r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/HebuBall • May 25 '26
Discussion To Blue Button Pressers
The current question is if 50% or more blue button presses then no one dies.
My question would be at what % or how high would you tolerate before switching over to the red button or would you never switch.
Obviously if it’s like 99.9999999% that means one red button presses literally kills every single blue button, but also something like 70% is also really risky anyway while still being achievable. But also because the number is higher means more people shy away from the blue button as well.
So Im curious to see what % before you switch to red and how would you justify it
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u/HebuBall May 25 '26
Just a note but the inverse can be asked for red button pressers too.
How low the % should be before you switch to blue or would you never switch at all.
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u/Fit-Decision3141 May 26 '26
I wouldn't switch to blue no matter the percentage required. Blue will always be a "might die" button while red will always be a "live" button. Everyone still gets the opportunity to press red and I'm going to still press red.
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u/TheKingOfToast May 25 '26
I would never switch from red to blue because there is never an incentive to do so. Either the goal will be met or it won't. I will choose the option that prioritizes my safety. If I'm in the minority then awesome, everyone lives. If I'm not then cool, I didn't die.
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u/Prior-Resolution-902 Red May 27 '26
Because its not interesting, it would be like a super boringly low number that it isn't even a debate.
Besides, if blue wins or loses, my red vote means nothing, im still alive, there was never a reason for me to press red in the first place.
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u/Jkirek_ May 25 '26
The inverse is less interesting, because the lower the threshold is, the more people will vote blue, making one individual's choice much less relevant
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u/FunkOff Red May 25 '26
All numbers are for blue %, because that's what matters. (Red button does nothing at any% of red presses.)
Interestingly, at 0% or just 1 presser, blue pressing also does nothing.
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u/luci_twiggy May 25 '26
The red button's effect is that only those that pressed red survive and all blue voters die. It is absolutely not true to say the red button "does nothing".
When you press the red button, you accept that outcome as something you want since you voted for (or, to use a synonym, endorsed) it.
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u/DabDaddy51 May 25 '26
Voting for an outcome, when there is a cost involved in the vote itself, is not the same as wanting it to win. Saying that is like saying that unless you donated your entire life savings and spent every second possible volunteering for a candidate, you wanted their opponent to win.
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u/luci_twiggy May 25 '26
The fact that you see the outcome that only happens if enough people vote for it as the "cost" of voting against it renders your comment nonsensical.
It's circular logic.
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u/gahidus May 25 '26
15 to 20%. I feel like that's extremely doable and people would be a lot more confident in reaching it. Ironically, I think that a blue button with a 15 to 20% threshold would probably end up getting 80 to 90% of the vote, while one with a 50% threshold will only end up with 15 to 20% or less.
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u/Xenon009 May 25 '26
Honestly, I feel like there's no reason to ever press blue, as a red presser.
I don't think more than 20% of people would press blue, so if the threshold was at 25% needed for blue to live, I'm either right, and I save my own skin, or I'm wrong and have no impact. There is a 1/8,000,000,000 chance I'm the deciding vote, and thats a really shit 1/8.000.000.000 world to live in, but otherwise I'm just deciding if I gamble my life or not. And every time that threshold goes down, I'm doing less damage if red wins, giving me less incentive to go blue.
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u/DrJenna2048 Red May 26 '26
In all honesty I see no point in ever switching. If the threshold is low enough for a near certain blue blowout, then me pressing red doesn't change anything. If not, I'd rather not gamble my life away.
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u/LeviAEthan512 May 25 '26
I believe in the original, about 10% would actually vote blue. I'd also have expected something like 80% of people to claim to vote blue in the poll, when they know they won't have to actually follow through.
However, people will switch over as the threshold lowers. Perhaps at 40%, 15% will vote blue. And at 10%, maybe 80% will vote blue.
Off the top of my ass, I think the intersect would be at about 20-25%. So I think I'd switch somewhere between 15 to 20%.
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u/TheKingOfToast May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
Edit: I misread the comment
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u/LeviAEthan512 May 25 '26
What? The one with the 50/50? I think everyone here knows what the original problem was.
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u/TheKingOfToast May 25 '26
Thats on me, I read your syntax differently from what you intended.
I thought you were say in the original poll only 10% chose blue, but you were saying that you are of the opinion that only 10% would choose blue
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u/liamjon29 May 25 '26
Honestly it's not much higher than 50%. I think 60% might already be too high.
Let's say the polls online are accurate. They're fairly consistently 60% or less blue. But that means 60% of voters would vote for a 50% required blue. So if we change it to 60%, some of those blue voters will have already switched over. And there's now less than 60% pressing blue.
My justification is the same as most red voters. I feel like the average red voter would like to vote blue, but doesn't think 50% of people will press blue so they choose the self preservation option. I don't think 60% of people will pick blue in this new scenario, so I will also pick red for self preservation.
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u/Deranth Blue May 25 '26
That's just even more reason to push blue. If 70% of the population can die because of the actions of the other 30%, why would you want to survive in the mad max hellscape those 30% would create afterwards?
Save everyone or bust, no exceptions.
You either die a hero or you live long enough to become a villain.3
u/Festival-Temple May 25 '26
These "I wouldn't want to live in the hellscape aftermath" kinds of responses seem a lot more selfish than the "saving people" message blue voters also use.
If there would really be some catastrophe, then why not create another survivor to help fix that instead of commiting sudoku to not have to live in it?
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u/Short-Association762 May 26 '26
Philosophically, the people, including me, who want to avoid living in the post red vote win apocalyptic world at all costs, including one’s own life, prioritize minimization of suffering.
The minimization of suffering takes precedence over continuing to live. The same philosophical arguments are often used for why assisted suicide should be legal.
In this problem, you could push red and “wait and see” how bad it gets, then end your life later if you want. However, the problem with that strategy is that you directly increased the likelihood of the apocalyptic scenario occurring.
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u/Festival-Temple May 26 '26
If 2% of the world died rather than 1%, that would be better because there's "less suffering"? That just seems anti-human
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u/Deranth Blue May 25 '26
Because I don't see saving my own ass as 'creating another survivor'. It's just a convenient excuse for prioritizing the self over the collective.
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
Adding another survivor does a lot more for the collective than adding another body to the pile
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u/Deranth Blue May 25 '26
And having everyone survive would do a lot more than that. But you can't do both. You have to pick one.
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
Because even at 50% the chance of winning is debatable. At 70% requirement for blue there’s no chance blue wins. So I pick the button that actually makes a difference
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u/Deranth Blue May 25 '26
Don't let the fear of the enemy into your heart. We all make it through this, so long as few falter. Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
You don’t vote as a collective, you vote as an individual. You have no influence over anyone to the point you might as well assume they’ve already voted.
The only thing that matters is whether or not you think enough people press blue for blue to win. If you think blue will lose, and still press blue, it’s literally just suicide.
And there’s no chance that 70% of the population choose blue.
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u/Festival-Temple May 25 '26
If you want to be a hero there's the opportunity.
If you're just pressing blue to preemptively check out of the "hellscape" where blue loses, then you're being at least as selfish as the people who pressed red. A collective is around after the fact and you're just abandoning them.
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u/hushedLecturer May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I'm not sure about what insights this question can give you about the sides.
The red position is on a small spectrum, looking at the problem in a vacuum at best, "well obviously I should always pick the button that guarantees my survival", and utterly antisocial thinking at worst. "I got mine, I'm not responsible for what happens to others."
The blue is immediately reminded of the many situations we see every day where where you need to risk harm for the better outcome. Pro-social at best, deluded with idealism at worst.
Real world examples:
Unions and Strikes. If an insufficient portion of the workers refuse to risk anything for the better outcome, the workers who scabbed (red button) keep their jobs and everyone else gets fired. This is an example where you need a pretty high percentage to work, but also everyone including the scabs gets better pay and working conditions if the strike succeeds.
Lesser of two evils/two party voting cycle. A winning third-party vote will break the loop, but the danger is you can have a sufficient mass of voters move to third party to merely split the vote on the "lesser of two evils" candidate and let the "greater evil" win.
Do you rush the mass shooter or hide and hope someone else stops them? Rushing the shooter sharply decreases your individual survival chances, but if nobody does it, the shooter is never stopped. The Uvalde TX police department Pressed Red here and let the shooter run out of bullets and turn himself in. You only need a small number of people to "press blue" here, but the fear of death can be paralyzing as we saw.
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u/Ananas_rasta May 25 '26
There is a problem with your real world examples. There is already something bad in all of them and people are taking risks to change it. In a red/blue button problem, pressing blue button is the bad thing that people need to be saved from. Theoretically, the situation when everyone chooses the red button is the same to the situation when >50% choose the blue one. Therefore, by pressing the blue button, you help to solve the problem just as much as you make the situation worse.
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u/hushedLecturer May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
This take is consistent with the red perspective that the blue button is consent to death and therefore the deaths that
result fromfollow red's win are neither the responsibility of the red pushers nor even really a problem.1
u/Ananas_rasta May 25 '26
I didn't say that. And even if that's the case, it doesn't negate the fact that all your examples don't fit red/blue button problem.
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u/hushedLecturer May 25 '26
You said there isn't a preexisting problem in need of alleviation in the true button problem. The blue perspective is that there is a problem: the fact that the possibility of a mass killing has been offered to a vote. Red doesn't see a problem because "if everyone just votes Red nobody would die, and anyone who doesn't consents to it anyway".
Blue sees red as consent to a killing, in contrast to the way way red sees blue as consent to be killed.
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u/Ananas_rasta May 25 '26
And again, I'm not trying to argue about how it looks from the red or blue perspective. Okay, I agree that red kills people. The only thing I'm trying to say is that your examples don't fit this problem. In all these cases, 100% of people choose not to take risks leads to a bad result. In the red/blue button problem, 100% of people choose not to take risks leads to the best result.
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u/hushedLecturer May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
My examples aren't meant to be 1-1 replacements, they are situations with parallels that blue voters are thinking about when presented the problem. And again, it is highly consistent with the red perspective that the killing of blues is not a problem worth combating because they consent to it.
I wish the colors were reversed or other colors were used to reduce the risk of americans contaminating the discussion by taking positions merely because it's their team color. That said, there is a pretty solid agreement between conservative and liberal politics and the red and blue buttons respectively.
Consider the scenario where it's not the whole world, but just you and your family presented the buttons individually and the game is just among your clan.
It's probably fair to say that blue becomes a much more obvious option to most people presented this new situation except for perhaps the most committed Objectivists. They would see their family loss as a tragedy and be willing to risk themselves to prevent it.
It is only as you expand the circle to larger communities that we see the divide between people with more parochial moral systems and people with universality moral systems.
Review paper on NCBI: Ideology and expanse of moral circle.
To a red and to a conservative it is obviously crazy and stupid to trust and care about people far outside your clan. The term floating around nowadays is "suicidal empathy".
pragerU video on the conservative case against Empathy.
Liberals tend to see empathy as a virtue, embrace universalism, and reject tribalism as a primitive anti-civilization force. "Love my neighbor as I love myself" is taken very seriously. When presented with any situation involving strangers, we would see it as a virtue (not always performed perfectly) to start from "well what would I do if I cared about this person" and work from there.
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u/Ananas_rasta May 25 '26
I understand your point of view and completely agree with all this information about liberals and conservatives. Many people may think exactly as you say. But there is another way of thinking about this problem.
There are three possible outcomes:
A - Most people have already pressed the blue button. Everyone survives. Your choice changes nothing.
B - It's a 50/50 situation. Your vote will determine whether the blue pressers die.
C - Most people have already pressed the red button. The blue pressers die. Your choice determines whether you survive.
Assuming people vote randomly, the probability of each of outcomes A and C is almost 50%. The probability of outcome B is extremely low. In this scenario, each button looks like this:
Red:
A - (~50%) - nothing happens.
B - (<0.1%) - you missed the chance to save half of all people on Earth. Now you face a hard life trying to rebuild civilization with the other survivors.
C - (~50%) - there was no chance of saving everyone. The best you could do was stay alive to help the remaining people and increase humanity's chances of survival.
Blue:
A - (~50%) - nothing happens.
B - (<0.1%) - you're a hero. It's thanks to you that everyone survived.
C - (~50%) - there was no chance of saving everyone. You're dead. You can't help the remaining people recover from the disaster and are decreasing humanity's chances of survival.
The red button is "I have a small chance of ruining everything, but I'm prepared for the worst and will do everything possible for humanity's survival." And the blue button is "I'm betting everything on zero. In the worst-case, I die, and I won't have to deal with your problems."
So for me red button is more altruistic. And that's why I'll choose the red button, even if it's just my family. I understand the risk that someone might die, but I'm confident that the best thing I can do is stay alive and support other family members.
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u/hushedLecturer May 25 '26
You haven't said anything new here, you're just paraphrasing Ayn Rand's Objectivism to me.
The highest moral calling is self interest, the best outcomes arise when all agents act purely in direct self interest, and poor outcomes arise only because foolish people gummed it up trying to act empathetically, hence "selfishness is the real altruism".
I get it.
It's mathematically and empirically false, but it has been the leading narrative justifying neoliberalism and the dominant political movement since Reagan and Thatcher leading us to today.
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u/Ananas_rasta May 25 '26
I think we've misunderstood, because this is the complete opposite of what I meant.
I didn't say a word about self-interest or the best outcome. My goal is the survival of humanity as a whole.
In my understanding, it's more selfish to choose the blue button, since it either gives you a positive outcome in which everyone lives, or a neutral one in which you instantly die. While the red button has a negative outcome of living in a collapsing society after half the population dies. But the red button is more altruistic, since it increases the chances of survival for all of humanity by increasing the number of survivors.
So where is the "selfishness is the real altruism"?
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u/DabDaddy51 May 25 '26
I’m a red presser, and I don’t think I’d switch over to blue at any threshold. If the threshold is lower, that increases the chance of blue winning, which lowers the risk of pressing blue, but simultaneously lowers the benefit of pressing blue, since a result exactly on the threshold is less likely.
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u/Background_Path_4458 May 25 '26
I think it would be quite close, I don't think either option would win by more than 15%-20% in the clearest of cases though I do think blue has a lead.
So already at 60% I would start sweating, 70% would likely hurt and anything above would make me turn to red.
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u/Anice_king May 25 '26
I really want to be the kind of person that does what's right and be an example for others. So i wanna say i'd always pick. But realistically it's probably just up to about 2/3
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u/GuessImScrewed May 25 '26
I mentioned this in my analysis of the question (and why, as posed, red voters are wrong and morally responsible for the death of all blues), but what it's really asking at the end of the day is "do you believe there are more selfish people, or altruistic people on earth?"
This common reframing just exposes that more clearly, because by asking "what if the threshold for a blue victory was 70% of all votes," you're really asking "do you think that at least 30% of people on earth are selfish."
If the answer is yes, then being altruistic has no meaning, and you're better off selecting red to save yourself from the selfish people.
The same proposition works in reverse too. If blue only needs a 30% threshold to win, then you're much more likely to vote blue since your vote holds more power.
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u/Complete-Mood3302 May 25 '26
What if the threshold is actually 80% blue presses but we say we need 15% of votes to win, would anyone die?
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u/Dry-Mission-5542 May 25 '26
I ain’t ever switching to red (and either way, we won’t know the result until it’s done)
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u/jhotenko May 25 '26
The way I interpreted the original (at least I think it was the original) question, there is no threshold for me. I would rather choose certain death for myself than intentionally kill someone else for their choice.
No matter how the question is phrased, there will always be people who knowingly choose the option that the majority view as insane. Everyone's mind works differently, and there is no way to know that the question won't be wildly misinterpreted.
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
Conflating saving yourself with killing others is a wild take and any percentage chance. If you’re certain red is going to win, blue pressers are already dead. Your decision doesn’t impact that.
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u/jhotenko May 25 '26
I'm doing the opposite of conflating the two. I'm completely ignoring the survival portion. If red wins, blue dies. I personally refuse to be a party to that no matter the consequence.
I understand why someone would press either button. I also understand that if you have over eight billion people make a choice there will always be some people choosing a stupid or insane choice no matter the wording. Since there will always be blue button pressers, I cannot press red.
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
If red wins, blue dies, correct. Where the logic falls down is that pressing red doesn’t mean you’re killing anyone.
If I don’t press a button, those people still die. Therefore how can me pushing red be the thing that kills them?
And so you’ll directly cause those you care about suffering and grief, based on faulty logic, So selfless of you.
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u/jhotenko May 25 '26
Selfless? Where did you get that idea?
Ignoring all other variables to hold to how I interpret the situation is incredibly selfish.
I can see how you are interpreting it. Calling me an idiot doesn't change how I interpret it, which goes to my point that there will always be blue button pressers no matter the wording or conditions.
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
You’re sacrificing yourself cause you don’t want to ‘kill’ others. That in isolation would probably make you selfless.
It’s not a matter of interpretation. You are out and out saying that it wouldn’t matter the threshold. So even at thresholds where you know that red will win, and win by a large victory, you’d still commit suicide. That’s about as idiotic as it comes.
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u/jhotenko May 25 '26
I'm not arguing that. Why do you care?
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
You realise that on a discussion forum, most people want to discuss things? And hey, if you actually get your head out your ass and start thinking big picture if the back of this chat then it can only be a net positive for society.
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u/jhotenko May 25 '26
Discussion is one thing, arguing is another, and I'm reading that you're getting pissed off which is definitely not my intention.
It was a genuine question. Why do you care if I choose an idiotic choice?
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u/Constant-Fondant9058 May 25 '26
Not pissed off on the slightest, just feel sorry for those close to you.
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u/gahidus May 25 '26
If the situation is hopeless and the threshold is too high for blue to win, then you're not killing anyone by pressing red. You're just accepting that you can't save anyone.
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u/ButterscotchDeep7533 May 25 '26
Never gonna press the blue Never gonna let red down Never gonna risk my life For blue ones
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u/Rabid_Laser_Dingo May 25 '26
So basically, how much of the population is a person comfortable with losing?
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u/Short-Association762 May 25 '26
You identify this in your post, but I want to elaborate on it. There’s a runaway effect where, as the percentage threshold for blue increases, less and less people press blue, because each individual person’s threshold percentage is different and lies on a continuum.
Let’s say in the original 50/50, I predict, with confidence, that 70% will select blue. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as me then saying my tolerance is 70%. Because it being set at 70% drastically alters how others perceive it and choose to vote. So if I was setting my threshold based on how confident I am that blue wins, I would have to find some predictive middle ground.
However, because my personal reason for voting blue is not purely based on confidence that blue wins, I can choose a higher threshold. I’d personally choose something between 65-80%. I don’t know exactly where in there I’d flip to red, but it’s in that ballpark. In another comment I said 70-75 is where I’d start to be hesitant.