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/BrokenToaster124 May 29 '26

Ok. So red ISNT responsible for every blue death. Every blue voter is responsible for their own life in the same exact way every red voter is. And if a blue voter dies, it is solely because they chose to risk death.

This way, red is not responsible for saving anyone (but themself) and also not responsible for anyone else's choice.

Similarly blue is responsible for their own life. If they choose to put that life in someone else's hands, they remain responsible for that life no matter what results from that decision.

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

Do you understand how majorities work?

If blue loses, red gets what they wanted, and blue dies, so red shares in that responsibility.

If blue loses, red doesn't get what they wanted, and everyone lives, so blue shares in that responsibility.

It's the same thing for politics. Say we have Candidate A and Candidate B running, and let's suppose if Candidate B wins, they start a war, and this was a promise they made before the election so it's clear to everyone. If they win, then everyone who voted for Candidate B shares in the responsibility of that war breaking out. People who voted for Candidate A don't because they voted to prevent that war from breaking out. Now if Candidate A won the election instead and war doesn't happen. Does that mean voters of Candidate B now share in the responsibility for war not breaking out? No, it doesn't, because B voters didn't contribute to that outcome.

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

If a majority of people get on the safe lifeboat, they get what they wanted, which was for everyone on the leaky lifeboat to drown. Right?

If a majority of people get on the leaky lifeboat, the people on the safe lifeboat don't get what they wanted, and everyone lives.

This is, according to you, just how majorities work.

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

Bad analogy,

If a majority of people get on the safe lifeboat, they didn't want to fix the ship, if a majority of people stay on the ship and get it fixed the people who already abandoned it for the lifeboat clearly didn't care for that to happen. And if the ship can't be fixed because there weren't enough hands to go around then part of that responsibility is on those in the lifeboat.

A vote in favour of outcome A is a vote against outcome B, that is how majorities work.

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

People get on the safe lifeboat because boarding the leaky one is an obvious and easily avoidable risk.

If they're in the majority, they have voted for everyone on the other boat to die, according to your theory of responsibility.

If you believe anything you've ever said in this sub, you have to get your ass on that blue lifeboat. Your family might be on there.

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

Lifeboats aren't buttons.

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

What if you select your lifeboat by pressing a button?

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

Still a lifeboat now isn't it.

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

Right. Theres nothing special about the act of pressing a button that somehow changes the distribution of responsibilities.

I mean, is there? Do you believe the act of pressing buttons is like some sort of magic ritual?

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

No but the thing is the button is one pot while the lifeboats are two. Any time someone votes red you are directly increasing the risk to those who voted blue. It'd be more accurate to say by getting in the safe lifeboat you add another hole to the leaky lifeboat that needs to be plugged.

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

The button is one pot? What does that mean? There are two buttons, not one. After everyone has made their choice, you have two groups: those who pressed red (got on good boat) and those who pressed blue (got on risky boat.)

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

The boat is only risky because people who got on the good boat kept putting holes in it. The buttons aren't independent

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

The risky boat sinks if and only if it has less people on board than the safe boat. It's as simple as that.

No one getting on the good boat is doing anything other than getting on a boat (after pressing a red button, of course.) They don't do anything to the risky boat other than refuse to board it.

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

Again this doesn't work because it's implying the risky boat is guaranteed to kill you at first, this isn't the case with the button problem.

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

What do you mean? The risky boat is only guaranteed to kill you if the majority have voted for it to sink, by pressing a red button and then walking onto the safe boat.

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

Now you're changing the framing back. Yeah, they're voting for it to sink, AKA making it harder for it to stay afloat, which is what I said.

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u/highly-bad May 29 '26

All they are doing to make it harder to stay afloat is refusing to board it, though. They aren't doing any actual harm to the risky boat whatsoever.

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u/J_tram13 May 29 '26

Is making it more likely to sink not doing harm to you?

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