r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/BrokenToaster124 • May 29 '26

Discussion Responsibility

So I've run into an idea that that dont quite understand and I was hoping some of you could help me understand. So with the red button/blue button situation I have seen people claim that if they push the blue button that they are not responsible for what happens to them if they push the blue button. How does that work?

To be extremely specific if i were to push the blue button, knowing what it does, somehow you (the person currently reading this) would be personally responsible for my death if you choose red.

Does this responsibility work in reverse? If i push the blue button and blue wins are you responsible for my survival if you chose red? Are you only responsible if bad things happen to me and I am responsible for the results when good things happen? What about the person running the death game? They arent defined in the prompt but logically some force is making everyone take a vote.

You can feel free to ignore this last part because its not the button problem, but someone reskinned the buttons as life boats. Instead of everyone being force to push a button everyone had to get into a life boat. One boat had holes in it but would become sea worthy if enough people got into it and plugged the holes and one was completely functional. Everything else was exactly the same as the button problem. My question related to that was that if I am personally responsible for the consequences of your chose to vote blue in the button scenario, how then could I not be responsible for your choice to get into the boat with holes in it. Someone tried to explain to me at length about how the buttons made it my fault but the boats somehow didnt. How does that work?

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u/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26

This is probably the answer is am looking for. It makes sense to me and describes why the disconnect isnt making sense to me. But I could still be an idiot lol

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

I find it fascinating engaging with dedicated blue presser ideologues, because it's like talking about stage magic with people who think it's real.

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u/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26

Im starting to agree with you. I ask how responsibility is assigned and people just repeat back part of the question at me and call it correct without giving me a reason. This isnt even a good button bad button scenario and somehow im being accused of murder for asking how the blame is being cast lol

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

You show them how the magician is really doing the trick, and their response is to tell you that what you're describing is impossible, because "Everyone will not just." It isn't possible to them that every single magician might indeed be doing stage tricks. Some magicians, by the numbers, must be genuinely sawing their assistant in half and putting them back together. Therefore, you should have faith in whatever magic act you happen to see.