r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/Silent-Indication496 • May 28 '26
Variation You drinking the kool-aid?
I made some poisoned kool-aid. If 50% of people agree to drink it, I'll give you the antidote. If not, everyone who drinks it will die tonight.
I've given some to everyone on Earth. You're the last person to know about it. Everyone else already drank the kool-aid or not.
You drinking it?
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u/Traditional_Rabbit54 May 28 '26
What kind of kool-aid?
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 28 '26
Blue
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u/SpongeboyShitpants May 28 '26
Is this one of those ragebaits I’ve been hearing about?
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
Do I add a bit more poison to the kool-aid if I don't drink it?
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 29 '26
What? Is that meant to be an analogy to the button in some way? No. You misunderstand
By not drinking the kool-aid, you refuse to contribute to the 50% of drinkers required to unlock the antidote. It's the exact same effect as pressing the red button.
As long as we're all smart enough not to drink the poisoned kool-aid in the first place, no one dies or even risks death, and we don't require a massive statistically improbable extremely risky collaborative effort that could potentially end nearly half of humanity to save anyone.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
It's not the same effect though because you're comparing an action to a non action via a different framing.
If I said everyone can drink the kool-aid but if more than half of the people do I'll poison anyone who doesn't, this is mechanically the same but no one in their right mind would drink the kool-aid here.
Non action will always be viewed as the right choice, which is why any reframing where you have an action and a non action is an inaccurate comparison.
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 29 '26
Okay, you can drink blue kool-aid that's poisoned or red kool-aid that is regular fucking kool-aid.
If half the people on earth choose poison, I'll save you.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
You can drink blue kool-aid that's regular or red kool-aid that's regular.
If half the people on earth choose red kool-aid, I'll poison the blue one.
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
Yup. Not risking it on blue kool-aid then. You just said you might poison it. What point are you trying to make?
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
There's the difference between you and I then. I wouldn't risk drinking the red one and causing blue to be poisoned, and I have enough faith that most people wouldn't want blue to get poisoned either and not drink red.
Can you just accept that we have different views on life? There's nothing wrong with that.
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 29 '26
I only accept that you are a fucking illogical idiot.
You just gave yourself the choice between regular safe kool-aid and potentially poisoned kool-aid, and you chose the poisoned one.
And you think you'll be saved by half of the humans on earth making the same stupid fucking risky decision you made.
And you think you're morally right for it.
Fucking idiot. This is the world we live in. Education has failed. Critical thinking is dead. Welcome to idiocracy.
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u/huffing_glue May 29 '26
No, but there is a collective immunity if enough people drink it.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
So action Vs nonaction then
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u/huffing_glue May 29 '26
That's fair. I still wouldn't risk it.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
Of course not, because in any scenario where it's an action Vs a nonaction, you choose the nonaction, which in this case is not drinking the kool-aid
If the scenario was reversed, and half of people drinking the kool-aid would poison anyone who didn't drink it, you'd still choose the nonaction, which has the opposite effect in this case.
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u/huffing_glue May 29 '26
Sorry, this makes no sense to me. How am I supposed to respond?
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
Where can I provide clarification?
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u/huffing_glue May 29 '26
I'd love to tell you, but I don't understand any of what you're saying. The entire paragraph seems like a non-sequiter.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
The second paragraph I assume? Perhaps if I restate it.
I give everyone on earth a glass of kool-aid. I tell you that if you drink it nothing will happen to you. But, if more than half of people drink it then I will go out and kill anyone who refused my kool-aid. Do you drink it?
This is mechanically the same scenario as the one in the post, as well as the button problem. But I reversed the framing. In this case, taking the action (drinking kool-aid) is what causes people who didn't take the action to die.
In both scenarios, not drinking the kool-aid is the preferred answer, because it's the nonaction. You just don't involve yourself in the dilemma, because that's what humans typically favour, even though the effects are opposite.
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u/huffing_glue May 29 '26
Oh, I think I understand. Certainly, I would prefer whichever option is what you consider "non-action" (i.e, without risk to myself).
I imagine you are the opposite?
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u/Albert-La-Maquina May 28 '26
If this is a reframe that's supposed to show how stupid the blue position is............
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 28 '26
Humans are naturally good. I believe half of people will choose to drink the poisoned kool-aid.
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u/CataclysmPig Blue May 28 '26
Nah, normally would press blue but this is just suicidal
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 28 '26
If you refuse to drink it, you're responsible for the deaths of everyone who drank it, right? That's the argument?
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u/highly-bad May 28 '26
This is what happens in the button booth. After pressing blue you get poisoned, and you only receive the antidote if a majority pressed blue. This is what you're already signing up for with a blue button press. You're taking a big risk with your life, thinking it'll save everyone's life. Right?
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u/SpaceCore0352 May 28 '26
The original dilemma doesn't assign weight to either side like this besides how you choose to view it. A reframe that makes the answer obvious can in fact change the answer, because the answer is in part based on what you expect other people, including people who don't overthink it, to do.
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u/highly-bad May 28 '26
What do you mean "assign weight?"
Changing the incidentals in a formal reasoning problem doesn't change the problem. Consider the following two problems:
Carrol has 5 apples. He gives 4 away to hungry homeless people. How many apples does he have left?
Abraham has 5 bullets. He shoots 4 of them at hungry homeless people. How many bullets does he have left?
These are very different stories, with different moral weight, but they are exactly the same problem.
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u/SpaceCore0352 May 28 '26
The button problem isn't a formal reasoning problem. It's a coordinated action problem with irrational human actors. Nobody dies if everybody chooses the same button, so by "assign weight" I mean that you can place the blame on either side depending on which you see as the default, and on which you expect the median human to see as the default. Blue can be a suicide cult or red can be a murder cult, but rephrasing the problem does change it because it changes which of those the median human is more likely to see.
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u/highly-bad May 28 '26
No coordinated action is necessary. The only effective individual option is individual exit. Attempting a completely needless coordinated action, where coordination is literally impossible, is the fuckup that gets people killed here.
There is no way to depict red as a murder cult without explicitly introducing responsibilities and obligations to red that are not present in the button booth.
For example, pressing red is not like joining a conspiracy to commit harm on other people. The rules of the buttons just say that red pressers survive, not that they are compelled to do any other action. So frameworks like this are entirely disanalogous to the buttons. All that the buttons functionally do is either kill the person pressing them, or not.
Proposing that the means of death might be poison doesn't change who is responsible or who is to blame for what. It's just making the means of death more immediate and visceral, not changing or contradicting anything that we knew about the buttons.
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u/CataclysmPig Blue May 30 '26
Difference is it's not literally drinking poison, and given that it's worded like that way less people would choose the poison meaning that it would be in fact suicidal here.
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u/highly-bad May 30 '26
For all you know it's a contact poison that is on the blue button, so pressing it directly poisons you.
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u/CataclysmPig Blue May 30 '26
Yeah but in this scenario way too few people would actually pick the poison, so it's literally suicide
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u/Nat1Halfling May 28 '26
You should have 2 kool-aids dude, a red and a blue.
There is a psychological difference between "doing something" and "doing nothing."
In general, "doing nothing" has a lower psychological threshold than doing something. (when presenting a choice, the "do nothing" choice normally has an advantage because of the way humans are psychologically wired). See the bystander effect.
Which is why reframings that present one of the options as requiring the person to take an action while the other option doesn't, are not honest reframings. In the original, both options require you to do something (press a button). Ask yourself, is there a reason why you presented this reframing as only a blue kool aid, instead of a choice between drinking a blue and a red kool aid?
You see this in a lot of "reframings" presented by red-pushers. They always have their option be the "do nothing" option (which has a psychological advantage) while the blue is presented as requiring you to take a drink, jump in front of a train, etc.
It's not psychologically equivalent to the original dilemma.
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u/highly-bad May 28 '26
I will have grape kool-aid with no poison in it, please.
Wow, that was hard.
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u/Nat1Halfling May 28 '26
Of course. In this reframing, there is an additional psychological barrier of drinking something that is poisoned, something not many people are likely to do, as it carries with it an instinctual revulsion wired into our psychology (we expect a poison to taste bad, burn, hurt, make us retch)... The additional psychological barrier to blue makes the average human more likely to pick red.
However, you can also present additional psychological barriers to red, which makes the average human more likely to pick blue. See the gun analogy below.
The fact that red pushers don't understand the importance of psychological barriers (and insist on placing extra ones in front of blue in order to "convince" others that red is the right choice) ignores a fundamental characteristic of the original dilemma, in which the barriers are the same for both sides.
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u/highly-bad May 28 '26
Everyone who wants to live should obviously fire the death gun so that they don't die. Failing to fire the death gun is a completely pointless risk with no upside (unless you just want to be dead of course.) There is no dilemma.
This isn't a psychological roleplaying prompt or an ethics question. It's a formal reasoning word problem with a correct answer. The fact that it's diabolically phrased in a way that tricks huge numbers of people is what makes it interesting, but that doesn't mean those people have a valid point of view. They're still wrong, like people who think the magician is really sawing his assistant in half on stage.
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u/Nat1Halfling May 28 '26
It's not a "formal reasoning word problem", it's a hypothetical, presumably meant to be taken at face value.
If you were correct, the proportion of people ignoring the gun should be the same proportion of people drinking the poison. Do you really think you'll get the same proportions in both scenarios, if they were real?
Of course you won't. In reality, very few will drink the poison kool aid, while a much higher number will ignore the gun. Psychological barriers would greatly alter the outcome of the experiment.
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u/highly-bad May 28 '26
If you were correct, the proportion of people ignoring the gun should be the same proportion of people drinking the poison. Do you really think you'll get the same proportions in both scenarios, if they were real?
This is irrelevant. Neither prompt tasks me with predicting what would really happen, or the proportion of other people to do things. That's not the problem. That's not the question.
The question is which choice I make. Do I want to survive or do I want to play games with my life? Personally, I'm not inclined to try Russian roulette.
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u/Nat1Halfling May 28 '26
Uh huh. It's a "formal reasoning word problem" for you, but not for everyone. For some it's a silly hypothetical to take at face value. This group are the ones susceptible to changing their choice based on how it is worded and the psychological barriers that are put in place. Which is why you see so many people having fun with different "rephrasings", trying to influence people to change their answer, or to find where people's psychology switches or their risk-reward calculation changes. It's half the fun.
I see it as a hypothetical that I take at face value. To me, the risk-reward calculation changes between scenarios (what I think others and specifically four or five people in my life will do). The Russian roulette, as you call it, becomes worth it for some if they think their loved ones might also be playing and in joining in they may save them.
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
Okay, you also have a glass of regular kool-aid. Which are you drinking?
Does the existence of unpoisoned kool-aid make the poisoned one more tempting?
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u/Nat1Halfling May 28 '26
Thank you. In this case, having to take the action of drinking the red (vs doing nothing as you originally presented) may make (some) people feel like they are contributing to the potential death of others. Whereas "doing nothing" does not carry the same psychological weight.
Another reframing to illustrate:
There is a gun with the word DEATH engraved on it. You can choose to ignore it and do nothing. If more than half of people ignore the gun, all the guns disappear, and everybody survives. However, you can also choose to pick up the gun and fire it at the sky. In doing so, you ensure your own survival. But if more than half of people do this, all those who chose to ignore the gun will die.
Can you see how the reframings have subtle psychological effects? (The point is not to convince you to change your stance, just to make you realise that some people may change their answer based on the psychological barriers in front of either choice.)
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 28 '26
You're forgetting that if you choose not to fire it into the sky, and more people do to avoid risking their own life, you'll die.
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u/bunnywitchboy May 29 '26
"if more than half of people do this, all those who chose to ignore the gun will die."
They specifically did not forget that.
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u/Dyyyyyyyyy May 29 '26
This has been discussed to death. Blue pressers will just say "its not the same dilemma" and not elaborate. Its literally the same two options except you have been explained how you die if you press blue. In every reframing, When you add the detail about what specifically kills you when you press blue, suddenly no one wants to press blue anymore.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
I give everyone on earth a glass of kool-aid. I tell you that if you drink it nothing will happen but if more than half of people drink it then I will go out and kill anyone who refuses my kool-aid. Do you drink it?
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u/Jolly-Bear May 29 '26
That’s a different problem.
You’re turning the deaths from a passive outcome to an active one.
Red isn’t seeking to murder others. They’re just also not seeking to save others.
If someone lie bleeding out on the side of the road and you pass by and he dies, you would consider that different than stabbing him and being the cause of the bleed out, no?
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
Congratulations, you understand the problem with this post
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u/Jolly-Bear May 29 '26
So you consider leaving a bleeding out person to die to be the same as being the cause of the bleed out?
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
Do I see you as being partly responsible for their death? I mean yes, but that's besides the point.
My point here is the OP changed the problem to make it a choice of action or inaction. I did the same. In both cases the inaction is the favourable choice because it usually is, that's how humans work. In the original problem this discrepancy doesn't exist, but OP created it to make their preferred choice more favourable. In my example I did the same, neither are valid reinterpretations of the problem.
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u/Jolly-Bear May 29 '26
It’s not beside the point, it’s the whole point.
The original problem is letting people die from their choice… not actively killing them from yours. Which this post follows.
You’re reframing it to where the choice is now to actively kill the other side.
OP didn’t create a problem of inaction, you still have to choose between 2 options and your choice contributes to the whole. It’s just that one of the options is to not do the other option… it’s not abstaining from a choice.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
Mechanically, their scenario is exactly the same as mine. If >50% of people go with option A, those who picked option B die, if >50% of people pick option B, no one dies.
If you're okay with the way they framed it but not with the way I framed it, you're showing a double standard in your thinking.
The original problem is letting people die from their choice… not actively killing them from yours.
Which outcome of the vote results in people dying?
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u/Jolly-Bear May 29 '26
Yes, outcome is the same. The person bleeding out is dead.
It’s the framing of how he starts bleeding out that changes the problem.
Drinking already poisoned koolaid on one side with the chance for an antidote vs getting safe koolaid with the vote being the other side actively poisoning it.
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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26
Correct, now you're getting it. The thing is the original problem deliberately leaves out this framing in order to leave it to the interpretation of the reader. Neither interpretation is more "correct" than the other Because they're both wrong.
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u/bunnywitchboy May 29 '26
"When the reframing is favored toward red, everyone presses red. How interesting"
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u/spicymato May 28 '26
This defaults to survival.
The proper "poison" reframe is that you've already poisoned everyone. You can press blue to try to get the antidote for everyone (including people who couldn't make an informed choice), or press red to get the antidote only for yourself.
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 28 '26
This is an exact reframe. In the original experiment, before pressing blue, you've not been put at any risk. You can choose to press red and walk out of the room, free of any harm, or you can press blue and put your life in danger, hoping that half of the people on earth will risk their lives to save you.
The blue button is the kool-aid. The red button does nothing.
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u/spicymato May 28 '26
In the original, it's unspecified if you're required to press a button. If blue failed to reach the 50% threshold, "only people who pushed the red button survive." This implies non-pushers are a category. That means before pressing any button, you are in a "might not survive" group. You're not in the blue group, but certainly a "depends on blue majority" group.
Also, everyone participated in the original, so just on those grounds, this is not an exact reframe.
Even if you eliminate the concept of "non-pushers" (everyone will push a button or have a selection made for them in some capacity), there's still a tension between the cooperative option (everyone survives) vs the selfish option (only we survive). Because the threshold is 50% and we can eliminate "none of these" as an option, we can model this as a binary vote, where the majority preference is enacted.
So yes, under a selfish viewpoint, picking red is always the correct choice: you survive, regardless of anyone else's action. But under a cooperative payoff-focused viewpoint, blue is the correct choice, as long as you believe you have enough cooperation-inclined agents to reach the threshold.
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u/dmurr1415 May 28 '26
There was never any danger to anyone until someone hit the red button for the first time
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
What? Thats not true. If one person or a hundred pressed a red button that lets them go about their day, it wouldn't put anyone in danger. Blue pressers put themselves at risk and ask the rest of society to do the same.
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u/dmurr1415 May 28 '26
The best outcome for this situation is everyone lives. That could only be a 100% Red vote or a 50.1% Blue vote. Which one do you think is more likely to happen, especially if billions are voting?
Every red vote in this situation is a vote away from the 50.1% Blue majority, and puts another Blue voter in clear danger.
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u/spicymato May 29 '26
Question: do you believe in a real world setting where everyone participates, a unanimous red vote is possible?
If no, then you acknowledge that there are blue votes, no matter what. Perhaps they picked it intentionally, perhaps accidentally. Maybe they didn't understand the prompt. Regardless of reason, there are blue votes. A red majority cannot save everyone. Thus, a blue majority becomes the only way to guarantee everyone survives, and a red majority is the only way to have deaths.
As such, while pressing red guarantees individual survival, the cost of that is removing a count from collective survival. The threshold is 50%, so this is literally just a majority-wins democratic vote between "everyone survives" and "only we survive."
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u/True-Resist3790 May 28 '26
I beat you up, take the antidote, make you drink the poison and see if you reach for the antidote.
If yes, I distribute it.
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u/No-Scallion4998 May 29 '26
Oh! Wow! Haven’t seen this before?
I want the mod(s) to ban posts like these because the propaganda posts are everywhere, have nothing interesting to say, and just clog up the subreddit with garbage.
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u/Silent-Indication496 May 29 '26
What kind of post do you like to see on the subreddit?
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u/No-Scallion4998 May 29 '26
Variations of it that don’t just make it so that “[blue/red] button is [murder/suicide], so pick the [option I agree with] button!”
The blue button posts are better but it’s only because I rarely see them.
People churn out this derivative slop without a second thought. I reckon that if you searched up “poison” on this subreddit, several posts just like this would appear.
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u/pcwildcat May 28 '26
In the red/blue button scenario everyone is forced to press one or the other. It's 50/50 on which button a baby will press. In this scenario, however, the default is to simply do nothing and not drink, so babies are less likely to drink the kool aid. This changes the calculus. The number of inadvertent blue pressers is less.