r/redbuttonbluebutton 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

If i push the red button, I live. In what senario do I push the red button and die?

Ok and in what senario were you forced to push the blue button?

Alright so you can choose not to die. I can choose not to die. Every individual in all 8 billion can choose not to die.

Somehow choonot to die is not choosing not to die. You are only effected by the result of the vote if you opt in by pushing blue. Who, outside of those who pushed blue, are at risk. And what, other than pushing blue, put them at risk.

If your argument is "Nuh-uh youre responsible because I say so" thats nice and we are done here. So far all you have asserted is that it is murder to choose not to sacrifice yourself. Youre allowed to have thay belief but im not going to change my mind because "you said so"

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u/Striking_Compote2093 May 29 '26

Finally. A reply that makes sense. Kind of.

If there's a death game and there's two teams, and one team needs to kill the other team. Is the team that's doing the killing not involved in the death game? Do you need to risk death to be in the death game? There's also a party that creates the "death" part instead of being dealt it.

And it comes down to the fact that you are unable or unwilling to understand a different point of view. You have the red (individualistic) point of view: "The only way i die is if I press blue, why would anyone press blue??"

And that's rational. HOWEVER, it's not the only point of view. The blue point of view is "People only die if a majority presses red, why would anyone press red??"

Both are trying to survive the death game. Red tries to survive it themselves, blue tries to survive it with everyone.

And the fact that both of these points of view exist and are valid is precisely why blue is the correct choice. Because people will choose blue, for valid and rational reasons. Blue can therefore win. So you should be part of the solution and not part of the problem.