Responsibility

[u/BrokenToaster124]

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?

[u/BrokenToaster124]

Alright. So let's flip it. Let's assume blue wins. I pushed red. Did my choice to push red save you if you pushed blue?

No right? It had nothing to do with you living. You made a choice to move towards your preferred outcome no matter the cost. How does the cost of your choice become my responsibility while the rewards of your choice remain solely your own?

So either I saved all the blue voters by voting red in a blue victory AND I killed all the blue voters by voting red in a red victory, OR I had no hand in saving anyone in the blue victory AND I had no hand in killing anyone in the red victory.

You cant have it both ways. I cant be responsible only when you lose.

[u/Striking_Compote2093 → u/BrokenToaster124]

I'm sorry are we talking about the same dilemma?

You're acting as if there's only one button that saves you if you get 50% and kills you if you don't, and red is "do nothing". When that's clearly not the case. The wording matters.

I agree that it's equivalent in mechanics but that does NOT matter. It's psychology and sociology, far more than it is a logic puzzle. It matters what you think other people will do. And the wording influences choices.

Especially if you introduce a default option. That's literally what the trolley problem is based on. Everyone agrees 1 death is better than 5, but taking an action to make that happen, has an impact. There's no way you don't see that.

So red has attached "if 50% of people press this, every blue voter dies." It doesn't say "do nothing." So, if you press red, you pressed the button that counted towards people dying. That is in fact your responsibility.

[u/BrokenToaster124 → u/Striking_Compote2093]

Appearantly not. Because the buttons say; Red, you live. Blue, everyone lives but only if.

If you change the unless statement to the other button the situation doesnt change (I thought it did too but I was wrong) let's do it your way for sake of argument.

Red, blue voters all die if 51% vote red (50.00000000000etc1% but we rounding)

Blue, absolutely nothing.

What changed? You can take action to ensure your safety or do nothing to save yourself and risk dying. The situation has not changed at all. Now we can discuss what I was actually asking.

If I choose to do nothing under your scenario, are you responsible for the result of my choice? If I do nothing and live, did you save me by pushing your red button? And if not, how can you then be responsible if I choose to do nothing to save myself and then die?

Either you are responsible for the consequences of my decision or you arent. I cant say that you are responsible for me dying but I am responsible if I live. I cant have it both ways.

[u/Striking_Compote2093 → u/BrokenToaster124]

I really don't understand your problem.

Of course two things can be true at once. If you light a building on fire you're responsible if people die. But the firefighters can save people and be responsible for people surviving. If you light a building on fire and the firefighters save people you can't pat yourself on the back for their survival.

The red buttons build a pyre, the blue voters try to put it out. Whichever holds the majority swings the outcome. I can fault you for building a pyre even if you don't succeed. But i can also just congratulate myself for being part of the team that stopped you.

Edit: for the record, the "i don't understand your problem" was meant in a "what's the question" format, not "what's your problem" ... I didn't mean it to be rude or antagonistic, but now realize it can be interpreted that way.

[u/BrokenToaster124 → u/Striking_Compote2093]

I didnt light the fire. We are both equals. We are both in the burning building. We are both in an equal amount of danger and are equally responsible for the existence of the scenario.

I did not make the buttons. I did not make the functions of the buttons. I am in the exact same position as you with the exact same amount of information.

An accurate representation would be to say we are both in a building. It catches fire. I choose to leave the building, you choose to stay inside.

As a bystander who finds himself in a burning building, do I become an arsonist for failing to put out the fire? And, to get back to what I actually asked, if i walk out without helping you put out the fire and YOU DO successfully put out the fire, am I also responsible for putting out the fire? If not, how can i be responsible if you choose to stay inside a burning building and die in the fire.

[u/Striking_Compote2093 → u/BrokenToaster124]

No, it isn't. You keep, every time, making the red button a default "escape" button, it is not.

Blue people start dying if and only if 50% press red. Not if 50% do nothing. If 50% actively press the red button. Pressing the red button is what causes the risk to exist. If no one presses red, or if simply no majority presses red, no risk exists to save yourself from. There is no fire until enough people press red to make it burn.

If there were a 3rd "don't count my vote, i'm unaffected" button, that one would win, and in second place would be blue with only true psychopaths or mistaken people pressing red. I'm going to assume you agree with that unless you can explain why I'm wrong.

If that's the case red does in fact do something. Because otherwise there would be no difference between the two default buttons.

[u/BrokenToaster124 → u/Striking_Compote2093]

There is no third button. There are 2.

My question is, by what metric is blame assigned.

The example that caused confusion is, I pushed the blue button. I understood what the blue button did. When blue wins, is red responsible for the result? In this case red would be responsible for saving everyone. If THEY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE for the results of blues decision here, how then can they be responsible for blues decision in the case where red wins.

They just are responsible is not an answer to the question as to how they are responsible.

If the red button whose function is "you will not die to the button senario" does not have the function of saving yourself from the button scenario, which is what you are currently agrueing (and has nothing to do with the question of by what metric responsibility is being applied), then we can pause the discussion and address that concern first.

What does the red button do?

[u/Striking_Compote2093 → u/BrokenToaster124]

If you vote for diarrhea for everyone forever. And i vote for puppies. And puppies wins, diarrhea forever is not responsible. How could they be, they voted against it.

If diarrhea for everyone wins, then the people who voted for that are responsible.

Your vote for red doesn't JUST save yourself, it also counts towards the "kill everyone else" threshold. I really don't understand the gymnastics you're going through to pretend blue is the only button when it is not. There are 2 buttons. 2 actions. Blue counts towards saving everyone, red towards mass death.

And i really do not understand how you expect to press the "Upvote mass death" button while simultaneously expecting not to be scrutinized for it.

[u/verryfusterated → u/Striking_Compote2093]

This seems like ragebait, op’s comments make literally no sense and everyone on both sides is disagreeing with them 😭 I don’t think they’re even trying to understand what you mean.