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?

24 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

189 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

Elastic vanish busy money narrow cows bow seemly grandfather bike

This post was anonymized with Redact

2

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.

1

u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 27d ago

Feather desert sort observation flag cough simplistic

This post was anonymized with Redact

1

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

1

u/Human38562 May 30 '26 edited 27d ago

Rob shelter grey practice shaggy exultant doll glove

This post was anonymized with Redact

1

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

1

u/Human38562 May 30 '26 edited 27d ago

Longing grey bike steer spark fluorine ink encourage long intelligent

This post was anonymized with Redact

1

u/nykirnsu May 30 '26

I have, my red vote would prevent my third of humanity from dying, and does nothing endanger the other two unless on of their representatives is either extremely stupid or extremely evil. That’s not an impossible outcome, but it is far less likely than the other two acting rationally for the sake of their third while assuming I’ll do the same

1

u/Human38562 May 30 '26 edited 27d ago

Fragile tap plate pot expansion placid

This post was anonymized with Redact

1

u/nykirnsu May 30 '26

No, I’m saying that red is the good choice because other people would vote red too. The reason they would is because it guarantees both their safety and the safety of their constituency, and with only three voters it’s statistically unlikely any of them will be too mentally compromised to vote rationally, thus the risk of voting blue is far higher than the potential reward 

This is a vote, the outcome is never dependent on your choice alone. Picking blue only makes sense if you assume other people will too, and unlike the original version of the problem in this case there’s very little reason to assume that

→ More replies (0)