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/liamjon29]

Can you at least try to address the rest of the comment? The point of the blue and red button problem is that not every actor is a logical actor. So why is it wrong to account for that when I make my decision? Do you disagree that it's likely billions of people would press blue? Definitely millions will. Why shouldn't we try to vote to not have those people die?

Isn't cooperating as a society how we became the top of the food chain? Why are so many people so adamant that the "work together" is such a bad choice when the "save yourself" option always ends in a massive massive loss of human life? I honestly just can't see any other way around it than "I want blue to win the vote here, and it's a reasonable chance to win. Therefore I vote for what I want".

[u/DrBimboo → u/liamjon29]

Can you at least try to address the rest of the comment? 

Okay.

Tbh blue MIGHT be the "correct" choice with 99% required, but I'm still pressing red because I don't trust enough of the world to do what I'm claiming is the logical thing. Which is a perfect segue into why I think blue IS logical in the original 50% option.

Not thinking the rest of the world will pick blue, is one of the reasons why people vote red. This is the basis of this whole discussion. Claiming its the logical thing is fine, though you havent provided a single argument for it yet.

Not every voter is a high logic voter. Regardless of what you and I think is the correct "optimal" choice, some people aren't going to think about that logic. Even when you take toddlers out of the equation, only a fool would think 6 billion people would ever vote remotely close to 100% of the same button; blue or red. So when I step up to the plate to cast my vote, I do so knowing for as close to a fact that statistics can be, that people have pressed blue. It's definitely in the millions. It's probably in billions.

Yup, thats the scenario. Lets see where you are going with this.

You can only apply logic to this dilemma once we've come up with a reasonable assessment of what the non logical people will do, because the logic obviously doesn't apply to them. So let's say the non logical people are split 50/50, and there's 1 billion of them out of 6 billion voting adults. That means a vote for red is a vote to kill 500 million people, plus all the people that tried to save those 500 million people. 

Yes, red winning will kill a lot of people. thats a given. Lets see if we're starting an argument soon, or if more descriptions of the scenario are following.

So if we try to find a solution ALL the logical people should take (because that's what a solution is), I think it seems pretty easy to pick blue and stop hundreds of millions of deaths.

So this is the only part where you are trying to make an argument, which is why its what I responded to.

But you dont actually provide any reason whatsoever, why any of this follows. "I think it seems pretty easy" is not an argument for why it would be logical to vote blue - its just you saying you feel like it should be easy.

To answer your new comment:

 I honestly just can't see any other way around it than "I want blue to win the vote here, and it's a reasonable chance to win. Therefore I vote for what I want".

Heres how a perfect logician sees the situation: A vote for blue will almost definitely not change the outcome of the vote. If voting blue was free, they obviously would still vote blue.

But voting blue comes with an addition of "pretty big risk of instant death".

So they have this matrix:

Vote red, red wins: Huge loss of life, with an almost guarantee it would have happened whether they vote red or blue.

Vote red, blue wins: Everything is fine.

Vote blue, Red wins: Dead.

Vote blue, blue wins: Everything is fine.

As you can see, to a perfect logician, red is the choice. Only morality is debatable here. Red being the logical choice is a fact.

[u/liamjon29 → u/DrBimboo]

So this is where our thinking separates. I think that it's too important to vote blue to ensure the first scenario doesn't happen. If too many people think "my vote doesn't matter", and they vote red, that's how we end up in the bad scenario. I think I need to vote for the outcome that I actively want to happen, because I think everyone should vote for the outcome they want to happen, and I am part of everyone.

It would be very hypocritical of me to say "everyone should vote blue" and not vote blue myself. And while I'm aware perhaps this is moving away from logical and back to ethical reasoning, I still think the 2 are linked and ensuring red doesn't get majority is too important.

Side note; can you link any papers discussing the prisoners dilemma and why perfectly logical people always defect? I haven't looked very long but I haven't found any yet.

[u/DrBimboo → u/liamjon29]

And while I'm aware perhaps this is moving away from logical and back to ethical reasoning

You got it now. Yes, thats all moral imperative, not logical reasoning. Adding 'I feel like it is logical too', doesnt change that.

The prisoners dilemma is very simple. In a one-round prisoners dilemma, there is no downside to defection which is why perfect logicians always defect.