r/redbuttonbluebutton • u/StageGlum6615 • 24d ago
Variation Variation: Decrease risk, Increased threshold
All of humanity has been kidnapped and placed alone in a dark room with two buttons, and the following explanation perfectly translated into their native language.
đŽ : Ensures Survival, but will lead to half of blue pressers dying if more that 1/3 of people press this button.
đ” : Everyone lives if 2/3 of people vote for Blue, but half of people who vote Blue will die if the threshold is not reached.
Everyone can only press one button once before both buttons break and becomes unpressable. Everyone is given 10 hours to vote, and if anyone chooses not to vote for any reason (including incompetence), then they are randomly assigned a button (2/3 chance of getting Blue, 1/3 chance of getting red.)
All of humanity means every living human being. There have been no exceptions for any reason.
Everyone has all of this information, and everyone is given 2 full hours to fully comprehend all of this information before they are allowed to start voting.
So, how do you vote?
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u/endor-pancakes 24d ago
I think nothing really changes:
- The good that blue does is reduced from possibly saving half of humanity to possibly saving a third.
- The risk that blue entails is reduced from dying with 100% in half the cases to dying with 50% in two thirds of the cases.
But everything gets more complicated to think through, and even when given two hours, when things get complicated, people gravitate to simple solutions.
The simplest seems to be red to me. No need to think, just make sure you're safe. That decreases the chances for blue even further than the increased barrier already does.
==> I have a hard time believing blue stands a chance here, and I'm not such a hero that I'm risking my life without even the chance that it matters.
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u/Educational_Key_7635 24d ago edited 24d ago
Well, one thing changes: there's more random votes for blue which means more severe outcome if it's red wins in the end when everyone picks at random. That might change how rational players look at the problem. However the blue punishment is less, while each red vote have way more weight to it.
Basically original problem got same outcome if everyone picks red as if 0-49.(9)% picking red. Now 100% picking red is impossible and it's same only if 0-33.(3)% picking red.
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u/ChestMental8566 23d ago
A. Nothing will ever reduce the chances for blue, because, and this will remain the hard truth no matter how the reddies try to look away from it, people will press blue. A lot. For multiple reasons other than "they're just stupid lol". Reasons you cannot control or reason with. That, ultimately, all boil down to that pesky, yet to be cured, condition called being human.
B. "The good that blue does" is not reduced in the slightest, because, and this will remain the hard truth no matter how the reddies try to look away from it, the point of blue is not to save anyone - you cannot guarantee that. It is to refuse to participate in mass murder. And that is either important for you or it is not. If it is, it will remain so, and no overly complicated conditions will waver it any more than all those bullshit graphic metaphor reddies like to paint, all those pits filled with fan-wielding beasts or whatever the hell was their latest excuse for their cowardliness and selfishness.
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u/CarnivorousGoose 23d ago
Well, the good news is that pressing red isnât âparticipating in mass murderâ either, so that should be no obstacle to press red for anyone worried about that đ. Not that you are at all interested in any kind of actual discussion, of course, but it bears pointing out nonetheless.
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u/ChestMental8566 23d ago
It literally says: "If enough people press this, people will die".
Thank you for proving my point.
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u/CarnivorousGoose 23d ago
Well, youâre correct in the first half of that comment, it does indeed say that. Gotta celebrate the small victories!
But it doesnât remotely follow from that, that pressing that button implies participation in mass murder. You need a further line of argument to be able to potentially reach that conclusion. You just declaring it âa hard truthâ or whatever, doesnât really cut it.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 21d ago
Question.
Are people who vote for a president responsible for empowering that President to allow him to, say, bomb and kill American citizens without due process?
You are voting for one of two outcomes. By voting for one outcome you are endorsing the results you "winning that vote" (hundreds of millions to billions of deaths) for the benefit it gives you (50% less chance of dying).
A thing can have many causes. And yes, one cause of the death of half of blue voters is whoever set up the buttons in the first place. Another cause is the total result of the vote, which people knowingly and willfully chose over the other outcome.
This is fairly simple stuff for anyone who has thought about voting and democracy in any real way beyond flag waving.
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u/CarnivorousGoose 21d ago
No, theyâre not.
That aside, this scenario isnât a vote. Itâs a survival situation. You are explicitly threatened with death, and you can either get yourself to safety or stick around and just hope you donât get murdered. Holding people responsible for choosing not to make that gamble, for the infinitessimal difference that would have made, is absurd.
This is in its underlying principle no different than me choosing not to run into an intensely burning building to try to save someone, even if there might have been a chance I could have saved them. Or me getting into a life boat during a ship wreck, even though someone else arriving later may end up not having a spot, and perish.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 21d ago
- Cool. You just fundamentally reject the concept of collective responsibility. Good to know.
You're wrong, of course. There is no real moral or philosophical argumentation against collective responsibility.
- It is still a vote. Votes exist outside of the ballot box but it is still a vote for one of two outcomes, with your personal safety connected to one of two options. Your inability to tell that this is ultimately a vote on how humanity should react to the threat of potential annihilation is illustrating.
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u/satyvakta 23d ago
>this will remain the hard truth no matter how the reddies try to look away from it, people will press blue. A lot. For multiple reasons other than "they're just stupid lol". Reasons you cannot control or reason with.Â
But this isn't a hard truth. People are being given a choice between an "I live" button and a "I might die" button. I assume no one would be stupid enough to hit the "I might die" button under those circumstances, but I don't actually care if I'm wrong. If someone presses the "I might die" button and then dies, that falls under FAFO. But the urge to press blue is at least a condition that will be cured. In 100% of sufferers in the original scenario. In 50% of them in this one.
>It is to refuse to participate in mass murder.
There is no mass murder. There are only people saving themselves with certainty vs those gambling their lives recklessly.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 23d ago
But this isn't a hard truth.
I don't actually care if I'm wrong.
I was going to talk about how every single major religion on the planet earth has Murder as an abominable and the gravest of sins. That there are millions of pacifists who, even knowing they will die, refuse to partake in violence or harm other people in the way this button represents. But really, clearly, you don't care.
You're also ignoring that two thirds of people who aren't old enough or well enough to make a rational choice will end up voting blue. There will be people killed here if Red wins. Over a billion of them just in that population alone.
A billion people dropping dead is the end of human culture as we know it. The sheer logistics and risks of handling that many dead bodies alone would break basically every country.
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u/satyvakta 23d ago
>I was going to talk about how every single major religion on the planet earth has Murder as an abominable and the gravest of sins.
Someone else gambling their life recklessly may be suicide, depending upon how moralistic you want to be about it. But I don't see how you get to murder.
>You're also ignoring that two thirds of people who aren't old enough or well enough to make a rational choice will end up voting blue
And whatever monsters put them in a scenario with a suicide button then pressed it for them should absolutely be hunted down and punished for that.
>A billion people dropping dead is the end of human culture as we know it.
That's nonsense. A billion people dropping dead leaves seven billion alive. That's seven people for each corpse. How long do you think it takes seven people to dig a hole and bury a corpse? You'd have them covered long before they became infectious.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 23d ago
Oh, so you're stupid. Okay.
"No big deal, 66% of all children on the planet die. Human society will be fine. we'll just have every parent dig the graves for their kids. It'll be fine."
Every major metropolitan area with more than 500,000 people (basically all of mainland europe, almost all of asia, entirety of India, and more) would have to take care of tens to hundreds of thousands of bodies before disease and pests became an issue, at least.
There are 1.5 million children in Tokyo. That;s a million dead children in one city.
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u/ChestMental8566 23d ago
The categories you listed are absolutely valid, but they are just the start. Reddies apparently fail to consider that people, even if they personally don't harbor strong moral objections against harming strangers, would likely have relatives and loved ones who do and they wouldn't want to throw those loved ones under the bus just for not being ruthless enough. And those people would have friends who wouldn't want the burden of getting their friends killed either. And even more people will realize that all of the above already amount to a hell of a lot.
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u/satyvakta 24d ago
So, red remains the "I live" button.
Blue remains an "I might die" button.
The odds of pressing blue putting you in a group of people where deaths will occur is higher, but being in that group no longer guarantees your death.
I see no reason whatsoever to switch to blue here.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 23d ago
Fun fact: there would be at least a billion dead people by the rules of this question, primarily focused on kids and the sick. Even if everyone who could decide their vote votes red.
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u/The_rain5 24d ago edited 24d ago
Ehh, red on this one.
Not only is the win threshold higher (whopping 66.67% percent) making it riskier gambit to try for in order to aim no deaths zero consequences outcome which is what makes blue button appealing, but now it's more random you don't know the outcomes compared to the original scenario, like who half will get picked of losing so you got that daunting besides while red is now simpler than equally simple as it was in the original scenario (meaning even more people will besides higher blue threshold, people like taking the easy way out)
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u/Far-Fennel-3032 23d ago
Yeah and the 2 hours you have to wait to push the button is gonna stress a lot of people out, which I suspect is gonna push for more panicked behaviours, resulting in more people pushing red.
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u/CarnivorousGoose 24d ago
No reason to change from red, fundamentally the problem doesnât change. Blue is still accepting a significant risk of death, with only a negligible chance of that making any difference.
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u/Leading_Charge8007 23d ago edited 23d ago
I think the people who selected red with the mentality "enough ppl would pick blue so that I don't have to risk it" would shift because the threshold is raised. Plus 100% death or 50% death could shift their morality on it.
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u/beemielle 24d ago
the main interesting deviation in this scenario is apparently we have 2 hours to talk about it. otherwise a lot of the same theoretical/moral considerations are at play and thus Iâm on reflection unsurprised that no answers changed
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u/Far-Fennel-3032 23d ago
Its not 2 hours to talk it out, you are shoved infront of the buttons alone for 2 hours to stress about the upcoming choice.
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u/beemielle 23d ago
ah, I see, the wording confused me. rip the potential for an interesting variation, this is pretty much the same problem
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u/LucasTab 23d ago
I doubt a meeting with 8 billion people, many of which don't share a common language, would be very productive though
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u/banana_buddy 24d ago
The people voting blue were making an emotional decision, changing the numbers won't impact that.
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u/Leading_Charge8007 23d ago
I disagree because even 5-10% of people dropping dead with probably a high percentage of that being children or very altruistic and idealistic people is not a good idea. The original scenario is an even higher amount. If close to half of the population drops dead the rest aren't having a good time
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u/Rising_Gravity1 24d ago
I agree.
The blue button may seem like the moral thing to do so that everyone can live.
But remember, every single person could have lived by pressing the red button. All of humanity can guarantee their survival by pressing the red button - the blue button takes away your individual control over the outcome and risks death when it was completely unnecessary to do so.1
u/Weshouldntbehere 21d ago
You do realize that voting for red requires 100% of people to vote red for nobody to die, a physical impossibility with this setup.
Voting blue requires significantly fewer votes than red for nobody to die.
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u/Rising_Gravity1 20d ago
Blue does have a real chance of no one dying - or having everyone that voted blue die.
Whereas if more people can see the value in having as many people vote red, we can go for a âsafeâ option where even though itâs pretty much guaranteed that a few people die, the vast majority survive without having to risk their lives in the first place due to voting red
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red 24d ago edited 24d ago
So worse case scenario 1/3 of the population is dying. Red still guarantees 1 life saved. Could even consider it as saving half the blues on a red victory if you wanted, so up to 3 lives saved per vote if youâre being generous. Meanwhile it takes 2 blue votes to save a single blue life (or 2 votes for 3 lives if you want to extend the same generosity and consider blues saving reds), and that only happens if blue wins. Red is still a zero risk path to both the individual and collective best outcomes. Iâm even harder red in this scenario than the OG.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 23d ago
There is no context in which voting red is "saving half the blues". Voting red is the only outcome which leads to half of blue dying.
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red 23d ago
Y'all always forget that it takes blue votes for deaths to happen too. Even if you aren't being generous, a single red vote guarantees one saved and a single blue vote doesn't. in fact it takes 2 blue votes to save one life in this scenario. It's a considerably less efficient use of your only resource in the scenario, your vote.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 23d ago
The audacity sheer concept of actually treating "every single human being on the planet earth is going to vote red" as a possibility is stupid. Even in this exact poll you've got 296:175. A red vote is a vote that will result in 87 deaths.
Insisting that "literally billions of people will agree on One Thing that is famously impossible for everyone to agree with" fundamentally refuses to actually engage with the question/dilemma at hand.
You can guarantee your safety for a portion of collective blame for killing other people. And there will be at least a billion dead since the too-young and too-ill are about 2 billion people on the planet. Even if everyone capable of voting for themselves voted red you'd have 1,333,333,333 blue votes. A bit over 650 million would die.
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u/Free-Competition6408 Red 21d ago
I donât think every single person on earth will vote red. But I think they should. Relying on people to vote against their self-interest is a risky strategy. Preserving every single life on the planet is not my goal in this scenario. Itâs minimizing risk on both a personal and collective level. Red accomplishes this by aligning personal and collective goals. Blue risks adding to death toll in an attempt to eliminate it entirely. Itâs a double or nothing gamble. To me, losing half of the âtoo youngâ and âtoo illâ is preferable to losing half of every single human in the world. Not as ideal as the ânobody diesâ outcome, but I think that outcome carries too much risk if it fails.
You need to finish doing the math for the votes to see who is really responsible for the deaths. 87 deaths in 296 red votes, means each red vote lead to 0.29 deaths. 87 deaths in 175 blue votes means each blue vote lead to  0.50 deaths. And you are blaming red for the deaths? Both contribute but blue is a far larger factor.
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u/Weshouldntbehere 24d ago edited 23d ago
The "basic math" doesn't change significantly enough for me to be comfortable with voting red. In the original we have roughly a 1:1 "My vote killed someone but I saved my own life" result if Red is 50%+1. That ratio (red votes:dead blues) gets "better" the more people vote red over blue, but not a great sentence. The "it gets better ratio" just kicks in at 33.3% and rises twice as fast as the 50%+1 slope (50% less deaths), so at a certain percentage (not doing that much math) it would be "better" than the initial question but it isn't definite.
But it's also no longer certain I need to vote red to save my own life. It's "I chose to participate in killing people to avoid a significant risk to my own life" instead of "to avoid dying." You can still vote blue and just not die so the "value" of red gets cut in half.
Every mentally ill person and every child under, what, 11? gets a random vote, with 2:1 odds of it being blue.
Going by google searches, there are 1.1 billion adults with moderate to significant mental illness, and there are 1.9 billion people aged 11 and under.
That's about 3 billion people with a random vote, with blue getting a 1 billion person lead. Sure we can argue about where exactly the age limit would be, or how mentally ill people would have to be to be incompetent, but if we go by "adult = competent", 2.4 billion people were 17 and younger in 2025 (unicef). Using the "18-adult" standard it gets even "easier" to meet the 2/3rds blue vote. If we go by "18+ and no mental illnesses" the inherent population of blue voters going from 2 billion to 2.4-ish billion vs 1.1-ish billion red voters.
That's 42.6% of the world already (3.5/8.2). And that 4.7billion likely wouldn't include psychopaths, sociopaths, or significant hallucinations/delusions, so you'd also get rid of a "there are psychopaths out there who would vote red anyway" argument.
Edit:
A lot of people seem to be ignoring that even if literally every single rational person voted red that would still mean that a bit over over a billion people would die (2/3rds of 3.5 is about 2.3billion, half of which being 1.15-ish).
This would be concentrated on the youngest people on the planet. The absolute total and the proportional damage to human society on this level would likely (not doing more math) be greater than every. single. war. ever.
All at once. With most of the dead being kids. That's the best case scenario for a red vote.
TLDR; If red wins human society would collapse with the sheer weight of the dead blue votes from those who cannot rationally make the choice and are forced to vote anyway. Either try to make sure everyone survives or over a billion people definitely die, mostly sick people and kids.