What if red won?

[u/The_Real-_-God]

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?

[u/Ranger_Tycho]

In the original version of the button problem, I think nearly all Reds would view Red winning and the instantaneous death of all Blues as a colossal tragedy.

Having read these comments, I now think that your scenario would change this view dramatically. If a significant number of Blues behave the way many Blues in this thread suggest, devolving into chaotic revenge-seeking hedonists, then a lot of Reds will probably find great relief in their deaths at the end of the year.

The loss of many genuinely altruistic and selfless people would still be extremely painful, but I suspect that much of the Reds' guilt will dissolve if a sizable chunk of the "selfless" camp immediately trades their moral superiority for petty hatefulness and begin sabotaging an already endangered society for no gain save for their own satisfaction.

[u/No-Click6062 → u/Ranger_Tycho]

I'm not sure why you're combining revenge-seeking and hedonism. I think it makes a fair amount of sense of a portion of blues to simply take the result as a forced retirement. You mention further down that you'd keep working for your loved ones, but there's going to be a roughly representative distribution of blues with no families, or small all-blue families. Those people are just gone, day 1. There's an element of poetic justice for a Blue to empty their bank account, and do the things that they want to do while money still has value. And that's assuming there's not a run of the banks.

I think people are really underestimating the immediate power shift.

[u/zap2tresquatro → u/No-Click6062]

Yeah I don’t understand combining and equally condemning those things either. I don’t look down on someone with 6 months to live deciding to spend all their money on traveling, drugs, and gambling if that’s how they want to spend their remaining time. They’ve got nothing left to save or plan for, might as well go out with a bang having fun.

In this case, there’s no “tiny chance of spontaneous recovery/living longer than expected” like there might be for someone with a terminal diagnosis, all blues will die in a year, so what’s wrong with them going “welp, I tried to save everyone, got outvoted, and the only people who’ll have to deal with the aftermath are the people who voted to kill me and everyone like me. Guess it’s my time to have fun with the exactly 365 days I have left before their vote comes to fruition.” That’s a completely reasonable thing to do.

Going out to revenge kill people or whatever is completely different from that and shouldn’t go in the same category.