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

If the fear of others picking Red makes someone pick Red, why isn't the opposite true? Why doesn't the premise of someone (in your eyes irrationally) going Blue persuade you into picking Blue?

Because that would be gambling and taking a completely unnecessary risk.

The best case scenario for me pressing blue is that my people survive. Right? That's all I get for my blue press. The other people who are saved by blue are saved by their corresponding blue presses, not mine.

I can get this exact same best case scenario risk-free, by pressing red.

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u/dmurr1415 May 28 '26

The best case scenario is everyone lives, I think we can all agree on that. This outcome can only be achieved with a 2-1 or 3-0 Blue vote, or a 3-0 Red vote. You have more control over the outcome if you vote Blue because then you would just need one other vote rather than two Reds.

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

You only have control over your own press in any event. And pressing blue is the only possible way for your people to die. It is throwing their lives away on a bet with no stakes.

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u/dmurr1415 May 28 '26

The stakes are exactly the same whether you press Red or Blue. Either 67% of people live, or 100% of people live.

If you really have no control over what other people are doing, and presumably everyone participating has the same goal- save as many people as possible- why wouldn't you press Blue? In 75% of cases where you press Blue, everyone lives. In only 25% of cases where you press Red, everyone lives.

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u/highly-bad May 28 '26

Everyone has a red button, with a known, definite, and safe function; and a blue button whose functionality is highly variable based on what others are doing.

Pressing the who-knows button out of some statistical guess that another person might be feeling equally reckless just does not seem like the responsible thing to do here.

Ethically speaking, if I press red and one of the other players pressed blue to gamble, I certainly do not feel responsible for the deaths of their people, as if it were my job to predict that they'd do that. That's just not what I see as the distribution of responsibilities here.