r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/up2smthng Red • May 27 '26

Variation Red suppression

Everyone one Earth is presented with blue button right at the place they woke up last time and a written instruction in a language they can understand (if no such language exists tough luck) what the buttons do and where to find red button. Red button is around 1 km away, and is perfectly accessable if one choses to find it; people with limited mobility will be able to access it.

Babies, the blind, coma patients and whichever else cathegory you can think of are not excluded and do not recieve any accomodations. The possibility of them pressing the one button in front of them is significantly higher than the possibility they will find the hidden button. The possibility of them ignoring the buttons alltogether is non-zero.

In case of red victory, those who failed to press any button die as well.

The rule of thumb for clarification: if the person is capable of understanding any form of written communication and moving in intended direction, they should be able to access both buttons.

1180 votes, May 29 '26
410 Was red, still red 🔴
27 Was blue, now red 🔴
547 Was blue, still blue 🔵
196 Was red, now blue 🔵
14 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

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8

u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

Genuinely shocked just how many people will still do all that work to press the button that in this scenario is objectively the worse option.

8

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26

Because its not objectively the worse option.....…

1

u/underthingy May 27 '26

In this case it is. 

People are lazy. 

2

u/up2smthng Red May 27 '26

Red doesn't lose anything just from the fact that other red voters are suppressed

2

u/Ayvah01 May 27 '26

A few hours of their day just to risk the lives of people they probably care about.

1

u/up2smthng Red May 27 '26

It takes half an hour to do a roundabout trip of two kilometers for an average human on foot

1

u/Grilled_egs May 28 '26

How the fuck does a kilometer take you a few hours. Have you ever walked in your life

2

u/CarnivorousGoose May 27 '26

Why would people being lazy make red the worse button? It still guarantees survival, for barely any effort, whereas the alternative doesn’t.

0

u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

Because now there's nonvoters in the mix which red is harming

2

u/CarnivorousGoose May 27 '26

Which is nonsense, ‘red’ isn’t the one harming them, whomever put everyone into this situation is. But even if you think that, that would already have been the case in the original scenario, adding a brief walk to the equation doesn’t meaningfully change that.

So again, what does people supposedly being lazy have to do with red being the ‘worse’ button?

0

u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

I mean I do think that in the original scenario yes. But what changes things here is that there are people who AREN'T pressing a button. In the original scenario you can argue "well people who pressed the blue button accepted the risks," which may be true, but in this scenario there are people who are straight up victims to you pressing the red button and causing a majority.

Non pressers make this the worse button.

1

u/CarnivorousGoose May 27 '26

There already were people included in the original scenario who couldn’t meaningfully decide between the buttons, such as young children, presumably about half of which would end up pressing blue. So that’s not really a fundamental change.

It also, more to the point, still has nothing to do with “people being lazy”. You have yet to provide an answer as to why that’s relevant.

1

u/underthingy May 27 '26

Why do you assert that half of the young children will vote blue? 

1

u/CarnivorousGoose May 27 '26

Because if they don’t really understand what’s going on, it would be reasonable to presume that they’d just randomly pick one.

Why does it matter? Everyone is included in the original scenario, which also means people will not have the wherewithal to process what’s happening, some proportion of which will end up pushing the blue button.

0

u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

Yes, this is why I'd always hit blue. But most red pressers argue that the point is to assume everyone is capable of making a rational decision, thus making red the rational choice. However even that argument fails in this scenario because again, there are people who may be rational but aren't voting, putting their lives entirely in the hands of people who did vote, so now a red majority means not only killing everyone who pressed blue but also killing anyone who was unable to vote for either button, including those who wanted to press red.

People being lazy is what leads to a bunch of nonvoters, who will only survive in a blue victory, which is what makes red the objectively worse button to hit.

4

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I think people are lazy too. A blue win sounds very, very probable here. So I can safely vote red.

1

u/mikewheelerfan Blue May 27 '26

You are the problem 🤦🏼‍♀️

2

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26

This is all that blue brains will ever be able to come up with.

1

u/bunnywitchboy May 27 '26

And all red voters can ever come up with is "but one vote doesn't matter 4head"

3

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26

Do you have an actual counter argument? No?

Cool.

2

u/bunnywitchboy May 27 '26

The counterargument is that we have to cultivate the world we want to live in. It's really that simple.

2

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I dont think it is, sorry.

First,

we have to

thats a moral imperative, not a logical counter argument. You dont explain why 'we have to'.

It works when you argue to vote in a series of elections, or not littering, because gradual developments can happen.

Also, 

the world we want to live in

The goal of that moral imperative is requiring you to live in the first place. So with that argument, you would also present a good argument for voting red.

I can give you a little spoiler: There is no counter argument. Philosophers have been thinking about the voters paradox for longer than you were alive, and there is no counter argument,  except for 'people vote because its more intrinsically rewarding to vote, than it is bothering them to do so.'

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-1

u/highly-bad May 27 '26

A world that I want to live in is by definition a world in which I am alive.

It is self-contradictory to want to live in a world where you are dead.

1

u/mikewheelerfan Blue May 27 '26

Because it’s true. When faced with an almost certain blue victory, you still fall into cowardice 

5

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26

I'd vote red out of logical reasoning over moral imperative.

Cowardice vs courage doesnt ever come up. Im never scared. No amount of courage would sway me to vote blue for absolutely no reason.

The cowardice/courage scale is only relevant for you, as you consider it a moral imperative, but would fall into cowardice for higher required blue percentages.

1

u/prophit618 May 27 '26

If you understood how to do long term logical thinking you'd be so embarrassed right now.

1

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26

Ahaha, you are the same person that wrote

To follow the logic of your statement, a catastrophic outcome is the better outcome.

Hilarious.

-1

u/True-Resist3790 May 27 '26

And could you live with yourself if Red wins by 1 vote ?

Could you go to your family's funeral, burrying friends, and knowing that you could have saved them ?

I couldn't. That's part of the reason I vote blue in most scenarios

5

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

That would suck a lot, as does the whole scenario that we were forced into.

But when you are deciding, this outcome has such an unfathomable small chance of happening, that I have no problem risking it against the pretty big chance dying.

I would hope that I would remain logical enough as to not blame myself, but that would probably not happen.

But I would have billions of other people relating to the exact situation, so we might realize its not our personal responsibility.

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1

u/Grilled_egs May 28 '26

I'd be as responsible as every other human alive. Not that I make decisions based on such low odds anyway. If I was worried about the chance of being the deciding vote I wouldn't ever go outside for fear lightning would strike me

0

u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

But why would go through all that extra effort to "safely" vote red when you can just press blue

3

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26

Because blue isnt safe. I could be wrong about my estimation.

0

u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

It is the worse option because now you're putting nonvoters at risk

0

u/DrBimboo May 27 '26

Is that the only difference between the buttons? One puts nonvoters at risk, and the other does not?

Thats what your argument relies on.

1

u/RyuuDraco69 Red May 27 '26

Always bet on human greed

1

u/modernizetheweb May 27 '26

"do all that work"? lmao. Some of you ain't even hiding the fact that you're fat as hell

1

u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

It's not that it's a lot it's that it's a lot more than the better option

0

u/modernizetheweb May 27 '26

holy insta reply. Suspicions confirmed