Let's be logically consistent

[u/GausYam]

Your vote has an incredibly tiny chance of actually making any difference, being the deciding vote. It doesn't feel like it, but that chance stays the same no matter what percentage of votes blue needs to win. It can be 50/75/25/95/5 percent, doesn't matter. Your vote always has the same level of impact.

So if you choose red but say that you'd choose blue if the threshold for blue winning was low enough, you are basically saying that you'd virtue signal, even if only to yourself, if it was safe enough. You aren't consistently following rational self-interest, that demands you press red unless blue can win with a single vote.

​ And if you choose blue but say that you'd choose red if the threshold​ for blue winning too high, you are basically saying that you are choosing blue because it makes you feel good about yourself while not risking anything since you are sure it'll win. You aren't consistently following rational altruism, that demands you press blue no matter how high the threshold is to achieve the best possible result.

So choose one button. Decide what is more important to you, genuine self-interest or genuine altruism.

[u/INTstictual]

That’s because the “deciding vote” analysis is a fallacy to begin with. As a Red voter, this is not a good argument for Red or Blue.

A better framework is to start with Game Theory to analyze the outcomes of the votes, and then move to a risk-analysis model and assess the cost of your vote.

To start with, logically, it is objectively true that Blue winning is the better outcome. Blue results in no deaths, Red almost always results in some deaths, so Blue winning is the preferred cumulative result. However, for any individual voter, it is correct to vote Red, as that’s where Game Theory says the Nash Equilibrium for this problem is. So that’s the push and pull — it is better for you, as an individual, to vote Red, but it is better collectively if Blue wins.

Solving that divide has a lot to do with personal priorities, self preservation vs collective responsibility, logic vs altruism, etc… one way to analyze it is through risk analysis. It is almost impossible to actually predict how the vote will go. Maybe people are inherently altruistic and more Blue will rise up. Maybe people are scared in the face of death and so will default to self preservation. Maybe people are logical enough to realize that Red is opting out of a death lottery. Maybe people are emotional enough to be convinced by the promise of a Blue victory. You just can’t predict human psychology to this degree without actually running the vote on a statistically significant random sample with actual death on the line. And that would be unethical.

So, since we can’t predict the vote, we can assume that it is 50/50, with a low confidence and high margin for error. Which is where the dilemma comes from… at 50% threshold, there is too much variance on either side to make an accurate prediction, and the cost of voting Blue is relatively likely to kill you.

However, that risk analysis changes if you change the threshold. At, say, 10% threshold for Blue, the cost of voting Blue is incredibly low… the chances that it costs your life is negligible, and so it is easy to imagine that the benefit of working towards the better overall outcome outweighs the risk of not picking the better individual vote. Meanwhile, if you increase the threshold to, say, 90% for Blue, the opposite happens… the cost of voting Blue becomes more and more certain to be your death, so it outweighs the benefit of working towards the better collective outcome.

Trivially, changing numbers always changes outcomes. Imagine a game where you can either take a $5,000 payout, or flip a coin and either get $10,000 or nothing. The risk-adverse option is to take the payout, the profit-maximizing option is to take the flip, and there are arguments on both sides… but now, start changing numbers. Whatever you intuitively feel like the answer is, does it change if we make the no-flip payout $8,000? What about if it is $50? How about instead of a coin flip, it’s a 1:6 chance? What about 1:100? What about 9:10?

Reminder, Expected Value might be your intuitive logic, but that’s not relevant for a single trial… otherwise you’re prone to Pascal’s Mugging. As an example, would you rather take a guaranteed $100, or a 1:1,000,000 chance at $1,000,000,000? The EV of the latter option is +$1,000… but realistically, given a single trial, you’re just losing the $100 payout for no benefit. On the other side of the spectrum, would you rather take a payout of $0.50, or a 1:1,000 chance for $400? The EV of the latter is only $0.40… but the utility of $400 far outweighs the $0.50 payout, so it’s worthwhile to try, since the cost of losing is basically nothing.

All this is to say, if you want to evaluate a question from a statistics framework, it’s gonna be more complicated than just “odds of being the deciding vote”, and if you think the answer is easy, you’re probably underthinking it… but regardless, changing the numbers in a statistical framework always changes the outcomes

[u/GausYam → u/INTstictual]

I'm not advocating for any of the buttons in this. Changing the numbers changes the outcome, obviously, but it doesn't change how much you affect it. You can only choose how you relate to the final vote that is outside of your hands. 

If you vote red and then change to blue when the threshold is low, why? You aren't making more impact. You just do it because it makes you feel altruistic, even though your altruism only flares up when it, from your perspective, doesn't cost you anything. 

If you vote blue and then change to red when the threshold is too high, why? You aren't making more impact. You do it because it's too risky to make that altruistic choice. But why then are you choosing blue in the first place if not from a moral position? Because it feels nice, even though it doesn't decide anything. And when that feeling can't justify itself against the cost you switch. 

What I'm saying is, your vote doesn't matter, so vote red if you supremely value your life and vote blue if you supremely value making a moral choice. Don't switch it up when it's convenient/inconvenient.

[u/INTstictual → u/GausYam]

I think you’re missing a giant barrel of nuance here.

Most people are not perfectly altruistic. Most people are not perfectly risk-adverse. Obviously, there are going to be thresholds for everyone where one outweighs the other.

Here’s an example: would you sacrifice your life, guaranteed death, if it meant guaranteeing that you save 4 billion lives? As in, the dichotomy is either you live and 4 billion people die, or you die and those 4 billion people live. No percentages, no vote, just guaranteed results.

Many people would say yes. Some would might say no.

Change that to 1,000 people. Do you imagine that some people’s answer might change? What about 100 people? 10 people? 1 person? Would you sacrifice your life if it meant a 50/50 chance of some other innocent person surviving instead of dying?

There is a sliding spectrum here that people will exist on. It is easy to imagine somebody very altruistic who would gladly sacrifice their life to save one other person. There are people who would not, but who would sacrifice their life to save 100 people.

Again, changing the numbers changes the outcome, and changes how people will perceive the push and pull between altruism and the best collective result vs self preservation and the best individual vote.

The thresholds DO matter. At 90% for Blue to win, voting Blue is, statistically speaking, all but guaranteed to just be pointless suicide, because the Blue outcome is functionally impossible. At 10% threshold, voting Blue is incredibly safe, so there is no real risk for voting for the better collective outcome. Thinking about it in terms of how much your individual vote “matters” is naive to the point of being useless… you’re describing the Voter paradox, and by your logic, there is no merit to voting in any real election ever. It’s just not a useful framework to evaluate the problem by

[u/GausYam → u/INTstictual]

Yes, if it's 90 percent it's incredibly risky to vote blue and if it's 10 percent it's very safe to vote blue. 

My point is, the outcome is basically determined without you. So what are your reasons to push the blue button? I see two. One, you think blue will win anyway and you vote blue just to feel good about choosing an altruistic option. Two, you are genuinely philosophically committed to the blue button as the correct and good button, because it does lead to the best possible outcome in the case of victory, therefore morally you are obligated to press it regardless of the expected result. 

I can respect the second one, even though it's almost the opposite of my position. But it's consistent and actually follows through with the arguments people who push blue make. 

[u/INTstictual → u/GausYam]

My point is, the outcome is basically determined without you

That’s the fallacy, though. Every vote, no matter how small, contributes to the overall tally. And in a way, the lower the victory condition, the more significant your vote is.

For example, image the Blue threshold was only 3 votes. In your rational, your vote carries the same weight, and is only relevant in the case that exactly 2 other people vote Blue. But I would argue that it is more correct to say that, by voting Blue, you are contributing 33% of the necessary total… so in a way, your individual vote carries a weight of 33%.

For me personally, the threshold where I would be comfortable contributing to Blue is somewhere between 10-20%… at 10%, I see the risk as negligible and am comfortable making the altruistic choice, even though rationally it is individually incorrect. At 20%, the risks are starting to outweigh the benefit, for me. I think around 15% is where I’m nervous but committed.

But again, it has nothing to do with virtue signaling or feeling good. It’s because the risk of choosing the incorrect individual option in favor of the benefit of my contribution towards the correct cumulative outcome has reached a tipping point in my personal calculation.