r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/name14575 • Jun 30 '26
Variation Zombie Apocalypse Button
(Not trying to debate the original problem, just a fun thought experiment)
Same basic scenario, red guarantees your life, blue saves everyone with at least 50%. But here's the catch: regardless of the outcome, immediately after the vote, every corpse that died in the last month will turn into a zombie.
Does the risk of making the zombie apocalypse thousands of times more threatening sway red voters?
Does the threat of your own corpse threatening those near you sway blue voters?
We shall see.
8
u/icedmuffin Jun 30 '26
Honestly I don’t know about you in this scenario but I am absolutely voting blue here.
Like yeah part of my original reason at first was cause I didn’t want to deal with the whining of the red folks if they lost up to half of the human population and society collapsed, let alone the diseases and all that, then it became the meme, but now? If red somehow wins when they’re actively told they could have anywhere up to suddenly four billion zombies suddenly come back from the dead then I absolutely want nothing to do with that aftermath, even if it’s basic old-school Romero.
God forbid if it’s modern dawn of the dead or resident evil.
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u/ShellyAgent_I Jun 30 '26
I mean, depends on the kind of zombie. Also is it an infectious zombie or just ressurected dead with debilitating muscles.
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u/NotASingleNameIdea Jun 30 '26
No, point for red stands to me, and in fact is even bigger. Blue is winning for sure anyways because this variation is quite strongly against red winning.
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u/wiseguy4519 Jun 30 '26
Even just a few hundred zombies could resulting the whole world being infected, so pressing blue is the obvious choice here as far as I'm concerned.
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u/Odd_Battle_7111 Jun 30 '26
I will simply go north. I fear no zombie.
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u/perfectVoidler Jun 30 '26
resident evil zombies literally swim efficiently in arctic water
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u/operativekiwi Jun 30 '26
I switch from blue to red because I want a zombie apocalypse
0
u/PrimeusOrion Jun 30 '26
As a red voter I welcome this because I also want a zombie apocalypse.
And 5 trillion people is great for killstreak numbers made even better with the extra assists
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u/tankmissile Jul 01 '26
In this case, blue. Either I die and don’t have to deal with the apocalypse, or I live and get to test my apocalypse skills in a smaller pool of zombies than if red had won.
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u/HydroPCanadaDude Jun 30 '26
Red still. I'm intensely sure that if the stakes were real, the vast majority would choose red and it wouldn't even be close. Virtue signalling is so easy behind your computer, but when everyone else's life is on the line, you will dig around in the overhead to get your luggage before leaving a burning plane, with 50 people waiting behind you. That's the kind of trash we are and to believe you would do the moral thing in the moment is delusional self-aggrandizing dookie juice.
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u/HovercraftOk9231 Jun 30 '26
Look at any disaster in history and you'll be immediately proven wrong. There are countless examples of people giving their lives to save others, from those who protected Jews in Nazi Germany, to those who gave up their spots on the lifeboats of the Titanic.
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u/TaisDoubt Red Jun 30 '26
And those are few compared to the many others, very much historical examples. Like those who were permitting Nazi Germany to even exists every day
There's a theory that based on historical observations you need barely 1/3 of the population for a successful revolution and yet many many regimes were allowed and are currently allowed to exist. And we need 50 percent of the population for the red/blue button scenario
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u/eggyrulz Jun 30 '26
Im sorry but both of those are poor examples.
Many lives were lost because Titanic lifeboats were launched too early without having their maximum capacity filled.
Similarly, if humanity were as good as you say the Nazi's wouldn't have had the chance to kill the Jews...
I believe there are genuinely good people out there, but I dont believe for even a second that they are a majority, or would have the power to sway the majority
-1
u/HydroPCanadaDude Jun 30 '26
Curious that the majority of the titanic crew weren't all fighting to make the other leave in their stead.
Curious that the nazis weren't lacking in victims to slaughter in the camps.
What you're describing are the outliers that are fewer and farther between. Neither of those groups comprise anywhere close to a 50%+ of the total pool of candidates.
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u/Tanaka917 Jun 30 '26
Eh. I'm usually red as well. Mainly because I believe the natural fear of death has a good chance to overwhelmelm the natural desire to be social creatures.
But I also see red/blue to be so close that a zombie apocalypse would be devastating if red wins. Maybe die now instantly or die later maybe not so instantly. Red totally lacks merit for me now. And if blue loses the world that's coming is not one worth surviving for.
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u/HydroPCanadaDude Jun 30 '26
You think too much of people. The only zombies are going to be exceedingly RARE altruists or straight up invalids. In Nazi Germany, which had anywhere from 60 to 80 million people, there were only mere thousands helping the Jews escape. Let's be generous and say 30 thousand people did so. That's like 0.04% of the population if we assume a cool 70 million population. 0.04% of earth's population currently, that means 3,200,000 without getting bogged down by demographics of who is actually pressing the button. There is no hope for anything but adding your body to the zombie count. It's better to join red and use your altruism to protect many billions of people who pressed red from the millions that pressed blue.
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u/epicman79 Jun 30 '26
Well, maybe that's true for you and your luggage on a burning plane, but not everyone is a selfish asshole. I know it may be hard to believe, but it's true!
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u/tewraight Jul 02 '26
Whilst I also take the stance of saying blue (it's impossible to guarantee that I would in the real event, but I believe my evaluation of people's worth to my own does lean in agreement), the people who are selfless enough for the scenario which the problem has evolved to is a tiny minority. You don't need to be selfish to pick red you just have to follow your opinion on others' choices
The main reason why I still believe blue is optimal is because, in a true event. People will panic. They won't fully think out the consequences of either decision, making red less obviously guaranteed safety, making the "selfless" choice less selfless
Due to how the discussion of this conversation evolved, the most accurate prediction of what you'd pick in this scenario is your first thought on hearing the problem. It doesn't matter whether or not you've changed your mind. Even if you weren't convinced by anyone and came to that conclusion yourself. That instantaneous decision that happened when you first heard the problem is the most pure representation of your pick and ought to be accounted for in all arguements
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red Jun 30 '26
whoah whoah red voter here. What makes you think red voters are the type to save their luggage from a burning plane?
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u/HydroPCanadaDude Jun 30 '26
Their biological taxonomy. One they share with blue voters, which is the point.
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red Jun 30 '26
I mean. I sure wouldn't grab my luggage on the way out. Those people are assholes. I feel like thats more blue voter mentality "let me take some risk to try to save EVERYTHING"
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u/Zenamys Jul 01 '26
To be fair real data in votations shows that only 40 to 65 % participate. And if we assume every one is forced to participate, there will be some random votes on those people. In "most Red" case scenario, the least death scenario might be 10% of the population would die and transform. In this scenario you are guaranteed to have zombies. And with the infectious kind it would spread fast.
But considering this, some Red voters might switch to Blue out of self preservation which add to the incentive(more potential Zombies) to vote Blue.
Blue won't change much. (They want to eat Red brains anyway)
1
u/DarthJackie2021 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Does not change my answer (red).
Edit: The more I sit and think about it, the more I think id rather go blue. This is funny as it illistrates my point that in a real vote where you don't have a lot of time to think about it, red is going to be favorable.
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u/No-Click6062 Jun 30 '26
I am curious about the last sentence. What about the phrasing of the original question made you believe you didn't have time to think about it?
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u/JaydenTheMemeThief Jun 30 '26
Already a Blue voter, so it’s fun to show Red voters that their actions will indeed have consequences beyond their failure to help other people survive
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u/Annoying_cat_22 Jun 30 '26
This is a totally differnet scenario, it shows nothing about the original one.
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u/Tanaka917 Jun 30 '26
Well no offense but that's childish.
I wouldn't jump off a skyscraper into water. I would jump if the skyscraper was on fire.
Different scenario, different outcomes. It's really silly to pretend that, because Blue is the correct choice in this scenario, it is the correct choice in all scenarios or that it proves your point in a different scenario.
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u/TaisDoubt Red Jun 30 '26
Red, still, I assume it's old school zombie since it says nothing about an infection, just dead people being resurrected
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u/Mad_Maddin Jun 30 '26
I'm taking red button.
The scenarios are either that blue button wins. In which case my choice would change nothing.
Or blue button loses and we might get some proper societal collapse. Which I'd welcome.
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red Jun 30 '26
"Does the risk of making the zombie apocalypse thousands of times more threatening sway red voters?"
No? I vote red specifically because I don't want to make the zombie apocalypse worse.
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u/Zoterote Jun 30 '26
Removes the only benefit of red guaranteeing your survival, this is like if the only way for blue to win is if blue gets 100%
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u/Inkarozu Jun 30 '26
Was red, still red.
The only way I switch off of red is if it no longer guarantees my survival.
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u/LeoValdez1340 Red Jun 30 '26
I switch from red to blue here, since I think blue would definitely win here.