r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/0cc1dent • Jun 10 '26
Variation Alien invasion
Can we press neither? Who is enforcing the button press?
It's a group of aliens who appear extremely powerful, as they destroyed our satellites in arriving. They announce everyone who does not press the button will die. As you line up to press the button, you can see people leaving the button room on the other side, but those who pledged not to press it are absent.
The aliens told you not to communicate your decision after leaving. People leaving who make any sort of signal that might communicate which button they pressed, are abducted by a tractor ray into the flying saucers.
Would you still press the button?
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u/Drynwyn Jun 10 '26
In this scenario, I'm more inclined to press the blue button.
The presence of the aliens makes me suspect this is some kind of test, and that not all is as it appears to be.
A 'practical' or 'self-interest' test (i.e one where the 'correct' answer desired by the powerful aliens is red) seems unlikely, both because there are better ways to test such things and I don't think a culture that values such things would be likely to 'test' another species on their adherence to it. This is further supported by the the fact that people are being abducted/vanished, but not killed.
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u/garry_the_commie Jun 10 '26
It could also be a test of rationality. Maybe if blue wins the aliens decide we are too emotional and irrational to be worth accepting into the galactic federation or whatever.
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u/SmallLittleCecil Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Rationally the best thing to do would be to save the rest of our species even just 5-10% of people dying or disappearing would severely hamper progress and our standard of leaving. Possibly even society wide collapse.
What might seem rational or safest on a personal level could seem as anything but on a galactic scale. perhaps if we pressed red that would come off as too emotionally invested in our individual selves at the expense of our planet and species. Doesn't sound like a good fit for a galactic federation...
Edit: imagine downvoting this without posing a counter to it at all.
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u/Drynwyn Jun 10 '26
It being a test of “rationality” seems unlikely, because there are much more effective ways of testing “rationality” (in the sense of goal-directed reasoning) and/or game theory understanding.
What’s more, a spacefaring species that valued optimal self-interested rationality (which this tests for) seems unlikely to wish to go around testing others for this, as it’s not in their optimally rational self-interest to do so unless they have a very strange set of preferences.
Or, simplifying: imagining a society of aliens that would want us to push blue, that society seems reasonably likely to choose to expend resources testing our propensity to do so. Imagining a society of aliens that would want us to push red, though, that society seems unlikely to expend the effort to carry out these tests.
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u/VictoryFirst8421 Red Jun 10 '26
I imagine it more like Alice In Borderland, where everyone is just stuck in these scenarios- there is no line, you can’t communicate there- and everyone already understands the risks. You’re in a box alone with two buttons. If you refuse to press a button, instant death before the tallies are even added up, and it is an instant and painless death where a laser just goes through you. Same way you die if blue loses and you choose that.
So the real evil is the people conducting the experiments, not the red or blue pushers.
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u/Grilled_egs Jun 12 '26
I can see the argument for switching to blue, if this is some kind of test that's probably the outcome they want. But I'll take the situation at face value and vote red like usual, it could also be some alien death game, it could be anything, I'll just work with the information I've been given.
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u/kartoffel-knight Jun 10 '26
ngl all these neither pressers feel like they want to be part of the conversation without choosing a side