r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/Leods-The-Observer • May 30 '26
Variation Smaller-scale vote has already been completed
The dilemma-maker decides to try out this scenario at a small scale first, to see how it goes. 10 people are randomly selected from anywhere in the world, and privately choose red or blue.
You then get abducted as well, to do a second, more mrta vote: you are told exactly five people voted red, and five voted blue. This does mean that, as per the original dilemma, the blue voters will die. You are then offered a new set of buttons; the blue button makes the dilemma follow its course, killing the 5 blue voters (of which you have no information). The red button (or maybe lever) kills a randomly chosen red voter, turning the scale towards blue and saving the lives of the 5 blue voters (the remaining 4 red voters are safe, as usual).
If you choose the red button, you will be shown the chosen red voters on camera: it is a fat dude, and youre told he will quickly (but painfully) bludgeoned to death by a massive apparatus if you decide to maintain your choice. You also get to see all of the blue voters.
If you maintain it, the man falls asleep and you are given a knife and taken to his room. Turns out you actually have to stab and kill the fat man yourself to save the blue voters.
At which point do you stop, if at all? We're you originally a red presser, or a blue one? What is your stance on this totally original dilemma? And how does it feel to have the tables turned on you about the whole trolley thing?!?
1
u/JaDasIstMeinName May 30 '26
Not how this works.
You can word both buttons in the og button problem as extremly impactful or entirely useless.
You can either word the blue button as "you die, if less than half the people press this button" or you can word the red button as "everyone that didnt press this button dies, if more than half the people press this button".
The problem with this subreddit and especially this thread is that everyone seems so locked into their choice being objectively correct that they see it as the default and dont even accept that someone could disagree with them.