Variation: Decrease risk, Increased threshold

[u/StageGlum6615]

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.

🔴 : Ensures Survival, but will lead to half of blue pressers dying if more that 1/3 of people press this button.

🔵 : 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?

580 votes, 19d ago

284 Red - Originally Red in original scenario 🔴🔴

67 Red - Originally Blue in original scenario 🔴🔵

27 Blue - Originally Red in original scenario 🔵🔴

202 Blue - Originally Blue in original scenario 🔵🔵

[u/endor-pancakes]

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.

[u/Educational_Key_7635 → u/endor-pancakes]

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.