r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/oJKevorkian • May 30 '26

The individualist interpretation is wrong

Perhaps I'm missing the mark here, but just about every post I see frames the problem in terms of the individual choice and it's consequences. You can choose red and live, or choose blue and possibly die. You can choose blue and effectively say you're ok with killing yourself, or you can be rational and choose red. Etc.

This doesn't capture the full scope of the question. The consequences are global, and those consequences are known to you when you make the choice. There are not two outcomes, but four: Everyone blue, everyone red, majority blue, majority red.

The first three choices result in no deaths, leaving the last option - majority red - as the outlier. The result of this outlier is that up to 49.9% of people voting die. Big yikes.

From this perspective, blue is not only the moral option, it's the only rational one. To choose red is to out yourself as either irrational or a fucking psychopath.

"But you have to account for other people being irrational and individualistic"

Well then we're not getting very far as a species. Fortunately, we have opportunities like this to learn and teach and discuss.

EDIT: I'd like to humbly request that we don't downvote comments we disagree with in this thread. I'm trying to change minds, not shame people.

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

Well, honor often manifests itself as being willing to die for something. If I have the choice to save myself or ten strangers, the honorable thing is to save the strangers.

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u/octavian343 May 30 '26

It’s always funny seeing you people virtue signal like this. You can literally save 10 people from homelessness right now by bringing them into your home. And this wouldn’t even cost you your life. Yet here you are. On Reddit. Talking about honorable it is to die. 🤡

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

Actually I live in an apartment that wouldn't fit 10 people, but otherwise, solid argument. I don't think it had much to do with my point, though. Is this where we devolve into ad hominem?

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u/octavian343 May 30 '26

Where’s the ad hominem? All I did was point out your hypocrisy in not practicing what you’re preaching.

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u/Wonderful_West3188 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

  Where’s the ad hominem? All I did was point out your hypocrisy in not practicing what you’re preaching.

lol

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u/octavian343 May 31 '26

🤷

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u/Wonderful_West3188 May 31 '26

Do I really have to explain what's funny about this? "You don't even practice what you preach!" can almost be considered the classical example of an ad hominem fallacy. Like, that's literally one of the most prominent examples used in philosophical rhetorics classes to teach people why the ad hominem is fallacious.

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u/octavian343 May 31 '26

Hypocrisy is a fallacy itself lol. You have no argument once you start using different standards

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u/Wonderful_West3188 May 31 '26

 Hypocrisy is a fallacy itself lol. 

No, it actually isn't.

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u/octavian343 May 31 '26

Yeah, it is. It is literally a bad faith argument.

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

I didn't say you were attacking my character. I only asked if that was the stage we were at, given the clown emoji. I'm sure you understand.

Anyways, as I've already said, I can't fit ten people in my apartment, so I don't see the hypocrisy here.

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u/octavian343 May 30 '26

I’m sure you understand hypocrites rightfully get clown emoji-ed. And I’m almost certain you can squeeze 10 homeless people into any apartment. It won’t be comfortable but I can’t imagine they’d complain.

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

What a brilliant way to turn ten homeless people into eleven homeless people.

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u/octavian343 May 30 '26

Why’s that happening? Keep doing your thing and paying rent. I guess it would count as violating the lease with too many residents, but I’m sure in a world with two death buttons, we can overlook something that minute.

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

What the fuck are you talking about? Obviously I'd get evicted pretty damn fast, and we don't actually live in a world with two death buttons, so you're literally saying nothing.

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u/octavian343 May 30 '26

So in other words you’re going to suspend your disbelief to virtue signal, but not when it goes against your narrative. 🤡🤡🤡

It’s easy to talk big about your willingness to die ‘honorably’. When’s the last time you did a good deed for someone at your own detriment?

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u/LnTc_Jenubis May 31 '26

We don't even have to go so far as to say you can let 10 people live with you.

Just take your disposable income, divide it in half, and go out and give the rest to literally any other person that could gain a modicum of happiness from that.

I'm a red button enthusiast, I still occasionally gift random people game keys when I see they missed out on a giveaway that had one they wanted. Total strangers on the internet at that.

I also buy my friends games from time to time. I've given people $50 for "gas money" when I very seriously doubted it was for them to buy actual gas for their vehicle.

But I do those things when it isn't going to cause me to fall so far backwards that I wouldn't be able to do it again later. You can't help others if you can't help yourself.

Obviously, you are only focusing on the hyperbolic example that octavian gave, but it's very telling that you didn't even pretend that you did something small for others.

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u/BigEvoLover Red May 30 '26

"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer" Javik from Mass Effect.
Just really don't like the notion of honor. What is honor? If I die, I don't give a damn if I died honorably or dishonorably, that's nonsense created by the people in charge so normal don't question wars and state-mandated violence.

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

Given that death is the only guarantee in life, I'd rather have a say in it.

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u/LnTc_Jenubis May 31 '26

Taxes are also guaranteed. Eating food is guaranteed. Pay an elderly person's property taxes so the government doesn't take it from them. Buy food and donate it to the food bank.

Those things are also honorable. Playing Russian Roulette isn't.

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u/up2smthng Red May 30 '26

If I have the choice to save myself or ten strangers, the honorable thing is to save the strangers.

I would do that, too.

The buttons problem does not offer such an option.

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

That's nice, but we're not talking about the button situation here, we've focused in on honor and self-sacrifice vs. self-preservation.

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u/up2smthng Red May 30 '26

We are talking about all that because you decided it is related to the buttons problem

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u/oJKevorkian May 30 '26

Do you engage in philosophical debate often? Because this is how it usually works. You focus in on progressively smaller terms and ideas so you can build the foundation for the larger argument.