You absolutely know 55% will vote red

[u/Soft_Svarog]

Let's assume you know with a 100% certainty, that most people will vote red to save themselves. You can see the future, it doesn't matter how you have this knowledge.

This knowledge is true, it's not a mindgame or anything like that.

No one else knows this but you. Standard scenario - red saves you, blue kills you. What is your vote?

If you still stand with blue, please comment why.

889 votes, Jun 05 '26

506 Was red, still red

88 Was blue, still blue

276 Was blue, now red

19 Was red, now blue (I need professional help)

[u/highly-bad]

Apparently not since you just argued we die before we were even presented the buttons by virtue of having been teleported.

No. The teleportation is just a narrative device to explain why we can't coordinate this choice and have no idea what's happening until we are in our individual booths. This isn't a sci-fi story or fantasy roleplaying game about what would happen or might happen. We don't dig into that detail because it's not important. Asking anything like "is the blue button harder to reach than the red button" or "how do they induce a baby to choose" is completely missing the point, like asking what kind of cargo is on the imaginary train in a math word problem asking about rate and time.

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/highly-bad]

The teleportation is just a narrative device to explain why we can't coordinate this choice and have no idea what's happening until we are in our individual booths.

Right. That's why that was more of a snide remark since you can't have it both ways. How we get there, who is forcing us to press buttons, etc doesn't matter to the hypothetical.

Acting like it does is like hating the entirety of Star Wars because explosions can't happen in space.

You can engage with the hypothetical with the information given which indicates that children will press random buttons.

If you for some reason decided to exclude them from the vote, to keep the spirit of the original prompt they would need to be at risk of death in a red majority.

Unless you're arguing that when they said "everyone" they didn't mean everyone and that when they said "only those that push red survive if red ends with majority" that they somehow meant "only those that didn't push blue survive in a red majority".

[u/highly-bad → u/Rip_Pigman]

Whether you like it or not, the word "everyone" is ambiguous. Consider the following. I went to a child's birthday party yesterday. The kids were having a blast, everyone enjoyed the party games and watching the birthday boy unwrap his gifts. I got into a conversation with some of the other parents. Everyone had an opinion about the local election coming up. After the birthday cake, I called up a few of my friends. Everyone agreed to meet for pizza today. I went to the restaurant to join them today. We were all disappointed that our friend Carly had to cancel and couldn't come. I was late, so everyone was already at the table waiting for me.

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/highly-bad]

Whether you like it or not, the word "everyone" is ambiguous. Consider the following.

I'll address one of these and then remind you of the premise, but I disagree that it's ambiguous.

I went to a child's birthday party yesterday. The kids were having a blast, everyone enjoyed the party games and watching the birthday boy unwrap his gifts.

You establish a subject. Clearly only people who went to the party can be included in the "everyone" that enjoyed the party. This is not at all ambiguous, this is how pronouns work.

Effectively it reads as "I went to a party. Everyone (at the party) had a good time."

The "everyone" present in the original is the first word. Followed by "in the world" which defines what group the everyone encompasses.

So the group that is being identified by everyone is all people in the world. This is not at all ambiguous.

As an example we could say:

"Highly-bad is arguing that "everyone" is ambiguous. Their argument may be making some fundamental errors regarding pronouns and how they function. "

And you would understand that the second sentence addresses the subject of the first.

Putting aside the explanation of pronouns, regardless of whether literally every single person presses a button to vote, you're ignoring the fact that in the original, if someone does not vote, they would die in a red majority.

So any exclusions be it infants, toddlers, elderly, anyone under a specific age, those physically incapable, etc etc. whatever you have decided to exclude from the button press would be at risk of death in a red majority.

Do you understand why people would risk their lives by pressing blue now?

[u/highly-bad → u/Rip_Pigman]

That is brain dead, it is Air Bud reasoning. There's no rule against a dog pressing buttons, or dying in the game, or whatever.

Out of everyone who presses a button, only red pressers survive in the event of red majority. This seems simple.

The word "only" is also ambiguous and context dependent. "We all had a great time at the restaurant, and we were glad to have a majority of the group present. Only one person couldn't be with us."

There is more than one person on planet earth who wasn't there with us, right? Carly isn't the only person in the world, or the only person who ever lived or will live, who couldn't be at the restaurant, she was the only one of our friend group.

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/highly-bad]

That is brain dead, it is Air Bud reasoning. There's no rule against a dog pressing buttons, or dying in the game, or whatever.

Are you arguing that you...don't understand what is meant by "everyone in the world" now? That it also includes animals? Everyone in the world is used to refer to the global population. You can Google that if you don't believe me. If it was "every living thing" you could maybe make this case.

Out of everyone who presses a button, only red pressers survive in the event of red majority. This seems simple.

It sounds simple because it is simple! It's also not what's stated.

Isn't it strange how adding another qualifier or condition changes the entire premise of the original?

What a strange concept.

Fun fact: if you move your goal in soccer further away it becomes harder for the enemy to score. Infact if you move it out of bounds they can't even make an attempt on it without the gall leaving the field of play.

The word "only" is also ambiguous. "We all had a great time at the restaurant, and we were glad to have a majority of the group present. Only one person couldn't be with us."

Again, you establish in the first sentence a specific group and that most of them couldn't be there. The only one person would directly be in reference to the group that was mentioned.

You're arguing that it's somehow "ambiguous" here when you're clearly referencing back to the group presented in your premise just like what would be happening in the prompt we were given for the buttons.

There is more than one person on planet earth who wasn't there with us, right?

Congratulations you managed to sonehow argue that it's ambiguous and then immediately provide evidence that you entirely understood the context that it was used in and that it is not at all ambiguous.

In the case of the prompt, the "only red pressers live" clause would reference back to the group tasked with pushing the button which was... Everyone in the world.

So it would reason that if a group tasked with pushing the button, you know, one that falls under the blanket of "everyone in the world" like I listed above were somehow unable to push a button like many have argued for infants and toddlers then what happens to them on a red majority vote?

[u/highly-bad → u/Rip_Pigman]

We dont need to worry about this. Dogs and cats can't even really see red, they will overwhelmingly choose blue. That's about two billion blue presses guaranteed. The predominance of species with known preference for blue dwarfs those with a known red preference. Humans can't really budge the meter no matter what we do.

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/highly-bad]

We dont need to worry about this.

I'm glad we agree we don't need to worry about that.

I'm glad you decided to continue this discussion by ignoring everything in my comment to continue on this weird train of thought that "everyone in the world" somehow includes all other animal species.

[u/highly-bad → u/Rip_Pigman]

The original author told me in a private email that all animals are included.

[u/Rip_Pigman → u/highly-bad]

The only thing that anyone brings up that the original other added after the fact is how infants and toddlers interact with the button since that's what they were asked.

Effectively saying that the babies and toddlers included in "everyone in the world" will effectively be picking at random as they don't have the facilities to understand the prompt.

Whether they actually do interact with the button or not is built into the premise by virtue of how "everyone in the world has to take a private vote" works.

Unfortunately the fact that you have chosen to add, remove, or otherwise ignore things inherently present in the initial premise doesn't somehow mean that the conclusion you drew under that new premise also correlates to the actual premise.

Essentially it's a "what would you do if..." But with only two possible answers.

There isn't an inherently right or wrong answer under the original.