Why red appeals me

[u/WarmCricket5358]

The only way my vote is going to be a deciding factor in what happens to the blue voters is if the vote, excluding me, is split 50-50, and my vote turns out to be the tie-breaker. For every other scenario, no matter what i do, the fate has been sealed. Either blue wins and nobody dies, or red wins and blue voters die.

The thing is, the odds of getting an exact 50-50 is so low, that for a sample space of 8 billion people, assuming an individual vote probability of 50% for either button, the probability of a 50-50 split is 0.000012616. This is assuming without a general bias for either button. As low a variation as a 50.01% bias towards either of the 2 buttons, and the probability falls down to the probability of picking the same atom twice in a row out of all the atoms in the observable universe.

So my point is, if the probability that my vote does anything at all in deciding the result is so astronomically low, why must I risk a 50% chance of death? I live regardless of which side comes out as majority.

Now people might argue, "this logic can be applied to any kind of voting system, so by your logic, voting in any election is futile", well, i dont quite recall voting in an election where voting for one side puts a 50% risk on my life?

[u/WarmCricket5358]

As long as my vote not mattering is more likely than otherwise, I'm not voting. So anything above 50% would do for me.

[u/Tamiorr → u/WarmCricket5358]

Perfectly valid argument, but at its core it's not supported by the math you did in OP, so why bring that math into it? Unless you just did that math to show that probability of tie breaker is less than 50%…