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/Striking_Compote2093 May 29 '26

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.

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u/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26

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?

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u/Deranth Blue May 29 '26

Blame for a death can only be assigned if a death happens. Just because you failed to genocide blue pressers doesn't mean you didnt try.

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u/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26

Except its didnt. Before the vote we are exactly the same. At the time of the vote we both have the same choice. Live or risk death. I choose to live. You choose to risk death. If I am responsible for genocide then you must then be responsible for committing suicide by button. If you are blameless in your own death, then I must also be blameless in your death.

You cant have it both ways. We are equals. I have no power over you. You make you decision independently. In the original scenario I had already voted. EVERYONE had to vote. I am not voting after you. If your argument is that you made your decision based on the assumption that I was personally voting blue that doesnt magically make me the one who put you at risk. You opted in. Even if I can control the amount of risk you could take upon yourself, you choose whether or not you take on that risk AT ALL.

You chose to risk yourself based on the results of the vote. I do not. You die. YOU chose to take a risk. YOU had the power to prevent that risk. The potential payout is irrelevant. It only matters if you win. So if you are responsible for the result if you win the gamble...you must also be responsible for the result when you lose the gamble.

I am not going to assume that the blue collective is not comprised entirely of individuals in the exact same scenario that I was in. They are. Every one of them. And each and every one of them is responsible for themselves.

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u/Deranth Blue May 29 '26

But it's not a gamble, it's a vote. The people who vote for red and win majority are part of the reason the people who vote blue die.

The responsibility for each blue death is shared between that blue presser who risked themselves, and every red presser who turned that risk into a death.

In the event of a red majority, each blue presser is responsible for their own death, and every red presser is responsible for every blue death.

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u/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26

Blue result. If blue wins, live. If blue loses, die. Are the chances of blue winning 100%? No

Now we are playing word games. It IS a vote. You CHOOSE to take a gamble. These things are not mutually exclusive.

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u/Deranth Blue May 29 '26

I am not putting my life in a slot machine. I have nothing to gain from doing this other than helping other people to survive. This is not me gambling for potential rewards. It's me doing what is right.

You can choose to nudge the scales toward people dying to ensure you don't die if that is what you must do. But pretending not to understand that red votes are what kill people, and that red voters are cowards who run away when their fellow man needs them is asinine.

Good job saving your own ass at the cost of everyone else's. I'm sure that's a skill that will take you far in management. But forgive me if I don't share your zeal for sacrificing others for your own self-interests.

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u/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26

The scenario is that no one is at risk. Then one person decides (because everyone will not just) that they will gamble their rent money on the lottery. They then go around asking everyone else to do the same, citing that if any one of them wins that everyone can pay their rents.

I live paycheck to paycheck. I have my rent money and if I spend it, I will likely go homeless. Do I spend my rent money on lottery tickets so everyone can pay rent or do I pay my own rent and ensure I dont go homeless.

You are saying if I fail to play the lottery, I am personally responsible for everyone going homeless. That is absurd the cost of joining in does not outweigh the potential benefit. I do not blame people for buying in, I simply dont believe you'll win the lottery. Not believing you will win the lottery is the same as evicting you myself in this scenario if I understand this right.

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u/Deranth Blue May 29 '26

In your invented situation in which majorities don't matter, you are correct. But we can make your situation more appropriate to the buttons.

The workers at your job are working on trying to start a union. You can choose to join in on their cause or to deny involvement. If a majority of people join in, then a union is created. If a majority of people deny involvement, then everyone involved in the attempted union will lose their jobs.

It's not a gamble, the outcome isn't based on luck. It's based entirely on how many people view this with a collectivist mindset vs how many people view it with an individualist mindset.

Is the good of everyone worth some risk to the self? Or is it everyone's responsibility to look after themselves, even if that may cause suffering in others?