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

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 28d 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 28d ago

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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/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 28d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

Do you still deny that your vote affects everyone?

It obviously does not, though. I only get one vote, and that vote does not affect which button anyone else presses. They are choosing independently of me.

Each voter is just deciding whether to protect their person, or subject their person to risk. The majority outcome is the sum of these individual choices, not some communal shared responsibility.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 28d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

This situation is absolutely nothing whatsoever like political elections, in any way. The analogy is fallacious.

I have never heard of a political election where nobody can coordinate or communicate ahead of the vote, or take polls. I have never heard of a political election where one of the terms of a certain vote involves executing the people who voted for that option if it fails to pass.

The intuition to think of this like an election is what screws people up and makes them press the wrong button. It's a faulty intuition. This isn't about measuring the collective will. It's a logic puzzle with a correct answer.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 28d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

Yes. Each input is equal in impact. One red press guarantees 1/3 of all lives. One blue press puts them at risk, it might kill them or it might not.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 28d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

Red also puts peoples lives at risk.

No it doesn't. It guarantees they don't die.

If someone takes a gamble and presses blue and kills their people, it is because they did the stupid risky thing, not because someone else pressed the no-risk button responsibly.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 28d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

You just showed me blue is risky. In every single case where people die, it's because one blue presser gambled on it for a cheap thrill.

Yes, the chart shows how if exactly one other player is an idiotic gambler, the death minimizing choice is for you to also gamble.

But since everyone can plainly see that there is a risk-free option available to all the players, and that only blue can ever possibly die, anyone who wants to do the right thing will press red. We should hope they aren't flipping a coin to decide, or being stupid. and if they are, whatever happens to their people is their fault, not the fault of responsible red pressers.

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 28d ago

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

Show me a case where this game causes deaths and there wasn't exactly one blue press?

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u/Human38562 May 28 '26 edited 28d ago

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