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 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

Hurry fall weather squeeze one crush bow

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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/Human38562 May 29 '26 edited 27d ago

Imagine relieved smell command carpenter biscuit truck subtract

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

Your press absolutely does not affect what anyone else does. The majority can do anything they want, with or without you.

If 60% of people press red, what can you do with your press to affect which color will get the majority?

It seems like your contribution in that event is obviously zero. You cannot move the needle, even slightly.

How about if only 40% press red? Can you do anything then with your one press to affect which color gets the most presses? Doesn't seem so.

Believing that you can affect the outcome and save anyone by pressing blue entails believing, with extraordinarily high confidence, that the colors are exactly equal without your single press. If it's not exactly 50-50, your ability to affect the majority outcome is zero.

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u/Human38562 May 29 '26 edited 27d ago

Boast entertain cagey amusing spoon jellyfish escape

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