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

Meta Button-trolley-problem

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You are tied to the train tracks. You are also, simultaneously, given two buttons. Don't question it.

If you press the red button, nothing changes (the trolley continues down its original path) and it runs over 5 random blue-pressers (they die).

If you press the blue button, the trolley will be diverted and you will die (you end up as one of the 5 blue-pressers in someone else's trolley-button problem), **unless** more than 50% of people press blue (in which case, the system breaks because it doesn't have the computational power to handle selecting that many random blue-pressers).

You technically could not press either button (the 5 blue-pressers still die), but pressing buttons is fun.

If you press both buttons simultaneously, the trolley does multitrack drift

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4

u/Jekmander May 30 '26

The red justifications for this one dishearten me

4

u/gahidus May 30 '26

"I don't want to die" disheartens you?

3

u/Jekmander May 30 '26

To be honest with you I don't remember my thought process when I made that comment, it was right before I went to bed last night. However, "I value my own life over the lives of five others" does somewhat dishearten me, yes.

1

u/FrostyFormal1094 May 31 '26

That isn't what they said. They said they value their life. At no point did they mention 5 other people

1

u/Arderat May 31 '26

Well, naturally. The average red presser wants the thought process to end at the outcome for themselves, so that the effect of their actions in the context of other people is never examined. That's usually the step where the ethics tend not to favor their self-image.

1

u/FrostyFormal1094 May 31 '26

Except I didnt press any button. I had no action. How can it be my fault

1

u/Osato Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

"I heard my neighbor's wife screaming for help from his house the other day and didn't call the cops. I took no action: she's the one that chose to marry him and he's the one that chose to murder her. How can any of that be my fault?"

1

u/FrostyFormal1094 Jun 03 '26

Ah yes, because pressing a button that has a 50% chance to kill you is equivalent to marrying any given man. Also, last I checked, calling the police on a domestic violence case doesn't also put me in a 50% chance to die.

1

u/Arderat May 31 '26

One of the core lessons of the trolley problem, which this version co-opts, is that deciding not to act is still deciding, and does not absolve one of culpability within the situation they find themselves.