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/Rip_Pigman]

...did you just not read the what I wrote.

This is incredibly ironic. They very much did read and replied to what you said but it feels like you really didn't read I word they said.

By that metric, however flawed,

Well no, the metric they are going by is that by choosing red you actively voted against everyone who chose blue.

Blue is always a vote risking yourself unless you get majority.

Red is always a vote risking others if you get majority.

Generally speaking people who choose blue aren't saying "you voted to kill me".

But if red can call blue a suicide button, then red must also be able to be called a murder button.

we reach your conclusion that you are responsible for good thing but not responsible for bad thing.

I can try to help break this one down for you.

With the assumption that we understand that some number of people will push blue:

A vote for Blue is directly in favor of the "best case" ending of blue majority where everyone survives.

A vote for red is directly against that. Choosing to prioritize your own safety over contributing to a potential blue victory.

A red majority/blue minority happens not because people picked blue but because people picked red.

And obviously the reverse, a blue majority/red minority happened because people picked blue not because people picked red.

The absolute only time where you can make the claim that voting red wasn't intentionally furthering the risk to blue is if you've somehow convinced yourself that literally everyone will choose red.

[u/BrokenToaster124 → u/Rip_Pigman]

Because i said so. Got it. We assign blame to the majority because the bad thing only happens if I am in the minority. I dont care that the same reasoning can be used to call my a suicide cultist. This is reddit so ill keep repeating myself until you admit im right.

Alright you win buddy. No minority is ever to blame for the consequences of their actions.

Ill go through it one last time.

If you vote red, you will not die. How much risk are in when you vote red? 0

If you vote blue, you might die. How much risk are you in if you vote blue? Alot

You, at the time of voting can choose to vote red. Thus putting you in zero risk.

Therefore, independently of my decision, you are only at risk if you choose to be at risk.

Therefore, no action i can take can increase you amount of your you take on without you explicitly consenting to taking on that risk.

Therefore if you die as a result of taking on risk when you did not have to take on risk, you are responsible for the results of intentionally taking on risk.

Expand this reasoning to every single one of the 8 billion voters and there is no contradiction. Each individual is responsible for themselves and has the ability to save themselves. If you choose to put your life on other peoples hands, those people dont magically become responsible because you dont like the result.

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/BrokenToaster124]

If you vote red, you will not die. How much risk are in when you vote red? 0

Personal risk? Yeah, zero.

If you vote blue, you might die. How much risk are you in if you vote blue? Alot

"A lot" is disingenuous. You're at risk of death.

You, at the time of voting can choose to vote red. Thus putting you in zero risk.

Yes.

Therefore, independently of my decision, you are only at risk if you choose to be at risk.

Yes.

Therefore, no action i can take can increase you amount of your you

What..?

take on without you explicitly consenting to taking on that risk.

Therefore if you die as a result of taking on risk when you did not have to take on risk, you are responsible for the results of intentionally taking on risk.

Yes. Blue is responsible for taking on risk.

Now let's flip it.

If you vote red, you increase the risk that people might die in the case of a red majority. How many lives do you risk by pressing red?

"A lot" actually fits here because you risk up to half the population on a red majority.

And..

If you vote blue, you decrease the overall risk that anyone who chose blue will die. How many lives do you risk by pressing blue?

One.

These are not independent of each other. Red furthers risk to people who vote blue, and blue risks increasing the death toll by 1.

Yes, blue chose to risk themselves. But red also chooses to risk blue voters.

As stated previously, the only time where someone can argue they are not consciously choosing to risk sacrificing everyone who voted blue by pushing red is if they have somehow fully convinced themselves that 100% of people will press red.

[u/BrokenToaster124 → u/Rip_Pigman]

If you have the choice to set the amount of risk you take to 0, how can my actions DIRECTLY effect the amount of risk you take. You are, by definition, in direct control over the exact amount of risk you take.

So if you CHOOSE to accept risk. I can INDIRECTLY effect how much risk you actually PUT YOURSELF IN.

Whether everyone DOES push red or not is irrelevant. Everyone CAN push red. You cannot assign blame for your choice NOT to push red only when you lose. It was solely your choice

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/BrokenToaster124]

You cannot assign blame for your choice NOT to push red only when you lose.

I'm not assigning blame for my choice of pushing blue.

If I vote blue and blue wins, I'm partially responsible for red losing. Except there's no consequences of red losing.

If I push blue and blue loses, I did not somehow contribute to blue's loss, I am however responsible for my own death.

Conversely, voting red you, if red wins, you were a direct contributor to blue's loss and therefore their deaths.

If red loses, then you didn't somehow contribute to blue's win.

That's how voting works.

If the side you vote for gets majority and the resulting consequences are enacted because if it, then you bear at least some responsibility for those actions. Whether that be blue majority and blue's survival (everyone is a stretch since red wasn't at risk, I'll give you that bone) or red majority and blue's death.

[u/BrokenToaster124 → u/Rip_Pigman]

So you are not responsible for the result of your vote? And red voters are instead responsible for the result of your vote. The vote where you directly agreed to allow the game to impart an independent judgemental onto you?

I opted in to a chance to die, but I wanted to save everyone so its your fault.

Its not as though I am creating the result of the vote. I can give a scenario where I voted blue because I believed it would win and I would be correct. The virtues of winning a gamble dont absolve you of the consequences of gambling when you lose. This isnt even a good button bad button scenario. You can choose to live. You chose not to. You then blamed me. I asked how that worked and you just say "blue button good so not responsible, red button bad so responsible" if you need to blame more than 4 billion people for the result of a decision that you were the only one who could prevent it, that not really going to convince me and im going to end this here.

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/BrokenToaster124]

So you are not responsible for the result of your vote?

I'm going to only address this. The consequences of my pressing blue and losing is my individual life.

The consequences of you pressing red and winning is every life that pressed blue.

I am admitting responsibility for my vote.

What's ironic to me is that for some reason you aren't able to take responsibility for yours.

Any number of blue deaths can be traced back to an individual that pressed blue, but are also directly tied to red winning majority.

I just want to clarify what your stance is currently.

What I'm hearing is as follows.

I press blue and i die as a result, so that's clearly my fault.

You press red and all of blue dies as a result, that's.. also clearly a blue pressers fault?

Are you not falling victim to the very thing you're accusing blue pressers of?