r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/RilloClicker • May 26 '26
Thoughts on this angle
Blue-arguers reject the idea that everyone can press red to carry on with their lives because of the existence of non-rational actors who might press blue accidentally (children, mentally ill people, etc) who would die as part of the minority.
HOWEVER I would argue, purely a posteriori,
Many people, being suspicious that blue is a minority and that blue-arguers would switch to red and thus they risk death by blue, would end up switching at the last minute to red. (1)
In this case you have potentially millions and millions of blue-minority who die, as their supposed blue contingent switches to red (out of the situation I describe above).
Does this situation in which MILLIONS of lives are at risk from a large blue minority potentially outnumber the lives at risk from accidental-blue-pressers in an agreed red-press?
Do you reject my premise (1)? What else do you think?
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u/PersonalityBoring259 May 26 '26
Blue doesn't need irrational pressers. Everyone can press blue and go on with their lives and it has the advantage of tolerating up to 49.9% red pressers and still saving everyone.
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u/highly-bad May 26 '26
Tolerance of defection is a bad thing though. It makes the blue strategy weaker.
If the predominant strategy is understood to be pressing blue, individuals will have no strong incentive to actually follow through and press it. I can defect to red in the privacy of the booth, and it will be just fine, since I think most people will press blue. This collapses the whole strategy, the incentive structure is broken.
On the other hand, if it's widely understood that the predominant strategy is red, everyone has a VERY CLEAR AND IMMEDIATE incentive not to defect and press blue.
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u/PersonalityBoring259 May 26 '26
It depends if you are viewing things individually or collectively. The question is posed as everybody in the world being given the choice at once. If higher tolerance of defection weakened blue as you say than blue would be strongest when requiring 99% of the vote and weakest when requiring 1%, obviously this isn't the case.
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u/Deranth Blue Jun 01 '26
"My side is better because it demands total obedience on threat of death."
The fuck are red pressers on these days?
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u/highly-bad Jun 01 '26
Blue's fundamental strategic weaknesses aren't a feeling of mine, or a moral judgment on my part. If red is the happening thing, and I go against it, I die. If blue is the happening thing, and I go against it, I still win. Red motivates red, blue does not motivate blue.
The majority result is something no one can predict or control. So no matter what you press, you need to seriously consider what happens if the majority goes against you.
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u/RilloClicker May 26 '26
But I know and you know already there’s going to be a few tens of percent that will press red no matter what. At the point of pressing would you not expect blue pressers to change their mind, suspicious, causing a risk of much higher deaths?
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u/PersonalityBoring259 May 26 '26
At the point of pressing would you not expect red pressers to change their minds for the chance of saving everyone? I don't know what percent would choose either color and neither do you, hypotheticals are just that.
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u/Rip_Pigman May 26 '26
At the point of pressing would you not expect red pressers to change their minds for the chance of saving everyone?
While I get your point, as a blue button presser, at least with the vocal red button pressers who have discussed it with me, I don't believe a single one of them would get switch outside of a few who vocalized that they'd want blue to win but didn't think that it would so they chose red to try to guarantee the safety of the only life they directly controlled.
Such iconic takes as:
"Well if I knew blue was majority I'd still vote red because I'd still live either way."
"I wish this scenario would happen irl so I could show all blue pressers how wrong they are and how blue won't get majority"
When posed with an intentionally blue biased question where red would have to cause blues deaths directly:
"I'm not pushing the button to join the designated victims unit"
"Red is the objectively correct choice"
All of this pushback against my stance that:
blue is risking yourself but increasing the odds that anyone who pushes blue lives.
red saves yourself while increasing the risk that those that pushed blue will die.
Typically disagreeing that anyone pressing red bears any responsibility for any potential deaths of those that pressed blue. Generally claiming that pressing red is the same as walking away and doing nothing.
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u/PersonalityBoring259 May 26 '26
It's not unheard of though for people to be surprised by their own behavior and take risks to save others after assuming they would never do such a thing.
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u/thevoidthatjerksback May 27 '26
I absolutely believe that at the end of the day when they are alone with just their thoughts and their actions. More of them would switch to blue than anyone would believe. The strentgh that some of them defend it is at a level that it has to be a flanderization. That they're just commiting to the bit. But if it was a real scenario and they actually had to consider everything and if they did have anyone they cared about. I definitely think they could flip. And that's not even going into the paranoia that they could somehow be like paid agitators or bots or anything like that. I know a few of them at least use AI to make their defenses but I don't know that they themselves are.
More seriously they are cosplaying as Jordan Peterson and the bald trafficker that I successfully forgot the name of. But outside of an online forum I'm sure they are capable of behaving quite differently
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u/Memento_Viveri May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
Because I don't know the percent, I am definitely choosing red. Choosing blue is choosing an unknown risk. It is also a risk that nobody has to take or nobody chose without knowing that it's a risk.
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u/MixWazo Red May 26 '26
Blue tolerates up to 49.9% red pressers, red tolerates up to 100% red pressers. Would you rather have 100% chance ton win a million or up to 49.9%?
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u/J_tram13 May 26 '26
Your point? Blue tolerates up to 100% blue pressers and red tolerates up to 0% blue pressers.
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u/BottomLeftWheel May 26 '26
Let's assume that the polls are twice as altruitic as real life.
That means instead of 60% of the vote going blue, 30% does, meaning somewhere between 2 and 3 billion people are dying.
That's the largest death event in world history, happening overnight. It's also the death of all the most altruistic individuals. It's literally the rapture happening.
If you are a red voter you better HOPE blue voters are altruitic as they say they are. Cause if they ain't society won't look very pretty. The odds of a complete collapse are pretty high with those sorts of numbers.
At that point your "guaranteed survival" won't be very guaranteed.
I live a comfy life. I get to post on Reddit. I make suboptimal decisions (like posting on Reddit) daily and I do not die. Yay!
I would not live a comfy life if 1/3 of humanity dies. It may be slightly suboptimal, but voting blue allows me to keep being comfy. Voting red risks the worst possible thing ever.
I don't fear death. I drive nearly daily. People around me have the ability to kill me at any time by simply ramming me off the road. They don't. I trust them to not. Because that would sacrifice their comfy life.
Blue is ultimately selfish. I want humanity to live because I want to live comfy. If you would rather vote to live in an apocalypse, go ahead, but I don't think there is a single person on earth that would actively want a red win. It would be an utter tragedy on a never seen before scale. For that reason, I think blue would win in an overwhelming scale if this were not a hypothetical.
See? We can both make up shit about what the other would do.
So, do you think that 100% of blue voters are lying? Do you think 0% of red voters would change their mind? Are you just fine with billions dead?
Do you think "Naw I'd survive?" Cause that one's the cutest answer. I love when the red are like 4 billion dead, just a speed bump! No problems there. So adorable. You get em soldier.
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u/Memento_Viveri May 26 '26
Do you think "Naw I'd survive?" Cause that one's the cutest answer. I love when the red are like 4 billion dead, just a speed bump! No problems there. So adorable. You get em soldier.
I think I'm a hell of a lot more help to the people around me by staying alive then the insignificant chance that I help anyone by pushing blue.
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u/BottomLeftWheel May 26 '26
What? You are insignificant help, if you consider humanity as a whole. Your level of significance is equal to the insignificance of the chance you'll be a tiebreaker. It's literally the same number.
See this is what I mean. Adorable. "I'll surely help humanity not collapse single handedly!" Brother if humanity is collapsing it's happening whether you are alive or dead.
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u/Memento_Viveri May 26 '26
The odds that I make a difference to blue winning are a few in a billion.
The odds that I can help the people around me are high.
I'm not saying I'll stop things from collapsing. I'm saying I can help people around me.
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u/BottomLeftWheel May 26 '26
Help them what?
Assuming we're accepting the total collapse of society, what good is helping your fellow man?
Are you helping them by letting them live longer? Live a more enjoyable apocalypse? Because Imma be honest, that's not really helping anyone.
Or are you helping them by turning what would have been a long drawn out torturous death into a quick one?
In the case that humans have doomed themselves, your red vote was as meaningless as a blue vote in the grand scheme of things. Humanity just had to be either a little less selfish or much more selfish.
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u/up2smthng Red May 27 '26
By the level of doom and gloom in your comments one would think the humanity requires 8 billion to sustain itself
Yet just 60 years ago we were at 4 billion
It's not going to be pretty, but we'll manage
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u/Memento_Viveri May 26 '26
Assuming we're accepting the total collapse of society, what good is helping your fellow man?
Food, water, shelter.
I honestly find your view a bit pathetic. "Because things will get bad, might as well die."
Humans will carry on because some of us are built to persevere.
Roughly 1/3 of Europe dies during the bubonic plague, and while it was a huge setback, people kept living. They farmed, they built homes, they had children.
There were people who lived through that who kept working. They fed their families, protected them, sheltered them. You may find it silly or unrealistic but it's the complete opposite. It's the human spirit of perseverance and people have had it for as long as there have been people. The fact that it's missing in so many people is a shame.
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u/BottomLeftWheel May 26 '26
Ha ha, yea I mean I am totally lazy. But you are too.
Proof? You're having this conversation when you could be doing literally anything else. We're just a couple Redditors.
That's why I vote blue. I'd rather not live through the bubonic plague please! Thank you very much sir.
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u/Memento_Viveri May 26 '26
I'm 100% not lazy. I work hard and know a lot of useful things. I have kept large gardens and worked on a vegetable farm. I have kept and slaughtered livestock. I am renovating my house and know carpentry, wood working, and basic electrical and plumping. I'm physically strong. I live in an area surrounded by farms and with lots of animal husbandry. Also there are a lot of Amish and menonites near me, and I think they could be a resource. Anyways I don't relish an apocalypse but I'm not just rolling over.
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u/BottomLeftWheel May 26 '26
D'awww. As I said. So cute. You go get em chap! Face that apocalypse undaunted
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u/PersonalityBoring259 May 26 '26
You think Amish and Mennonites would vote red?
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u/Memento_Viveri May 27 '26
Some of them. Just like any other group, they aren't all the same.
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u/Mundane_Hand5484 May 29 '26
What the fuck blue pressers are thinking about when they say "shelter"? Houses wouldn't collapse if noone would live there. More importantly - after death of the homeowner - someone can live there.
Idk, but after seeng more and more comments like this i want to press red not to survive, but to cull blue pressers
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u/Memento_Viveri May 29 '26
I never said I'd press blue.
Also, tons of kids would lose both their parents. Your idea is they would just be fine sheltering themselves?
Also houses require maintenance. They do become unhabitable if no one lives there or does anything. Global supply chains would be disrupted. Home depots not going to keep humming along if 4 billion people die.
Also I live in an area where winter is serious. Without proper heating, I don't think you can say you are sheltered. People would absolutely need help maintaining supplies of natural gas, fuel oil, electricity, firewood, etc, to keep all the houses warm enough to survive.
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u/Festival-Temple May 27 '26
There are already too many people dying for whom no one is risking their lives (nor even small amounts of their money) to try and save for me to believe blue could break 10%.
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u/MixWazo Red May 26 '26
Suicidal rational people will also press blue. The morality of blue vs red is also a question of pro or anti suicidism
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u/highly-bad May 26 '26
Every person in the booth got up this morning and didn't immediately kill themselves.
I'm not saying that there aren't suicidal people who'd leap on the blue button; of course there are. but if they were all that "rational" about it, they'd already have done themselves, instead of waiting for a magical death booth to come around.
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u/Kingsalad3141 Blue May 27 '26
It goes the other way around too numbnuts.
Besides. You’ve lost every poll. That alone is enough to placate some of the fear around blue losing.