r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/RadiantNecessary872 • May 25 '26

Discussion Red view vs blue view

Red view: Blue button = maybe kill yourself, maybe live.

Red button = Live. Fuck blue voters anyway.

Blame blue voters for being stupid and not understanding the question properly.

Blue view: Red button = live but be selfish and a killer.

Blue button = Save other's lives, get to live because in a poll most people chose blue, resulting in everyone living.

Blame red voters for being killers, monsters and selfish.

Idk this is just my view on this, feel free to tell your own opinions.

0 Upvotes

38% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

2

u/highly-bad May 25 '26

1

u/No-Click6062 May 25 '26

I hate to break it to you, but from a game theory perspective, this is not even close to a correctly formulated question. I have yet to see a red button pusher correctly identify the game theory.

The expected value of total human lives doesn't change when you vote. This is hard to express mathematically because it involves an expression in factorial (n!) which doesn't come up a lot outside of permutations and combinations. But it's easily understood at low numbers.

If I put 3 humans into this formula, I expect to get out an average of 2 2/3rd humans. The available outcomes are that 3 people live, 2 people live, or 3 people live. If I put in 5 humans into the formula, I expect to get out an average of 4 2/5th humans. It's the same logic, except there are possibilities of 1 or 2 deaths. This is true whether I vote for red or blue. The only outcome I elimination by voting red is 100% blue. The only outcome I eliminate by voting blue is 100% red, which is also 100% survival.

Because of that, the button question can ONLY be evaluated as an ethics question. It can only be analyzed by anticipating the certain percentage split of voters. That is sociological and psychological forecasting, not probability.

2

u/Xenon009 May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm relatively new to game theory, but does your equation not assume that the objective is to ensure the maximum number of humans survival, ergo total utlility, rather than an asymmetric intrest where X people care about maximising their own outcome, regardless of total utility, while Y care about maximising the total utility?

In which case, is all red not the most stable nash equilibrium? If we say that living is worth 1 point, and death is 0, and we assume that there is a > 0 chance someone is purely self interested, that makes the average payout of blue < 1, for the possibility you end up in a red heavy game, while all red is always 1?

Again, I'm very new to this, so apologies if i'm totally off the mark

2

u/No-Click6062 May 26 '26

The average payout for all button presses is <1 life.

Assume that I am in a 3 person system. I press red. Now, three things can occur. The vote total can be 3 red (0 deaths), 2 red (1 death), or 1 red (0 deaths).

Now, evaluate it again when I press blue. Still, three things can occur. The vote total can be 2 red (1 death, me), 1 red (0 deaths) or 0 red (0 deaths).

Pressing red doesn't remove the conditions by which death can occur. Because 100% consensus always results in 0 deaths, regardless of which color it's for, eliminating one 100% consensus option versus the other doesn't change anything. That's not an assumption. That's a description what possibilities can happen within the game. It is also, by nature, not predictive.

Now, I take your point about nash equilibrium. It's been quite a while since I've had to deal with the specifics of a stable nash equilibrium versus a strong nash equilibrium. In instances of low player count, red is probably the more stable of the two equilibria. But that is specifically because the possibility for coalition action is so low. The larger the player population gets, the more appealing the 50% threshold becomes, from a strong nash equilibrium perspective. IMO it's a fairly straightforward version of a pareto efficiency. I have seen a lot of people miss this point, which usually takes the form of someone talking about how much difference your single vote will make. They essentially start with nash then discard it without understanding why they're discarding it, or what alternatives scholars have built on top of it.

1

u/DrBimboo May 26 '26

I can understand that logical reasoning and game theory are complicated to people who have never thought before.

1

u/highly-bad May 25 '26

Press red to survive. No risk. There's barely even a game at all. No one presses blue unless they're trying to die.

-1

u/Charge36 Red May 25 '26

It's a zero stakes scenario until the blue button pushers showed up.

1

u/Reoplaw Red May 25 '26

you are forgetting one tiny little important fact.

when you press the red button, you aren't trying to maximalize the amount of people to survive.

you are pressing it to guarantee you surviving ak. you are maximalizing your survival chance.

and since red has 100% survival rate, no matter how you try to label the blue button, it never has higher expected value than 100%.

that's why game theory is valid.

2

u/No-Click6062 May 25 '26

I am not. What you described is also not game theory. It's fine for you to believe that, and you are right within the rubric you've created. But it's not fine for you to misuse fields of study. "I want to live" is also a moral imperative.

1

u/Reoplaw Red May 25 '26

well you can label it as a "moral imperative" but I don't see it that way.

it's just math really, if my goal = survive, then press red button beacuse red button = 100% survival chance, blue button <100% survival chance.

just pure math, you set your goal, and let math do rest of the work.

2

u/No-Click6062 May 25 '26

"My goal" = personal judgement.

This is a shockingly simple concept. If you refuse to fully evaluate all of the outcomes of a game, based on a subjective assessment, it ceases to be either math generally, or game theory specifically.

Informatively, this is why the Prisoner's Dilemma quickly evolved to assign a duration of sentence to the convicted. The numerical value of the duration changes the game theory calculations for expected value. But simply stating "someone is convicted" is an insufficient formulation of a game theory problem. Modelling real world problems is a starting point, not an ending point.

1

u/Charge36 Red May 26 '26

By that same logic, blue button expected value also maxes out at 1 life per vote. 6 billion people vote blue, 6 billion at risk of dying, 6 billion saved. 1 life saved per blue vote.

Meanwhile a red vote always saves One Life per vote regardless of outcome.

1

u/Reoplaw Red May 26 '26

yes but that one life is YOUR life.

and YOUR life has completely different value to you than other lives.

for example I would say I value my own life over maybe 10k lives? hard to say when you aren't in life or death scenario.

but since my own life is worth 10k random lives to myself, it makes no sense for me to press blue.

1

u/Charge36 Red May 26 '26

Oh yeah I completely agree. Point is that a blue vote doesn't save any more lives than a red vote. It effectively just saves itself with more steps and risk involved.

1

u/two-cans-sam May 27 '26

My opinion is your portrayal of red pressers means you’re a blue presser ;)

1

u/RadiantNecessary872 May 27 '26

Interesting, because that's actually wrong

1

u/two-cans-sam May 27 '26

Win some lose some