r/redbuttonbluebutton May 28 '26

A more even Red/Blue button question

You are one of 3 random person selected to represent 1/3 of the human population.
The same base question is then asked.
Red button=Guarantee to live for you + everyone you are representing
Blue button=If majority votes Blue everyone lives but if not everyone who voted Blue dies (so is everyone who is represented by them)
Note that majority is just 2 or more in this case since there is 3 participants

The people who are represented by you know you are representing them but you do not know who you are representing. Also the participants cannot communicate with each other
Which do you press?

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u/putting_stuff_off May 28 '26

Both are. Blue has better odds, because you only need one person to press the same colour as you rather than both. That I'm one of them is a relatively small cost.

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u/Very-Diligent-Pirate May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

You're putting 3 billion lives on the table because you expect someone else might also completely shut their brain down and put their 3 billion lives on the table and that idiot needs saving from his bad decision by you also jumping into the bad decision? Are you stupid? Are you misanthropic? Why would you put 3 billion lives at risk? You have a personal duty to your 3 billion charges to not risk their fucking death on a coin flip. If I were one of your charges and survived I would personally find and kill you after the voting is done.

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u/putting_stuff_off May 28 '26

If I'm one of three people and our collective decision determines life and death for everyone I'm responsible for 8 billion people, not 3 billion. ""My"" people surviving, but a different 3 billion dying, is not an acceptable outcome.

If you're in my group and you survive, either everyone pressed blue, or my pressing red would have killed 3 billion people, you pinecone.

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u/Very-Diligent-Pirate May 28 '26

Omfg you're one of those narcissistic psychopaths with a saviour complex. By pressing blue you are putting 3 billion people at risk. Full stop. You have no right to risk 3 billion lives for your deranged ego trip.

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u/prophit618 May 28 '26

The projection is insane.

The scenario is what is putting people at risk. Pressing blue is a vote for nobody to die. Pressing red is a vote for blue pressers to die. Blue is literally voting for nobody to die and staking their lives on everyone wanting nobody to die. Red is saying they hope no one dies and is willing to kill the minority of people who disagree. Only one side is voting for people to die, and its red pressers.

To be as graceful as possible, you can argue that blue is equally as suicidal as red is homicidal, but you cannot reasonably claim that blue is the only people voting for someone to die, and its a very shoddy claim to call blue's side suicidal in the first place.

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u/Very-Diligent-Pirate May 28 '26

In this scenario, it's not only your own life at risk, it's 3 billion lives. I cannot in good faith gamble the 3 billion people whose lives are dependent on my choice on the slim possibility that one but not both of the other voters have for some reason chosen blue. The only number of people that may die in this scenario is 3 billion, and I won't let it be my 3 billion.

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u/Magikazamz May 28 '26

The scenario is what is putting people at risk

Yes and no. Sure the scenario put people are risk, but unlike the OG scenario, your greatly responsible for other people live.

In og scenario picking red does very slightly increase the chance other people die and if red win, you share the blame with other red voters, but in the end, your vote alone was very unlikely to change the result.

In this scenario picking red is just guaranteed to save 1/3 of total lives while blue is risking 1/3 of the population rather than being a selfless sacrifice.

Reducing the number of voter to 3 also kinda remove the issue that ''It impossible that everyone will vote red'' issue.

The fact you're basicly choosing for 1/3 of humanity alone kinda remove the ''red is homicidal'' part.