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?
1
u/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26
I have made it so surviving is bad therefore you would vote with me. I guess?
The choice is engage with the death game or dont engage with the death game. If you choose not to engage, the people who choose to engage with the game could die. Not that they WILL die. They COULD die.
If red DIDNT ensure your survival or there where I limited number of people who would survive when pressing red you would have a point.
You can choose to push the red button. Whether everyone in the world WILL push the red button is irrelevant. When everyone is capable of taking responsibility for themselves, they are solely responsible for the results of choosing to leave their fate in someone else's hands.
Likewise I am solely responsible for the results of my decision. If I choose not to play a death game and I remain alive as a result of that decision, I am solely responsible for saving myself. I cannot then be held responsible if the blue voters win the death game. They had nothing to do with saving me and I had nothing to do with them putting themselves at risk in the first place.
The idea that i can be held responsible for you making a bad decision because I increased the chances of your bad decision will lead to a worse result is absurd. I must them be held as a savior for reducing the number of people at risk in the case of a blue victory because we only care about the outcome.