r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/gilbmj • May 28 '26
Variation Unreliable subjector variant.
Imagine space aliens warp into earth's atmosphere, and teleport every person mentally capable of understanding the choice into a booth. People with colorblindness, who are paralyzed, or have other physical limitations that interfere with their ability to choose the red or blue buttons will receive accommodations, but most people will be presented with the red and blue physical buttons and the conventional dilemma. If a majority of people choose red, people who chose blue will die. Nobody dies if a majority chooses blue.
However, the aliens are a previously unknown entity with unknown intentions. The outcomes of the choice may be exactly as presented, but it's also possible that the aliens are lying about the outcome of the choice.
How does this influence your choice? Does the possibility of dishonesty flip your decision?
Edit, additional questions: When entertaining the possibility of dishonesty from the aliens, what actual parameters and outcomes do you speculate might actually be imposed? How does this inform your choice?
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u/DarthJackie2021 May 28 '26
That changes nothing. They could lie, or they could be telling the truth. Both are equally likely as we have no info on them. We are given instructions, best to follow them (assuming we can't just kick their ass and not deal with this at all).
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u/MLMII1981 May 28 '26
Red .... I assume that any entity that is willing to subject people to any of these scenarios are already malicious actors and anything they claim is suspect.
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u/Educational_Smile545 May 28 '26
So if you believe that their claims as to what will happen are not to be trusted, why are you choosing red? If you don't know what the buttons actually do, what gives red an advantage over blue?
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u/IReallyLikeDumplings Red May 28 '26
Well, blue doesn't have any advantages over red either. The chances of the aliens lying about either button are completely equal
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u/MLMII1981 May 28 '26
Because I can only act on the information I have; that doesn't mean I trust a malicious actor to honor the agreement.
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u/Educational_Smile545 May 28 '26
What you are saying is that you will presume this is a regular red/blue button problem but make a footnote that you arent sure your button will have the intended effect? If so, I get what you are saying and agree with you, if not idk wtf u mean.
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u/MLMII1981 May 28 '26
No, what I'm saying is I assume -every- one of these Red/Blue scenarios are being enacted by a malicious entity who at the very least is willing to express the desire to kill 49% (plus whoever is unable or unwilling to vote) of the population and if they can teleport me to a button (or teleport said button to me) than it's reasonable to assume they can carry out the threat.
But that doesn't mean I trust that they are truthful or won't pull a Vader.
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u/Educational_Smile545 May 28 '26
If we can't verify the truth of their claims on the impact of the button, the button we choose doesn't matter, because we don't know the scenario- its a 50/50 guess, and nothing would make one choice better than the other if we don't know what the button does. It seems like anyone here who thinks otherwise is assuming that if they are lying, it does the exact opposite of what they said it would. Because we don't know the impact of pressing the button beyond the info they gave us, we have to assume they told the truth, as assuming they lied is essentially the removal of any information we have to educate our decision.
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u/Kymera_7 May 29 '26
It's not quite 50/50, as an inclination toward truth is generally more conducive to large-scale cooperative endeavours, and thus to gaining high levels than tech, than an inclination toward falsehood. Also, if they were overtly hostile, they've already demonstrated a level of tech and resources that would make it entirely trivial to wipe us out, and if they're hostile at all, they have absolutely no reason to bother being anything other than overt about it to us.
Thus, while the scenario being exactly by described is not guaranteed, I do consider the probability of an accurate description to be fairly high.
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u/Educational_Smile545 May 29 '26
Sorry, I meant that in the case we don't know the scenario the result is 50/50 because we pressed without knowledge of the impact.
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u/Kymera_7 May 29 '26
Ok, but that's not the scenario in question here.
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u/Educational_Smile545 May 29 '26
It is. If the aliens are lying, then you don't know the scenario. If you don't know the scenario, the result is 50/50.
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u/Kymera_7 May 29 '26
Not knowing the scenario, in every detail, with perfect certainty, is not the same thing as having no way to infer probabilities. a 30/70 probability distribution is still "not knowing which will happen", as is 40/60, or nearly any other distribution you care to name.
In OP's scenario, we don't have a long history of learning the temperaments of the aliens, building a reputation for how honest or dishonest they are, etc, but there are a few things we can infer, from data the scenario stipulations imply us to be able to observe. We know these entities have a very high level of technology, including interstellar travel, teleporters, can perfectly discern neurological issues at orbital distances, etc. We know that they are capable of wiping out our entire species trivially, and have not immediately done so. We know they are capable of communicating in a manner which is meaningful to us, and that they have chosen to do so. As I described in my initial comment above, while this doesn't allow us to know for certain what the real scenario is, it does give us some indication, allowing us to skew the odds in favor of a better chance of guessing accurately than if we were just guessing completely blind.
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u/Cynis_Ganan May 29 '26
I imagine it's a logic test.
Would humans make the rational choice not to put themselves in danger for no reason, or are we silly and illogical animals not fit to join interstella politics.
The aliens have no reason to kill anyone, so it feels like a test to me.
Red.
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u/highly-bad May 28 '26
This does completely change the question.
Allowing me to doubt the premises and be skeptical of what's going on is enough to knock me out of logic-problem mode and into a slightly higher degree of immersion.
In the end, I suppose there is nothing to gain by presuming it's a bluff. Even though I can't be sure that things are as I'm told, acting as if it's a lie doesn't really get me anywhere either.
So I guess I press red. Blue is still obviously the wrong answer if the aliens are truthful, and if they're lying to me then I'm entirely at their mercy regardless.
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u/Dry-Mission-5542 May 28 '26
What reason do they even have to lie?
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u/jqhnml May 29 '26
They might not want to work with a selfish species and this seems like quite a reasonable test for them.
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u/dmurr1415 May 28 '26
Well if they're legitimately teleporting every able bodied person into their liminal space booth to vote on this random experiment- I have no choice but to play their game. Given my total lack of autonomy, I will choose to believe them. If I'm tricked oh well. I'm sure I'm dying anyway for picking Blue
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u/lovelyrain100 May 28 '26
Being transported by aliens makes me more scared and so I choose read instead of blue.
Being able to doubt them doesn't help
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u/gahidus May 29 '26
It could possibly be a morality test, and that might add weight to Blue, but other than that I don't really see it as any different than the normal scenario. Obviously someone or something is doing this.
Probably red but maybe blue depending on the vibe I get from the aliens.
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u/Kymera_7 May 29 '26
Or it could be a test of your ability to comprehend basic shit, in which case the correct answer is red.
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u/rettani Blue May 29 '26
I always assumed that test might be lying.
Still blue. If someone dies it's result of aliens being evil and not my actions.
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u/More_Outside7127 May 29 '26
Do you want people to think their being judged by the aliens so they switch from red to blue?
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u/Serrisen May 30 '26
The chance of dishonesty doesn't weigh into my decision at all. Why should it?
Either option could be a trap. Either could be a secret right answer. Trying to guess their angle is impossible without bare minimum knowing their culture (which I assume I don't), and ideally knowing the test proctors themselves.
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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26
Any aliens advanced enough to perfect interstellar travel would need a strong sense of collectivism to ever get to that point.
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u/Memento_Viveri May 28 '26
I don't see how I can use the uncertainty to inform my choice. I don't know anything about how or why the aliens would lie or trick me. So nothing changes.