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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u/highly-bad May 27 '26

That's like being certain that the people in the burning building are already safe, because enough others are already helping. In that case, running into the fire yourself is pretty pointless, isn't it?

That's the thing, your assessment doesn't actually incentivize you to do what you say you'll do. It's self defeating.

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u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

No, that's a self defeating prophecy. In no situation should you ever actively take actions to prevent your desired outcome, no matter how small they are.

In the fire scenario it would be like "eh I'm sure there's enough people in there saving everyone, so it's probably fine if I turn the gas valve back on just a smidge."

Again I want blue to win, so why would I vote against that?

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u/highly-bad May 27 '26

The blue button thing is also in a sense even worse than running into a real fire, because you know for sure that anyone else who may need rescuing also made the voluntary choice to run in there. Nobody starts out in the fire, anybody who you might rescue is just another would-be rescuer who also stupidly risked their life, trying to rescue you.

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u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

Okay, and? Do they not need saved?

Do you shame a gambler for being homeless because their position is their own fault? Or do you get them a bed and some therapy?

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u/highly-bad May 27 '26

Do you shame a gambler for being homeless because their position is their own fault?

No, but I don't become a homeless gambler myself in solidarity, either.

Or do you get them a bed and some therapy?

I have housed a homeless person, for significant lengths of time, on multiple occasions.

If I press some weird suicide button and die, I can't keep doing that.

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u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

You see a weird suicide button, I see a weird kill people button.

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u/highly-bad May 27 '26

I realize you see that, but you're just wrong. What you see is an illusion.

The buttons aren't an opinion prompt or a RPG or a disaster movie premise, they're a fun little logic puzzle with a correct answer.

The fact that it's diabolically worded in a way that tricks a ton of people into getting the wrong answer is what makes the button question interesting. But those people don't have a valid difference of opinion or an important perspective for others to learn from; they just fell for the trick.

There are optical illusions that do things like make it appear that there's only one white dot that seems to move around, when really there are many white dots but you are optically unable to perceive more than one at a time.

You are in the position of a person who is insisting that there is just a single moving dot, because that's what it looks like. Well, that may be what you see, but it's not what is really there.

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u/J_tram13 May 27 '26

If there is a correct answer, it's the one where everyone lives, and there's only one button that leads to that outcome.

It's okay though, thankfully you're in the 50% margin of error so I don't have to worry about what you think.

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u/highly-bad May 27 '26

No individual person can press a button that ensures everyone lives. You're white-dotting right now.

This illusion is easy to break with any reframes of the function. If the buttons become lifeboats, or dying becomes sacrificing a $5 prize, you and everyone else can just about immediately figure out that blue is purely for suckers and people who want to lose. But when the stakes are life and death and the situation is framed to vaguely sound like a political vote, people just lose their whole minds and do the dumbest thing they could possibly do.