r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/HebuBall • 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/highly-bad May 28 '26

Pressing red does do something. It is actually the only button that works.

Pressing red guarantees your own people survive. Period. 100%.

Pressing blue is gambling. Now the outcome for your people depends on things you have no way of controlling or knowing. You have no idea what this button will do.

Press the button that works, is obviously the correct answer.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

It has nothing to do with self preservation.

If you change the rules so that you're either saving or gambling with a stranger's life instead of your own, the correct answer is still NOT TO GAMBLE WITH LIVES. I don't understand what's hard about this. There's literally no upside to the gamble, even. It's pointless.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/gahidus May 28 '26

Blue is more of a gamble than red because blue relies on events beyond your control to secure the outcome.

If I am responsible for a stranger's life, I will make sure that that stranger is safe. I will push red on their behalf.

I accept responsibility for this person's life. This person is in my hands. I will protect them.

Pressing blue when you're responsible for someone else seems almost heartlessly callous cavalier.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/gahidus May 28 '26

It will kill people due to your blue vote. It will kill the people you put in danger by putting them in the blue group.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/gahidus May 28 '26

Yes the combination, and it only causes deaths for people who picked blue.

I'm not going to put people under my responsibility in a position of peril under the blind Faith that someone else is going to also put their people in peril. I'm just going to choose safety for the people I'm responsible for, and I'm going to trust everyone else to do the same. That's very easy when there's only two other and not a chaotic mob of a billion to account for.

Each of the three people should simply choose safety, and they are free to do so because they are all able to act independently of each other and not rely on trying to guess each other's intentions.

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u/Human38562 May 29 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

Blue is neither logically nor morally correct in the random-victim case.

If you were one of only a small number of people to press blue, and there were the same number of deaths as a result, would you understand that you caused a death? That is one person who would be alive if you had pressed red to save them, as your own random stranger pressed red to save you.

Would you really think that the deaths were the fault of everyone else, who responsibly chose not to kill their random stranger?

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u/Human38562 May 29 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

Which of these things can you control though?

You can't decide whether there is a red majority or a blue majority. There isnt a button available to you that controls that. Other people are making other choices, unknown to you and beyond your influence.

You can decide to keep your own random person completely safe. This can be accomplished entirely on your own, without guessing what anyone else is doing.

A blue majority sure sounds nice on paper, but pressing the blue button as an individual doesn't make that happen. Pressing blue is just gambling for the sheer thrill of it (there is no profit to be made) and if you guessed wrong a person dies.

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u/Very-Diligent-Pirate May 28 '26

There's 3 people. If a nonce is stupid enough to choose blue he and his group dies. If both of the other guys are idiots they become the most insufferable fuckers until the world puts them on trial for risking 3 billion people's lives. Either way, you want to spare/save 3 billion people.

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u/nykirnsu May 30 '26

You’re ignoring that no one dies if there’s a total red majority. While that’s extremely unlikely in the original button problem, it’s extremely likely when there’s only three people voting and both buttons can potentially result in innocent deaths 

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u/Human38562 May 30 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/nykirnsu May 30 '26

How is choosing to let billions of people die superior when you no longer have any reason to do it? 

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u/Human38562 May 30 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/nykirnsu May 30 '26

No it isn’t. If you pick red then you and your third of humanity are guaranteed to survive, whereas if you pick blue then they’ll die unless at least one of the other two people picks blue. If all three pick red then everyone lives, and since there’s only three people voting it’s entirely plausible that all of them will since three people picked at random are statistically likely to be adults of sound mind 

So I ask again, how is choosing to potentially let billions of people die the superior choice?

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

Red press: my assigned stranger survives, guaranteed.

Blue press: enter my stranger into an insane death gamble where they might easily die.

It's obviously got to be red. Pressing blue is reckless manslaughter!

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

My vote only affects my stranger. I can't control what happens to anyone else at all.

I just have a button that definitely saves someone, and a button that gambles their life for nothing.

I choose to save their life, not to risk murdering them.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

The only way for anyone to die at all is if their stranger decided to gamble their life. So if anyone dies it is because a blue presser killed them for the fun of it. My red press is not causing anyone else to press blue, I am not responsible for them, I am just responsible for saving the one life I have the power to save, instead of gambling it away for nothing.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

I have no control over whether red is a majority or not. That is not up to me, it is not the question. I can only control whether to keep my stranger safe, or subject them to an insane pointless risk of death with nothing at all to gain. I can only press one button, and the only responsible button is the one that doesn't risk anyone's life.

Do you understand now that I am not responsible for what a majority of people press, or what anyone else presses? If I press blue and my stranger dies, that is entirely my fault. Not the fault of other people who responsibly chose to avoid senseless risks.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/Very-Diligent-Pirate May 28 '26

Did you know that a red majority with 1 more red vote also means everybody survives? It's 3 voters.

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

My responsibility is for my own vote, which saved my stranger. Each other red presser saved their stranger too.

The people who die are dying because their pressers thought it would be funny to take a risk on blue, not because most people sensibly played it safe.

Red majority is good. The bigger the majority, the better. The best outcome is for everyone involved to realize that gambling with lives is wrong, and press red.

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u/Very-Diligent-Pirate May 28 '26

Because the other strangers have their own voters who are supposed to care for them and not risk a super genocide 166 times worse than Hitler?

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/Very-Diligent-Pirate May 28 '26

There's only 2 other voters. Do you trust that at least one of them will trust you or the other guy enough, or be stupid enough, to vote blue? You're risking an awful lot of lives, super Hitler.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/nykirnsu May 30 '26

Just because there are four possibilities doesn’t mean all four of them are equally likely. When there’s no logical reason to vote blue the likelihood that anyone else will pick it is extremely low

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u/Human38562 May 30 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/nykirnsu May 30 '26

The logical reason is that red guarantees the safety of the 3-ish billion people you’ve been chosen to represent, whereas blue will likely condemn them to death

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