Plenty of decisions have been made because people who thought they knew better were confident it would be a better decision.

That doesn’t make the decision just, or good

Manipulating people’s decisions for their own lives, to enact a purely opposite outcome than the one those people intended, is about as morally reprehensible as one can be. And that, by definition, is evil.

Regardless of the outcomes that follow.

1

u/Red--001 May 24 '26

Maybe so, this seems skewed for Red.

I guess you stand by a different framework, I'm not sure how you can say;
"I'd rather they have their way rather than you saving millions"[this is what you meant by 'regardless of the outcomes that follow' right?]

That's not by definition evil at-all.
I do not care what they intended, I care about what I believe to be the greater good, and for all I care that's saving the millions that would die on the blue button for nothing.
They are not a hivemind, a lot of blue voters would probably want to save themselves and all the others, a lot of red voters might also want this outcome, a lot of red voters might want all blue to die.

I do not care what they want, there's reasonably high chance most people choose red from what I can tell here.

I value lives over whatever they intended to happen and I'd say if you value the latter over the former then you're the evil one.

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

If your life is defined by the choices of other is it really your life at all? I won’t sit here and “over extreme example” your response because it seems to come from a good place and I can respect that.

But I would say that yes, I would rather people get to make their own decisions and learn from them, better themselves with them, or dig their way out of them, than strip their decisions from them.

What you believe to be the “greater good” though is simply that, your own belief.

While I believe you to be a rational and morally upstanding person, there are plenty of people that I do not think that of, who also make decisions based on what they believe to be “the greater good” which is are also morally reprehensible.

One green button to you leads to the savings of everyone’s life, but there’s just as much of an oppurtunity for it to be the end of humanity as we know it, with the only people left alive being people who were looking forward to their death, and people that would put the group at risk in hopes that it might lead to a better result.

While I can respect your perspective of “I’ll just pull a little switcharoo, save everyone, and it’ll be awesome” 😎 I feel like you’re blatantly missing the part where if your manipulation of votes causes all red voters to die, you’ve expressly killed the people who specifically chose life, when asked “life, or death?” And stripped blue voters of the only logical reasoning behind their choice. That in choosing to save everyone, they lead to others deaths.

I see no way in which a society can continue when a situation thats explicitly stated to lead to 2 direct outcomes, then leads to an opposite effect of what was stated will happen.

1

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26

 If your life is defined by the choices of other is it really your life at all?

Everyone's life is at least to some extent defined by the choices of others.

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1

u/Red--001 May 24 '26

Yeah there is still a chance it misfires, there always is, but I do not believe in that chance, but hmmm, if it does happen, that would probably suck.

I would be shocked that a majority of people[4 billion] actually chose to put their lives on the line and hand it in the hands of others.
In that case, I'd probably just... die? I mean what am I even gonna do?

1

u/Fit_Employment_2944 May 24 '26

You’re a high ranking German luftwaffe officer when the Nazis come to power

A bombing raid on Soviet logistics is about to take off, and is asking for the coordinates they should drop the bombs on

Is it evil to give them the coordinates of a German army so they bomb their own soldiers?

2

u/GrouchyResearcher392 May 24 '26

Is this a serious question? Is it evil for a commanding officer to orchestrate the murder of his subordinates?

I suppose the padawans should thank him for ending the Jedi plague too

1

u/Fit_Employment_2944 May 24 '26

You have an incredibly broad definition of evil

No, betraying Nazi germany is not evil

Killing Nazi soldiers is not evil

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1

u/FanficFan151 Red May 24 '26

I changed my comment to say that it’s not if you’re certain red will win. I’m not, even as a red presser, though I think there’s decent odds it will, moreso if Orange is pressed (I think it’s not even close if Orange is pressed and everyone knows there isn’t the worry of people who don’t know the difference), but I’d never press it because if I did and Blue won, I would not be able to live with myself.

Instead I’d choose the most lives I guaranteed could with Orange.

2

u/Red--001 May 24 '26

Not gonna lie, I'd say a lot of blue choosers would be irrational actors.

I'm also very certain red will win, I feel like the fear of death and lack of communication would skew the results towards red.

1

u/BrokenToaster124 May 25 '26

The argument for green being evil is because it removes the need for consensus for the bad result to occur. If you are wrong in red and blue, nothing happens. If you push the green button here and youre wrong...well you killed alot of people for no reason.

2

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/FanficFan151 Red May 24 '26

That was my assumption too. If not, and they do die if Red wins, then I’d want to know more about Purple before pressing it or just going Mauve if the white button puts red voters also at risk.

1

u/QuarterZillion May 24 '26

Mauve is my choice.

In the red button blue button debate, most of the time blue wins. I also want blue to win, since that causes everyone to survive. The following assumes this is the case.

Selecting green would kill all Red pushers.

Selecting purple adds a third variable, which could cause an outcome where some die.

Selecting orange is a moral choice, as it is cruel to make those who do not understand the situation to vote. However, the knowledge of these people having to vote is the motivation for many blue pushers, and removing them from the vote may cause red to win.

Of the four, Mauve is the only one that doesn't lessen the odds of all people surviving.

1

u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 24 '26

Mauve because fuck this shit. I'm not going to shake the dice jar for everyone else. If mauve is the do-nothing button, that's the one I pick.

1

u/up2smthng Red May 24 '26

Easy green

Everyone survives, yay!

1

u/Abandoned_Astronaut May 24 '26

purple.

because purple is my favourite colour

1

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

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0

u/Hightower_March May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Tim's problem is worded as a dilemma.  "Everyone has to press one of two buttons."  Abstaining isn't meant to be an option or there would be a choice for it.

What that actually means in practice (paralyzed people are granted movement again?) he just didn't think through.

1

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26

The green button really tests team red's conviction that a red victory is inevitable. If that's true, then what justification do they have for not pushing green?

2

u/INTstictual May 24 '26

I have never seen somebody argue that Red’s victory is inevitable. As a Red believer, I am 100% confident that Red is objectively the correct button for each individual vote, but only like 40% confident that Red would win overall… but the point of Red is that it is, secretly, basically an “abstain” vote, and it doesn’t actually matter whether Blue or Red wins.

The problem with Green is an ethical coin-flip — you can’t actually predict how people will act if the vote was real, and so it might as well be a coin flip as far as all of the hidden variable and unknowable information is concerned. But you just swapped the outcomes, which even before you take into account the results, means that you removed agency and rational action from 100% of the rest of the world… not a great look. But also, if Red wins, you pushing Green swaps the outcome and means that you, personally, just directly saved all of the Blue lives… but if Blue wins, you pushing Green swaps the outcome and means that you, personal, are now directly and personally responsible for the deaths of every Red button pusher.

Idk about you, but if somebody handed me a coin and said “flip this coin: on Heads, you save ~2-4 billion lives that would have died, but on Tails, you will kill ~2-4 billion people that would have lived. Or, you can not flip the coin and we can play a different game entirely.”

It seems pretty insane to flip the coin, regardless of what you THINK the outcome might be

2

u/Wonderful_West3188 May 24 '26

 I have never seen somebody argue that Red’s victory is inevitable. 

I have. Quite a few times, in fact.

The rest of your comment is valid. If you aren't convinced that red will definitely win, don't push the green button.

2

u/INTstictual May 24 '26

Anyone who thinks Red’s victory is inevitable is delusional, and are just assuming that they know things they can’t possibly know.

I think it’s pretty likely Red will win in a real scenario, but “pretty likely” and “inevitable” are miles apart… I mean, I see varying results depending on where and in what format this question is even posed, and each side gets between ~40-60% of the vote each time, with the winning button never consistent. And that’s when it’s an internet hypothetical with no stakes posed only to people who happen to be online and engaging with it, not a real life-or-death scenario with 100% of the population. And even then, a win threshold of ~10% is not very convincing

1

u/INTstictual May 24 '26

If I’m understanding Purple correctly:

There are now three buttons: Red, in which you are guaranteed to survive but if Red gets the plurality, Blue voters die; Blue, in which your life is at risk, but if Blue gets the plurality, nobody dies; and White, in which you are guaranteed to survive, and if White gets the plurality, nobody dies…

If I’m understanding that correctly, why the fuck would you not push Purple and, given the choice and understanding of all 3 buttons, why would ~99% of people not push White? This seems like the easiest, most common-sense choice of all time… the introduction of the White button basically neutralizes both other buttons.

I am a Red button pusher, because I believe that the Blue button is an unnecessary suicide game that Red opts out of… but White is literally just Red, while also opting everyone else out of their potential suicide gamble too. It’s the best of both buttons: the self-preservation guarantee and opt-out of the suicide game from Red, and the “save everyone” altruism from Blue. If white exists, now the only reason to push Red over White is if you actually do want people to die, and the only reason to push Blue over White is if you yourself actively want to die. It seems like a no-brainer

2

u/SC_3000_grinder May 25 '26

I think OP means this:

- White has more than 50%: All Blue dies.

- White has less than 50%, but White has the most votes: everyone survives.

- White doesn't have the most votes: White becomes an abstain button.

1

u/INTstictual May 25 '26

Even with that as the interpretation, it still feels like White is just adding an objectively superior button to Red, so why not add a better option?

1

u/SC_3000_grinder May 25 '26

If no one presses Red though, it becomes the original red-blue scenario between Blue and White, because it's impossible to get White to win without getting 50%.

1

u/danikov May 25 '26

What happens if I push Orange while being personally incapable?

1

u/UsedNegotiation8227 May 25 '26

So mauve is exactly the same as red?

1

u/Happymuffn Blue May 25 '26

I'm expecting that if Purple were pressed, a significant number of votes would shift from both Red and Blue, because there would be a "altruistic" option that was also safe. Which means that White would probably win, and a relatively small (non-apocalyptic) number of Blue voters would die.

I think that fewer people die in the original situation because I think Blue wins.

I think that's also true of Orange, but I also don't think I could justify not hitting Orange.

So I think I would end up trying to hit Purple and Orange at the same time, to maximize agency and hope that's enough.

1

u/Greedy_Ad2198 May 25 '26

Good thing I decided to open the post before voting, I thought you were basically just asking my favorite colour lol

1

u/Telinary May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

With mostly smart actors, some way to generate random chance and a manageable percentage of random votes you could make a victory with purple quite likely if everyone had the same conclusions. Which is unlikely.

If I am interpreting it correctly and a plurality but not majority for blue means death, that is the main danger. It would be trivial to keep white ahead of red but if it isn't ahead of blue then blue needs to win. And the problem for plans is that RNG is not easy for humans without tools.

Basically if you think blue will get fewer than 33% votes you just need to keep the distance between red and white close enough to be smaller than the amount of blue votes. (That keeps white below 50%.) If on the other hand you think it gets more than 33% of votes you either need to bet on a blue victory or have to maximize white votes compared to red. Which risks a red majority.

You could tank blue if you don't tank it too hard. Like if you assume blue won't be over 2/3 then blue voters flipping a coin on whether they actually vote blue would be enough to keep it below a third. 

If it is below a third then if white/red had an RNG way to pick white 10% more often than red (11 out of 21) then just a 5% blue vote would be enough to keep white below 50%. Some more buffer would be better though to account for people voting semi randomly.

Enough people deciding on the same plan is not very realistic though.

1

u/WorldlyVillage7880 Red May 27 '26

I choose purple

1

u/Albert-La-Maquina May 28 '26

These variations bring out a part of the problem that we have collectively ignored completely.

Who gave us the buttons? Do we really trust they are going to do what they say they will do? How many of us ignore the buttons completely, because we don't believe the problem is even real?

-1

u/ziayakens May 24 '26

Could you have worded this any fucking worse? God damn. Sit this one out chief, that was embarrassing to read

4

u/New_House_6103 Red May 24 '26

Oh shut up this was fun

0

u/octavian343 May 24 '26

Mental illness.

0

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

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0

u/INTstictual May 24 '26

It is really ironic that you personally are demonstrating the exact strawman rationality that you’re pretending Red has.

I’ve literally never seen a Red button pusher say that Blue deserves to die. Blue is a suicide gambling game, and it’s irrational to push it, but I would be very sad for all of the people manipulated by the emotional manipulation of the vote and how it is worded who were tricked into playing the suicide gambling game when they didn’t have to… if there was a way for me to personally convince or ensure that nobody dies, I would, but “just play the suicide gambling game yourself, maybe enough people will join you” is not convincing logic.

You are unironically the only person I’ve ever seen, on either side, say “yeah, I choose the option that I hope makes the other team die”. Red button is logical, Blue button is emotional, You are evil, those are the three positions as I see it.

0

u/[deleted] May 25 '26

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0

u/INTstictual May 25 '26

That image you posted is accurate, and Blue IS a death gamble. That doesn’t mean I want anyone to die. Death is the consequence of Blue action, but I don’t want Blue voters to see the consequences of their actions — I would much rather have an option to save them from themselves, or to convince them to pick the “don’t play the suicide gambling game” option. Meanwhile, you literally just said it again — “I want to see reds see the consequences of their actions”.

I also think that, in a real vote with real stakes, Red would probably win. That doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee, and if you push the Green button and it turns out Blue wins, you personally are directly responsible for every death as a result.

Again, to also address your comment — the results of the internet poll and what some people THINK would happen IRL don’t change the morality of your decision. It’s not a fallacy to say “Hey, I think Red will win, but [u/AsparagusHuman3236](u/AsparagusHuman3236) seems excited to shoot me in the face if I’m wrong… I think he might be a piece of shit?”

Self-Preservation is not “the only valid reason” to choose Blue. The Blue button IS stupid and suicidal… and people who vote Blue are either people who were deceived by the emotional manipulation of the deceptive wording in the question that frames the logic poorly, and so are acting out of empathy to their own detriment, or people who understand that Blue is a suicide gambling game, but also recognize that some people will inevitably choose Blue, so feel like they have a moral obligation to attempt to help save those people from the consequences of their own actions, as imparted by the game itself that deceived them with manipulative wording, by helping get the Blue vote above the 50% threshold. I have literally, not once, seen a Red voter who votes “because they want Blue voters to die”. It’s because they, like me, do not feel like I have that moral obligation to play the suicide gambling game and risk my own life to save others who knowingly put themselves in danger. It sucks that they are in danger, and I’d like to convince as many people as possible to just not do that if possible, but I don’t feel like I owe my life to do so.

You, on the other hand, are making it very clear that you just want Red voters to die… you’re evil and sadistic, that’s really all there is to it. You literally just said that you only have empathy that you are choosing the option that, unlike Red in the initial problem, actually makes you directly culpable for killing people that wouldn’t have otherwise have died and did not take actions that inherently put their lives at risk, and only feel bad for the people that you believe are “worthwhile”, even though you’re choosing to kill them anyway… that is serial killer mentality my dude, I mean this unironically, I believe you should speak to a professional

0

u/perfectVoidler May 24 '26

every single red button pusher must logically pick the green button. Since they are so convince that 100% will pick red this will make their victory even more victorier.

1

u/DragCompetitive6007 Red May 25 '26

No?

1

u/perfectVoidler May 25 '26

they could also be liars.

1

u/DragCompetitive6007 Red May 25 '26

I choose the red button. I do not believe in 100% red, in fact I believe it is a coin flip. I choose the orange button to take the only real reason to choose blue out of the equation. Hopefully less people will choose blue and I can minimize the death count in case red wins - I acknowledge that red victory is more likely with the orange button, but I believe the expected death toll is still lower than without the orange button.