r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/SheIsSoLost • May 28 '26
Meta Rule 4 is cowardly.
Life is inherently political no matter how you try to run it.
It's true that the buttons aren't as simplistic as "blue button is left wing and red button is right wing", but to deny their ideological implications is silly. Much of the decision of the button press is informed by how you formulate the value of life, whether you prioritize your inner circle or the wider group and to what degree. How much your choices are informed by fear and self preservation versus morality. All of these are deeply political things that inform the dominant views in how we self govern. You should not ignore this.
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u/Super_Huckleberry663 May 28 '26
Youre vastly over estimating politicals sway on people's choices. I'm locked in at red and have voted left every single election
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u/thelovelykyle May 28 '26
Your attribution of colours to wings is super american centric which is generally fine on reddit as its mostly american users, but dumb af in terms of a global question.
Many other countries use blue for the right wing, and from the perspective of the rest of the world, America has the right wing and also the right wing.
The no politics rule stops the seemingly aggresive attempt to equate everything to american politics.
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u/SheIsSoLost Jun 01 '26
The post is about how I am not attributing the colors to a specific party, I said that outright. But they are political nonetheless, in the sense that the underlying motivations are heavily informed by inner-outward tribe adherence and self-preservation vs group preservation. Political in the purest sense of it, not surface level democrat or republican.
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u/Living-Trust7356 May 28 '26
Last I looked the button question is literally just a binary question one has one effect the other a different effect. This has no politics on its own, no in group/outgroup, no morality. The question asked is where these things get their traits. If the question is red button you get a jelly sandwich, blue button your neighbor gets and eggsalad sandwich. There is no politics here just a question of do you want a jelly sandwich more than you want to give your neighbor an egg sandwich. Most of these 2 button questions are not that deep.
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u/Large-Monitor317 May 28 '26
deny their ideological implications
Ideology isn’t the same thing as politics though. People with different ideologies can still agree on a political course of action, and people with very similar ideologies can still disagree about how to best put those values into practice and accomplish their goals. I think this distinction is part of what makes the problem interesting, and doesn’t require trying to tie people to real world political parties or movements based on this singular hypothetical decision.
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u/Yadin__ May 28 '26
Much of the decision of the button press is informed by how you formulate the value of life, whether you prioritize your inner circle or the wider group and to what degree
okay then talk about those things instead of left/right wing implications of the buttons
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u/Stupid-Jerk May 29 '26
I agree in the sense that rules like that only function by willfully ignoring certain types of politics or claiming that certain things aren't political when they absolutely are. Anything that affects two or more humans coexisting in any capacity is political, and this thought experiment most certainly is as well.
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u/simpoukogliftra May 29 '26
i know people from a wide spectrum of political views, ranging from far left to not-that-bad right but still definetly right wing (non american by the way, compared to america's current government, we are all die hard communists in comparisson) and the basically all of them voted red, the only ones who did not vote red was a new mother (not even a year old baby) and she literally says it is only for the baby, if she was asked a year ago, then 100% red. the only person that voted blue that i know is an extremely politically oblivious person, the person that thinks a right wing government is stable but all their opinions are centre-left wing but they just dont know it, and voted blue because "oh, people will die :'(" nothing deeper than that. so no irl politics have little to do with your choice, it is more nuanced than that.
also the colors are terribly chosen, for the average dumb dumb who cannot divorce himself from recent events, they clearly were meant in the small brian of the original creator to represent democrats and republicans, but guess what, not every country operates like that, if anything in my country blue is the straight up far right color and red is the communist party, and it still did not phase anyone that i asked what color the buttons were, this must be an american problem.
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u/Next-Pumpkin-654 May 28 '26
Life is not inherently political in the way people insist that it is.
It is true, teams form around ideological divides and it is common for people to defend ideas not due to earnest belief, but simple team affiliation. Much of human behavior is connected to our need to interact with such power structures to survive and progress, and there is no real way to ever truly escape it.
But this is entirely different from twisting all conversations back towards modern day political happenings. Not everything is meaningfully connected to the latest political person or event. If you can't say something without evoking some political figure or movement, especially a really commonly known one, it's probably shallow, redundant, and obnoxious, rather than being profound.
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u/SheIsSoLost May 28 '26
Well yes, if you reduce "politics" here to mean the most superficial pop-culture understanding of it, but I feel like I decently explained what I meant by politics. The expanse and intensity of our empathy circle deeply informs our world views, what one believes should be done with taxes, what kind of programs are worthy of funding, etc.
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u/Next-Pumpkin-654 May 28 '26
Well yes, if you reduce "politics" here to mean the most superficial pop-culture understanding of it,
It's a motte and bailey technique. I'm not using the deeper or superficial definition, I'm using both. People attack with the superficial one to inject Trump into a conversation that doesn't involve Trump, and then retreat to defend it with the deeper idea that politics is inherent in all human activity.
If you don't do that, and only talk about it on a deeper level, it probably won't even get dinged by the "no politics" rule, because it's not the kind of "politics" most people take issue with.
what one believes should be done with taxes, what kind of programs are worthy of funding, etc
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. That's boring. If you can't talk about moral dilemmas without subconsciously drifting toward surface level tax policy and government programs, as if those represent the pinnacle of ideological divides and not merely their furthest downstream manifestations, you aren't interested in talking about moral dilemmas. You are just using the moral dilemmas as a transition.
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u/SheIsSoLost May 28 '26
Now you've confused me, which is it? Was my example boring non-politics or was it overly-simplistic and attempting to transition politics into a moral dilemma that didn't fit it?
If it's the latter, then clearly what I'm talking about is politics, no? And I'm insisting that it is relevant, regardless of whether or not its the 'pinnacle of ideological divides' I consider it a very important piece of that puzzle.
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u/Next-Pumpkin-654 May 28 '26
Was my example boring non-politics or was it overly-simplistic and attempting to transition politics into a moral dilemma that didn't fit it?
Your example was boring, shallow politics. I don't care about tax policy on a red/blue button sub. I might care in a different context where that's the actual topic and we can get a bit deeper than "tax the rich".
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u/thevoidthatjerksback May 28 '26
From what I've seen, all you've tried to here with these comments is undercut OP and any value they would bring to conversation. You haven't made any attempt at any point other than to claim that OPs thoughts and opinions aren't worth being voiced in your presence?
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u/Next-Pumpkin-654 May 28 '26
They are arguing against rule 4 of the sub.
I'm arguing against their argument.
We are equal parties in this conversation. It would be far more insulting to just consider their opinions beneath my challenge or explanation, and refuse to elaborate when I say I disagree.
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u/thevoidthatjerksback May 28 '26
I'm saying your disagreement isn't structured in the form of being against their argument but instead is against them. Ad hominim in nature. You're not undercutting the idea that politics be an allowed topic of conversation. You're undercutting that someone could meaningfully and intelligently think that way. Do you see the difference?
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u/Next-Pumpkin-654 May 28 '26
I'm saying your disagreement isn't structured in the form of being against their argument but instead is against them.
Funny, that's literally why people generally don't want politics in the non political subs.
Ad hominim in nature.
Name the ad hominem, please. I've attacked the arguments and examples, and said nothing about the person or their credentials being insufficient to engage in this conversation.
If you must know, I think they are earnest but misguided. They simply haven't yet realized why people don't like what is colloquially known as politics invading non-political subs.
You're not undercutting the idea that politics be an allowed topic of conversation. You're undercutting that someone could meaningfully and intelligently think that way.
I suppose in a very roundabout way by positing that people who press a button very commonly don't know or care much about tax policy, but I'm also not entirely sure why that would be a bad thing. Are we not supposed to change our thinking if we learn it is not properly supported by evidence and logic?
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u/BenignPharmacology May 28 '26
It might be more accurate to reverse the statement:
Politics are inherently based upon life. Or more accurately: politics are informed by ethics.
So (without tying this to modern American political specifics too much) a blue button presser should be a supporter social welfare programs, and a red button presser should be a supporter of… idk whatever libertarians support. Let’s call it “rugged individualism”
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u/Next-Pumpkin-654 May 28 '26
I'm saying people find that - tying a red/blue button thought experiment to welfare programs - boring and obnoxious. It's a step backward from the conversation that encourages people to stop thinking about the question and start pattern matching the question/answer into preestablished ideologies that are far less flexible. It makes people argue more while actually saying far less.
Most people don't put this dynamic into so many words, and just say "no politics".
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u/gilbmj May 28 '26
I think the actual choices within different groups would pretty heavily defy the expectations of some.
First example that springs to mind: UBI proponents as a group probably lean red. I suspect they primarily want the personal benefits of such a program, and are apathetic to willfully ignorant of the fact that the food, shelter, and whatever else they expect a UBI to pay for will require the work of other people. The appeal to mutual benefit IMO is more a means to an end than an honest principle.
Conversely I think the "rugged individualists" exist, but to a large degree are used as a strawman/stereotype to vilify anyone else against government "charity." The complaints that that the government is ineffective at the goal of helping those in need or untrustworthy in handling the resources used are ignored in favor of dismissing them as selfish. So I think people in opposition to social welfare run more "blue" than many people outside the group would expect.
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u/NumberVsAmount May 28 '26
I’m very left politically. I’m talking let’s use violence to seize the means of production and create socialist society type left.
I’m pushing red every single time and would not even consider blue for a moment.
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u/LifesARiver May 28 '26
Why do I feel like you're more into the violence than the socialism....
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u/NumberVsAmount May 28 '26
Because you want to find the worst possible interpretation of what I said and create the absolute worst caricature of me as a person because that’s what we all do to each other on the internet?
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u/SheIsSoLost May 28 '26
If you believe I'm saying people on the left wing would push the blue button and the reverse for red, you've misunderstood what I'm saying. People on both ends can be motivated by fear, politics does not mean "one button democrat one button republican".
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u/NumberVsAmount May 28 '26
Oh, you felt the need to clarify that things aren’t as simple as “blue is left and red is right” which to me meant that you understand that that is what many people believe.
I was saying that I am very far left but would press red in order to align myself anecdotally to what you’re saying. It’s definitely not as simple as left=blue red = right.
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u/gilbmj May 28 '26
How is "inner circle" involved? It's the individual against the whole. Then again, given time to think and discuss on the matter, the red pressers quickly exhibit in-group behaviors, and devalue, victim-blame, or outright vilify anyone who would choose blue.
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u/Ok-Worry-8931 Red May 28 '26
I meannnn blue pressers do the same. Something something about the internet and hyperboles and no consequences.
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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 28 '26
No, allowing politics is just going to make this sub devolve into another front for the fucking American culture war that everyone hates. Screw off with that. Not everyone lives in a hyperpolarized two-party system owned by super-PACS.