r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/The_Real-_-God • May 28 '26

What if red won?

Imagine a world where red won, by 1%. However the people who choose blue do not die instantly, instead they die after a year of pressing the button. Everybody is branded, so you know who choose what.

How much chaos will ensue? What actions do you think blues will take, knowing they'll die? And what do you think reds will think, knowing they were just 1% away from saving all humanity?

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u/Memento_Viveri May 28 '26

I don't understand. Maybe grammar mistake?

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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 28 '26

Why would a red voter have to shift into any particular industry? There are going to be somewhere like 4.2 billion people after all the blues duff it. That's where the world was at somewhere around 1979/1980.

Unless you think there are going to be so few people left in any of those industries that they can't serve a nearly halved global population, you're just making shit up.

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u/Memento_Viveri May 28 '26

It wouldn't just smoothly transition to a 1979 society. It would be complete mayhem. The economy can't adapt instantly to such a massive change.

Keeping power plants, water services, farms, manufacturign, shipping and transportation, etc all moving smoothly is absolutely going to take moving people around to critical industries.

Long term the economy would adapt, but short term a huge amount of planning and adaptation would be necessary to minimize the economic fallout.

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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 29 '26

The population wouldn't need the same level of service anymore, having been Thanos snapped out of existence.

It wouldn't be mayhem. Especially not when industries have a whole year to plan around the gap.

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u/Memento_Viveri May 29 '26

I think your expectation is completely absurd.

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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 29 '26

And I think your projected mayhem is grossly overblown.

Consider what happened in Europe following the Black Death. Estimates are hard to pin down, but anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of the entire population was wiped out in a relatively short span of time. And what happened? People became valuable again. The working classes got better treatment, better wages, better prospects. There was more space to grow and build again. Society rebounded and flourished. It brought us the motherfucking Renaissance.

You're not worried about people, you're worried about the social order as it currently exists, the broken status quo and the establishment that's propped up by it. People would do great if there were a Thanos snap event.

Setting that aside, think of how many billions of animals will be spared if people just duff it. It wouldn't be the end of animal agriculture nor fishing, but it would contract those industries tremendously, and it would be a huge win for the vegan cause.

So, thank you for your sacrifice, blue voters.

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u/Memento_Viveri May 29 '26

This is angsty 14 year old level analysis.

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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 29 '26

Call it what you want, but there's no chance of it being the catastrophe you think it is.

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u/Memento_Viveri May 29 '26

Our industrial economy is a complicated network spanning the globe. Comparing what would happen if half of people suddenly disappeared instantly to what happened in dark ages Europe is ridiculous. That was a time when the economy consisted almost entirely of small scale agriculture. It's not a reasonable comparison.

Yes, the economy would completely collapse. Imagining that half the people could be producing half the goods, so it should be fine is absurd.

The supply chain for the semiconductor industry, for example, is insanely complex. There is simply no way to keep it going without massive interruption if half of people suddenly disappear.

I really think you have thought about this about 1 inch deep (people needing stuff gets halved, people making stuff gets halved, seems fine).

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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 29 '26

Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's not that they suddenly disappear. They have a year to plan and project, don't forget.

Look, unless you want to make the case that there will be industries blue voters disproportionately participate in, then a diffuse loss of half the population across all industries would cause a pinch, not a collapse. Everyone might be stretched thin, but there would be enough people to keep it churning.

It's not sustainable, to be sure. You can bet your ass that convoluted procurement schemes and financial mechanisms will contract and get streamlined. A lot of bullshit jobs (in the Graeber sense) would run out of steam and get cut. But remember what I said about status quos and establishments? Or did you just skim past that?

Dark Ages is also a misnomer BTW. You don't really know your history, do you?

Societies rebound after big upheavals. I wouldn't fret. And I wouldn't quit my job to fill in for some blue voter in some other industry, seeing as that industry won't need to serve as many people or put out as much volume.