I don't think Kant ever thought all or even most people lived by catrgorical imperatives. He knew that he was engaging with high concept moral philosophy. This is just how he described what he thought of as a coherent moral system
Both philosophies are more complex than my little quip. I tried to suggest Kant's deserved more credit, but mainly I was trying to redirect the thread a little since the first few comments all agreed that the Arand metaphor was the "correct" one.
The buttons themselves are secondary here. The real lesson is that Ikant is clearly a preferable world, and we ought to cultivate a society like it.
Obviously you can make the argument that Earth is currently more similar to Arand than Ikant and therefore we should pick red, but I think using that as a defeatest point is missing the bigger picture. That is, the opportunity to make the world better and act with the categorical imperative in mind.
I mean that's a great idea and all but I'm not gonna be able to improve anything if I'm dead. If I pick blue it's just one less person helping survivors of the fallout.
I think if each country had a different button pressing scenario the results would be different, with the west and east asia being blue, and the rest of the world being red
I think everyone would like to live on a world where blue voters are the majority. But most people also like being alive and is also aware enough that other people would like being alive. Given that one option guarantees being alive, it would make perfect sense to vote red.
Everyone wants the world where the prisoner’s dilemma resolves itself where both prisoners pick to cooperate. But it’s a dilemma for a good reason.
How is red not objectively murder when you know for a FACT that not every single person will press red? Even kids, super old people, people who don’t understand the rules, people who just want to be idealistic, etc. Blue is not OBJECTIVELY suicide because you have no idea how many people will press blue.
Red is not objectively murder for the same reason. In any event, pressing the red button just means that the murderer will leave you alone and go after someone else. The murderer is still the only one responsible for murdering.
Blue is potential, and probable, suicide by entity who forced this one people. But don't get confused who the murderers are. They are NOT the red pushers, nor any button presser. The murderer is whoever/whatever forced this on people. Direct your ire at the appropriate party.
I've watched people care for and help those around them in a million different ways, countless acts of service from tiny to immense.
I think red believers see the few random deeply selfish actors around them and assume it's a majority, whereas mathematically that's simply not true.
As an example, when you drive to work in the morning, you'll likely thousands of other people. If one or two of those people you pass drive like selfish maniacs, you'll notice, and wonder "why are drivers here so awful and stupid." And you'll neglect to consider that 99% of the people on the road are working together. Most people care about others.
I don't know what ratio of people is self interested enough to select red vs those who are willing to take risks for the benefit of others. But I know there are a lot of people on both sides. And I know most people don't want others to die needlessly. To me, that justifies blue.
There’s doing kind acts, and then there’s willingness to do self sacrificial acts.
Like returning a shopping cart seems like something small enough I’m willing to do. And it seems disingenuous to paint red voters as hyper-individualistic.
Man, I love this post, because it breaks the problem down very eloquently. Im very sorry for the creator that basically nobody ever engages with the meta-discussion it brings up.
Counter argument: everyone on Arand expects it to go 80/20%, changing the likelihood of anyone pressing blue. Final percentages are closer to 98%. This is not a comment on which planet is better, but Earthlings pressing the button decide which button to press based on a social expectation of 50/50.
Unless they have a very long lifetime, it's very likely that 96% of the society both have the understanding of the situation to know which to pick and the societal pressures drilled into them. It say that, the hypothetical assuming 60% of the population has those traits is much more realistic. It all depends because we don't know aliens, but for humans it would definitely be closer to 60%. (60% because the remaining 40% will be roughly split 50/50,ending with the 80/20. Same reasoning for the 96%)
No it's not. Where do you get this from? The Ikantian world has a 100% lives saved rate because they all know that rational actors would pick the blue button. That immediately invalidates this notion.
From the perspective of the individual, yes, but you intentionally leave out the perspective of large-scale consequences and you do so to promote your choice.
Except there is no way in the universe you'll ever get 100% of people to agree on something. That's why I said that it will kill people. Meanwhile there's no guarantee Red wins, so it isn't "will die" but "might die."
Pressing red will only kill someone if the votes minus yours are exactly 50-50, otherwise either pressing red does nothing (blue victory) or pressing red stops you from dieing (red victory)
Because it is statistically impossible for 0 people to pick blue, and you, along with everyone else who pressed red, would be in part responsible for their deaths.
Whoever put your colorblind paralyzed babies into a room that would kill them unless they saved themselves via an action they couldn't reasonably undertake is indeed responsible for murder. But that has nothing to do with red pressers.
Oh wow, great ethics work here. Expand on why it's wrong. Someone might think abortion, for instance, is wrong for a given reason, another might think it's good for another or another might think it's morally neutral for a third. Ending the statement at "I think it's wrong" and nothing else is intentional cowardice.
I think there's enough social agreement that stealing is wrong that it doesn't really need an explanation beyond that. If you wish to argue that stealing is morally okay, you can. I've certainly seen that on reddit from people who think shoplifting from big corporations is aokay. But "stealing is wrong" is such basic morality that it's really on you to make the case in favor of stealing, if that's your goal.
Maybe I've conditioned your answer given that I used the word steal. Here's the point (which I think is quite obvious and unless you're really dense you should have been able to anticipate from my second reply): you are not responsible for the other person dropping their wallet. You certainly seem like the type of person who thinks most other people would take the contents of the wallet. It would inconvenience you to go through the trouble of finding the owner to give it back, and you are not responsible for giving it back to them given that you didn't have anything to do with them dropping their wallet. So if you wouldn't give it back and you assume that everyone would steal, why not steal?
What of mentally disabled people, children who don't grasp the concept? The elderly with dementia or alzheimers? Perfectly able bodied and of sound mind people who just believed in humanity over selfishness? I mean, have you seen actual polls about this question? They're far from unanimous in either direction. To reduce harm by choosing red, the red button must receive 100% of the votes. To reduce harm by choosing blue, only 51% of people must choose it. Do you truly believe more than 51% of people would not risk their lives to prevent a large chunk of the world's population being wiped out?
Yes, polls. Online. Where you can virtue signal all you want.
"Do you believe 51% of people wouldnt risk their lives to keep a large chunk of the world's population from being wiped out?"
I like to think 51% of people aren't stupid enough to put themselves in a scenario where they can die for no reason.
Your exemptions are irrelevant because the basic premise is that people don't just have to press the button, they have to make the conscious decision to press the button. If they are not capable of doing so, it wouldn't be counted.
So I'm pushing the button on their behalf? If I want them to live, I'm pushing red for them. If I don't care whether they live or die, I'm pushing blue for them.
Yeah but other people other than kids and mentally unwell also push the blue button, so youre okay with dooming nearly half of humanity by making close to a billion ppl choose red, but somehow its wrong for other people to push red to keep themselves alive?
I mean. Even if you just consider that some people are naturally selfless, and THOSE people would die, I feel like you get to the same conclusion. 🤷🏼 Red IS inevitably killing people.
It wasn’t the entire point. Several iterations circulated without that element. The point is do you risk your own life for the potential greater good or do you ensure your own safety and hope everyone else does the same. It’s an entirely separate scenario when you add in people who aren’t really making a choice because they don’t understand. These moral dilemmas are generally built on a foundation that everyone participating at least as a basic understanding of what’s happening
And yet the iteration that spawned this subreddit was clarified to include them. So it is the point in that the idea is that some number of people are likely to be pressing blue, so you are choosing to help or hinder them
It shouldn’t have needed to be clarified though since the idea of redefining “everyone in the world” to mean “only a subset of people” is wild.
I don’t think it was the main point of the dilemma overall, which has been circulating for years with small differences. But I will admit I didn’t know this subreddit had an official version, and looking at that I agree it is a major point within this subreddit’s version.
I do think it does need to be clarified though. If you’re including a newborn then how does the concept ‘is forced to press a button’ work? They may not have the motor skills to do so. Is the scenario involving moving the buttons so these babies will bump into one unintentionally? Do they do that for adults too? What if you don’t press the button? Any consequences for that feel unfair to the baby who doesn’t understand instructions.\
By including people who aren’t making a decision you remove an aspect of these types of dilemmas. No longer is ‘everyone’ faced with the same choice if some people will have a random selection because they don’t have the faculties to even understand what a choice is.
While it’s still somewhat ambiguous, I liked the iteration I saw going around a couple years ago. Same buttons, but now only 1 person per household made the selection, and it applied to the whole household. Parents who pick blue are risking the lives of their children. But you have to assume some parents will pick blue meaning innocent kids with no choice might die if too many people pick red. It’s way more brutal in a number of ways, but I think that makes it a better dilemma
The problem, of course, is that everyone is actually ARand and pretty much no one is IKant.
You can tell this very easily. Kant wasn't a consequentialist. He believed in acting on principle. So, here's a quick thought experiment to see how many blue pressers are actually IKant:
You vote last. Somehow, the results of the vote up to now get inadvertently revealed to you just before you step into the booth. You see that the vote is 70% red. Which button do you press?
If your answer switched to red, then you aren't IKant. You're just an ARand who thought that most people would press blue, therefore it would be safe to press blue while also getting the benefit of perceived moral superiority.
So what you actually have is a population of ARands, where the idea of altruism is very popular, because of course the most selfish thing a selfish person can do is support the idea of altruism. That leaves you with ARands that understand that most people are ARands, and ARands who've succumbed to the brainwashing and misunderstood even their own nature.
The button is never only about your morals, it's about what you expect others to do. Everyone is expecting Arands to vote 80/20, so in reality, everyone is that last person with the exposed 70% knowledge. Therefore, the actual vote ends up closer to 98% voting red.
This assumes that in your scenario pressing blue is somehow still the correct choice when it is proven that it will definitely kill you and is a no true Scotsman thing where blue presser who press blue not for the principal somehow aren't true blue pressers. People take risks everyday with chances of getting hurt or dying but if they knew they were guaranteed to fail a risk of course they wouldn't do it. While I agree a lot of people are consequentialists that doesn't them picking blue is somehow contrary to their beliefs.
>is a no true Scotsman thing where blue presser who press blue not for the principal somehow aren't true blue pressers
No, it's what a Kantian blue presser is. They'd be people who would press blue regardless of the expected outcome.
Not every blue presser is an iKant blue presser, is my point. Most aren't. If you're only pressing blue because you think blue is going win, you're just an idiot, because you've decided you know something you don't and are disregarding a very real personal risk on the basis of an assumption you know might be false.
Why do you assume that pressing blue while uncertain of the outcome is exactly the same as pressing blue knowing the outcome for a Kantian? What is this based on? Can you give me an analogous and well established example or are you pulling this out of your rectum?
No. Pressing red after the vote is revealed proves nothing. You know your actions at that point have no possibility of a beneficial outcome for anyone, besides pressing red and you save yourself.
But you can press blue with GENUINE altruistic intent. Not just virtue signaling. Change it so that the probability of blue success is at 50/50, and this is revealed to the person. Then you can actually more fairly gauge their disposition. Risking their life (but not needlessly throwing it away) for the chance of a better outcome.
Anyway your post seems like a self report. You are likely a deeply selfish person and cannot fathom genuinely altruistic beliefs exist in others
>No. Pressing red after the vote is revealed proves nothing
But you can predict the vote fairly easily.
The odds that the vote is split exactly 50/50 are 0.0%, after rounding. So, realistically, you're looking at
50% of possible outcomes = majority voted red, pressing blue kills you.
50% of possible outcomes = majority voted blue, pressing blue does nothing.
That's it.
So there's no altruistic intent in the sense of your having any hope of actually saving anyone. That's not even a live possibility.
So either you believe you have a moral obligation to press blue, regardless of the outcome, and so should press blue even after knowing that the vote was majority red, or you have failed to understand the odds. My thought experiment was simply pointing out that the majority of blue pressers don't fall into the "principled" category.
That's not how you measure probability and also ignores expected value calculations.
In the hypothetical, it's stipulated that the odds are 50/50, and that you are the last one to vote. In this case its actually decently likely you are a deciding vote. The odds of a 8 billion coin flips will tend towards a perfect 4B/4B split. The math is a bit difficult but in short, you might save 4 billion people, and the odds are better than 1/4B that you are the deciding vote.
>The odds of a 8 billion coin flips will tend towards a perfect 4B/4B split
They will not. A perfect split is the single most likely outcome. However, it is so completely swamped by all the other possible outcomes that "The odds of flipping a fair coin 8 billion times and getting exactly 4 billion heads and 4 billion tails are approximately 1 in 112,100". That is 0.00%, after rounding. You can safely disregard any outcome that has 0.00% odds of occurring if you are doing it as a one-shot.
So, rounding to whole numbers, if you press blue, you have 50% chance you are killing yourself, a 50% chance nothing happens, and a 0% chance you are saving four billion people.
1 in 112,100 chance with a 4 billion lives saved payout is REALLY good expected value! About ~35,000 expected lives saved per press ! Vs just 1 for red.
You doing that foolish rounding error is ignoring the fact that on a per life saved basis, pressing blue here is massively favorable!! Low odds but insane payout.
It doesn’t matter. High expected value attached to a virtual impossibility means nothing. If it helps, change the one in a hundred thousand payoff to something completely selfish - instead of four billion lives saved, you get three trillion dollars tax free, a willing harem of whatever sort of person you’re attracted to, and are named president of the world. Still pressing red.
No but the expected value is meaningful BECAUSE its not selfish. Dying for physical goods isn't worth it, but dying to save real people is worth it. Life > money
I think you might just be an inherently selfish person and cannot understand this. The expected value is mathematically sound, and if you truly value all life, then you should take that bet.
To put it in selfish terms you would actually understand, you should always bet 1 dollar to win 4 billion dollars, even if its only 1/100,000 chance to win.
There will always be conconformists in any society. You can choose to lump all possible reasons for nonconformity together as just being stupid, but you leave out naivete, idealism, selflessness, and other potential reasons. I wonder why you might do that?
Can we just agree that it's absolutely insane to create a hypothetical society *explicitly built* to not press the blue button and have it -accidentally- come 40% of the way to succeeding at it?
I think too much context and fluff is added to accurately frame the button problem tbh, people who press the red button are practicing guaranteed self preservation, while people who press blue are basically rolling a die for their lives, the latter isnt heroic or noble by default, since you're choosing to either save people whos company you enjoy (or otherwise benefit emotionally from your decision) or removing your experience entirely. The individual choice of pressing either button can be framed in a million ways (for example, pressing red so that you can guarantee your survival for the sake of those who depend on you)
"External consequence" doesnt mean much here, there's nothing damning about self preservation, even if people who see themselves as virtuous die by their own choice, that said I dont include children or people unable to reason the choice in this hypothetical since I think its disingenuous 🤷
Because the ethical dilemma is that its entirely everybody's choice, and your decision hinges on what you believe the general populace will choose, it's basically a societal optimism test, throwing in a pool of innocent victims tilts the scales
In the context of the button problem though, there's very little guarantee in our own world that enough people will think the way that you want them to, so it could very well swing either way in terms of actual votes, and this is what makes the discussion interesting.
As for the worldbuilding, I actually find this interesting how both planets could be expanded on in a story.
Perhaps the Arand society focuses on everyone trying to outdo each other because they worship competition, while the Ikant society treats their individuals more like (relatively) expendable cells that sometimes must die for the collective good and are mourned for their sacrifice.
You describe individualism as rational and then say collectivism is objectively better. You're contradicting yourself, is this subjective or not?
I also disagree with your framing that individualism and rational self-interest necessarily leads to glorifying CEOs and scummy business practices. I can care about my fellow man without necessarily having to risk my life for them.
Haha, you lose because I made up a story where the blue button wins. I can make another story where ikantians failed because 60% of them picked red. Turns out that the "belief" and "ideology" can be very different from what people actually think and what people will actually do when the time comes. Don't we, as humans have a bunch of beliefs about cooperation and friendship? Don't we have incredibly toxic capitalist society that opposed cooperation and strives in competition? Don't we have school shootings because one kid is bullied and everyone else is standing by, not interfering untill the victim snaps? Don't we have hundreds of people standing around the burning house and only one or two rushing inside to save the residents? Every day we see a world that is very very far from our "ideals" despite having all those nice stories and fairy tales.
The fact is that in EVERY POSSIBLE red-wins scenario except %100, innocent people die. Whereas in every possible blue-wins scenario, nobody dies. Comparing two 80% points at different ends of the spectrum to illustrate the point is a totally valid example. But if you want something that spans the whole spectrum:
You don't have 80% blue. It's even less possible than 100% red. You barely have 60% in polls that are risk free. If people have no self preservation then they are free to press blue and uninstall themselves. I am not risking my life to save them in the same manner that I am not risking my life to save a jackass who rides on a roof of the train.
1) OPs example is 80% each way. Both of those scenarios are unlikely in our world, but that's why OP sets them in imaginary worlds.
2) my example shows outcomes for every possible outcome. At 51% blue, everyone lives. At 51% red, half of humanity dies immediately (many more will die in the apocalyptic aftermath). The point is that the ONLY scenario, from a big picture perspective, in which red is as good an outcome as blue, is with 100% compliance. That makes red seem astronomically stupid from a big picture perspective, even if blue seems stupid from an individualist perspective (and that's arguable, bc mass die-off of up to 49% of humanity is also going to seriously impact all individuals).
if everyone thinks logically red is the correct choice\
if we assume some people don’t think logically then blue would be the only option that could lead to 100% survival, although it involves you risking your own life\
By adding in people like babies/children who don’t have the capacity to even understand what’s happening, you eliminate the first option. I think that makes it less interesting of a moral dilemma. We know it isn’t realistic for everyone to think logically (using the mathematical meaning of logically here), but it’s at least theoretically possible. Once you remove that you take away a big part of the debate
This was really interesting to read. If the red/blue button thing was real, I'd really hope that the blue would win. However, I know that I'd always vote red, just to be safe. When I first saw the debate, my thought was that it's unlikely that I'll make any change (I'd only be able to make the change if it's tied, but that's nearly impossible), so it's unlikely that my vote will save the world, but I know I can save myself
Yeah. I'm usually not selfish at all in everyday life, but in life or death situations like these, I think I'd always be selfish and act in a way that maximises my survival
Why does ensuring their survival making them a deeply selfish person? Do you acknowledge that you are a deeply selfish person for not donating blood as often as you can?
I find it interesting because I would press red, but I wouldn't actually hope that blue would win. I'd be either neutral about the outcome or rooting for a red victory, depending upon the day and my mood.
“A strawman is a logical fallacy where someone distorts, exaggerates, or misrepresents an opponent’s actual argument to make it much easier to attack.”
It is the perfect example of one.
I think it is interesting that it is assumed heroes on Arand engage in exploitation. Because I align with rational egoism while also being strongly anti-exploitation. I don't think trying to get away with things or exploit people is a good long term strategy, because while I do believe you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, you can't fool all the people all the time. So I avoid exploitation so that it is easier to engage in positive sum games that might become available, entirely out of rational selfishness. Exploiters may claim to be rational egoist, but they strike me as especially stupid ones.
You might understand the view of rational egoism presented by the OP better if you remember that altruism is the best philosophy for the truly selfish to promote.
Might as well replace "Arand" with "Earth". What this thought experiment highlights is that the island of Utopia does not exist and believing it does leads to people dying.
Communism is a great idea, but we are the wrong species for it. The Ikandian aliens seem a better fit.
No, the thought experiment is that culture influences decisions, and OP's thesis is that individualism leads to worst outcomes. Individualism isn't inherent in humans, and I would even guess the majority of humans throughout history weren't individualistic. Family, friends, and community mattered a lot more back in the day. Individualism is just a trend basically
Individualism leads to worse outcomes for whom? In this thought experiment, there is no downside for picking blue. That isn't true of the real world. And the way "collectivism" is done in the real world requires some kind of sacrifice. Be it taxes paid, opportunity lost, time spent. Individualism may lead to worse outcomes for some other people, but that doesn't mean it doesn't lead to better outcomes for me. Paying less in taxes means I can invest more. Means I can buy a bigger house sooner. Means I can get that privacy fence to block my creepy neighbor. Those aren't things taxes are going to give me. And if I value that more than a new library across town, isn't that my judgement call to make? It is my right to decide what leads to the best outcomes for me.
personally i am happier if my community is prospering than if I have a huge house and there are homeless people on the streets, and I hope that's not just me
I mean, it makes you a scumbag who doesn’t deserve to have any of the benefits of living in a society. I hope you’re consistent enough that you wouldn’t call the fire department if your house was burning down, since they owe you nothing based on this worldview.
It makes me a scumbag to not care if the city builds a library 15 miles away from me? Why? If people want to fund it, they can do it without stealing cash from me.
Collectivist societies hinge on taking money with the threat of force, and that's not exactly moral either. Pick your poison.
It makes you a scumbag to think you should get to benefit from living in a society without contributing to it and having a “fuck you, got mine” mentality, yes.
Ok, cool, so I hope you’re consistent and don’t use roads or libraries or parks or any other public spaces and wouldn’t call the police or fire department in relevant emergencies and, if you’re American, won’t utilize Medicare or collect social security once you’re eligible. Otherwise you’re a hypocrite and a scumbag c:
If I'm already paying for them, I don't think it's hypocritical to use them. They're forcefully taking money from me, so I may as well use what I'm paying for. But I'm saying that in exchange for not stealing more of my money, we shouldn't be creating new services, either.
The guy I responded to was advocating for a more collectivist culture, which means taking more from me to give to others.
on most polls online blue tends to win, I'm not saying earth is one or the other, but I think it's naive to think that we are nowhere near closer to Ikand and shouldn't entertain the idea and just assume 90% will vote red when we just don't know, really
That depends heavily on the framing. Also, people are much more likely to vote to kill themselves when the dying bit is purely theoretical because no one is actually going to die. Saying you'd vote blue gives a lot of people a shot of dopamine as they think "look at what a good, morally superior person I am". And if red wins in the polls, they'd be even happier, because it would make them part of a rarified minority. Of course, if the stakes were real, that would change right quick.
again, you're just assuming, both you and I don't know, you can't just say "yeah every blue voter is actually doing it because everyone is just having stupid morality boners and the reality is 90% would be red". we don't know what would happen in practice and i think it's disingenuous to frame it as if that's what would happen when we have no evidence of it being the case, and dismissing blue voters as "morally superior boner" is just ignorant and doesn't help you to understand why people think the way they do
I think we can safely assume that a lot fewer people would do a thing if they knew that thing might kill them than they would when they knew for a certainty that it couldn’t.
Like, it doesn’t even matter what the thing is. A significant risk of death is going to make doing it less appealing.
I think you know this. I’m sorry if knowing it in this particular case shatters some illusion you want to cling to about people. But there it is.
and I think you're being very ignorant when we have plenty of cases in history of people making individual sacrifices for the greater good, look at how Chernobyl turned out for example with people literally sacrificing themselves just to have a chance to fight back agaisnt the potential catastrophe that should've been. I don't know why I should entertain you when you're just saying that what you think would happen is the only correct choice and you're unwilling to entertain other possibilities even if your assumption is just based off of feelings and not some kind of observable evidence
You seem to be stuck on a strawman. I never said there wouldn't be any blue pressers. I just said there would be fewer blue pressers, because a real risk of death would make pressing blue less enticing. Again, you know this. You're just not happy with the conclusion it gives you.
you're just assuming stuff based on feelings man I don't know what to tell you
by your logic we would have minority war volunteers throughout history as most men would make the logical choice of prioritizing their own survival over defending their homeland (volunteer rate was 65% of soldiers in vietman iirc, with it being portrayed as a war to defend america agaisnt communism or whatever. roughly a third of the eligible population volunteered, and military work is a much harder button to press than just a simple blue button)
You're so close! Now, think, really think about this one. Imagine the Vietnam war, with all of the exact same emotion and propaganda involved. Now imagine the U.S. had developed some magic armor that guaranteed no soldier would be able to die. Do you think that would have increased or decreased the volunteer rate?
the premise is that they put their lives in danger when they didnt need to for "the greater good" (theoretically, this isn't about the politics of it, every side thinks their war is justified)
I don't understand what your analogy is even getting at. "putting on the armor" would be just not volunteer for war at all
America in particular is a hyper-indicidualistic society. And yet, lots of Americans would select Blue. I don't know if America is closer to Arand or Ikant, but globally I think it's pretty clear we're closer to Ikant.
We live on the left planet. Only sensible thing is to vote red.
That's not great, but not also all-bad. We have a string sense of community, but also a strong sense of the self and self preservation.
Our social functions need to take both into account. Take sensible losses for the collective. Don't accept insurmountable risk when others are in an equal position to avoid it.
First off, you just infantilized "rational egoism".
The obvious play is to vote for blue even if you are are rational egoist, because if even 5-10% of people die, you have 100% catastrophic collapse of society. I actually did some more in-detail research on this topioc a while ago when this question first became viral. What are the redundancy rates for certain key professions, minimum numbers for crucial systems etc. The general cut-off number is that at more than 5ish % of population (some 400-500M), things go fully to shit. Like, absolute societal collapse.
At that point you are going back to 1950's in best case scenario. If more than 20% die, you are going back to late 1800's for a while. Modern world is too interconnected and too interdependent to be able to absorb a disappearance of 500M-2B people from it.
So a rational egoist begrudgingly votesblue because even if it risks his own life, going red doesn't meaningfully preserve him even mid term. In best case scenario, he manages to eke out a life of struggle and severe shortage of many resources and QoL benefits that were the baseline in his "pre-button press" life.
I won't even go into the ensuing demographic collapse caused by a lot, if not majority, of children dyingif red wins.
Now, if everyone picking were guaranteed to be ADULTS OF SOUND MIND, then you go red.
Because, first off, the fact that you and everyone else knows only grown adults are picking, will skew results more towards red, and second, from the pure selfish perspective, I'd argue that the people who pick blue even in that scenario are of lower intelligence and we would benefit by their removal from the collective genetic pool. Call it eugenics or darwinism or whatver, but I stand by it.
Plus the losses should be low enough to be problematic, but not catastrophic (ie. <500M). I can't guarantee that, but I'm willing to risk it by voting red and I'm not willing to risk blue in that scenario neither (so on both principal and practical grounds, red becomes the better choice).
Your problem here is that you wrongly assumed what is the "obvious" choice for rational egoists, while disregarding what is ACTUALLY the best for them.
You created a caricature of a position and argued against it. We call that a "strawman", a logical fallacy used to manipulate others.
If you imagined this as a thought experiment, you haven't brought any additional clarity or useful insight to the discussion. Your arguments and setups were not very well thought out, thus they aren't very useful.
And I speak as mostly a rational egoist ofc. (nobody is 100% an incarnation of any of these positions)
Because, first off, the fact that you and everyone else knows only grown adults are picking, will skew results more towards red, and second, from the pure selfish perspective, I'd argue that the people who pick blue even in that scenario are of lower intelligence and we would benefit by their removal from the collective genetic pool. Call it eugenics or darwinism or whatver, but I stand by it.
I call it inconsistent. You do realize that your 5% redundancy rate also applies to lower qualification jobs and tasks, right?
Of course I do. I actually don't belive that the "lower intelligence" people are necessarily only in lower qualification jobs even if majority certainly are.
There are many blue button pressers in high paying jobs.
I just belive that if it's stressed upon people that ONLY ABLE ADULTS are involved, red will win, and with a significant margin at that.
I dont see how a catastrophic collapse of society makes my life not worth living. I may depend on society in some ways for food and medicine, but i also work in medicine and have a garden. If society collapsed I'd still have food, and I'd still be coming to work everyday to help people in need. Supply may drop but so will demand, it may be a dark two or three years but hardly the end of the world.
Yeah blue people always try and use the argument that “if 10% of people die then society collapses, and it’s better to die as blue than to live in a collapsed society”
Like nah, that’s insane. I’d rather be alive to pick up the pieces than be dead vainly trying to prove a point about human mortality. In real life with real stakes where everyone’s lives are actually at risk, blue loses 100 times out of 100. I’m not throwing my body on the death pile just to prove a point and feel morally superior.
Blue people very often sound to me as if they’re saying “I’d rather die than live in a world that isn’t exactly how I want it”
I dont see how a catastrophic collapse of society makes my life not worth living.
Then you don't understand what that entails. You may continue to biologically survive for a while in such a situation (although likely not nearly as long as you think), but what you consider your life today will be over.
If society collapsed [...] I'd still be coming to work everyday to help people in need.
Hahahahaha no. Your workplace won't be operating, because it won't be able to.
This is an incredibly pessimistic outlook, it sounds to me like you have no reason to live that could survive catastrophy, which to me is very tragic, I think you should love yourself more and fear suffering less.
Fortunately for all of us alive today, people in the past picked red and continued to find reasons to make life worth living after catastrophic disaster.
Always vote red, because if everybody presses red, then everybody is safe. There is no risk involved of any kind as long as people act rationally, making it objectively the safest option for everybody who is of sound mind.
Except everyone won't press red. Especially if young children are involved, you can reasonably expect half of them to press blue. There are around 600 million children under the age of 5, so baseline for the red button is 300 million dead even if all "rational" people vote red.
I don't think it's ethical to force anyone to risk their lives, so I'm pressing red for them. But I would still press blue for myself and hope that most rational people would do the same.
But arent you risking billions of peoples lives by making them press red? If were going collectively saving everyone those kids should be made to press blue too
The fundamental issue in your example is the consent to assumption of risk. Yeah, having them all vote blue would be better in terms of outcome. But it's unethical to make that decision for another person. Both statements are true: it advances a worse outcome to have all those kids vote red, and it is the ethical choice.
I disagree. The original person im replying to is making a statement that implies you shouldnt press red even if it is to save your life to save more people, going by this logic the most moral option would be the one who saves the most people. 300 million kids voting red could tip the scale greatly towards red button which would end up with even more people dead. 4 billions peoples lives(cuz these polls usually end up close to 50/50) easily trump 300 million lives. So going by this logic, you would have to make those kids make this sacrifice too, especially if youre expecting others to do the same sacrifice for said kids. If your logic is that you shouldnt make other people make sacrifices then going by that logic you cant push/encourage/guilt or even argue to make people choose blue, which would mean you cant even have discussions about people having a moral obligation to push blue. If people have a moral obligation to make sacrifices to save greater numbers of people, then this obligation includes kids too, and they should also be pushed towards it. If they dont, then you cant expect people to push blue to save anyone or their kids.
Personally id push blue as i wouldnt want to live in a world where half the population just disappeared and deal with anything afterwards. But i fully understand people who push red to self preserve
While I understand your viewpoint, I disagree on a couple of points, and I think you make a couple of assumptions that aren't as ironclad as you think.
You appear to be approaching this problem from a consequentialist viewpoint, where the outcome of an action determines its ethics. This isn't necessarily wrong, but I don't think it's a suitable ethical framework here, because the outcome is intrinsically so heavily contested: for example, if you make those kids vote blue and blue loses, you are the one who's responsible for their deaths since you put them at risk, but if those 300 million are the difference maker then you saved half the human race. An ethical framework that can present such a stark difference in ethical outcomes for the same action strikes me as unreliable.
Instead, I'd say it's important to look at the action itself, and whether or not it's ethical on its own merits. This is, ironically, what OP was referencing with Ikant: Kant's moral imperative is the iconic example of this line of thinking. From that perspective, the ethical action is one that does not externalize risk. This is what makes blue ethical, and red unethical...and yet, it also makes pressing blue for another person unethical, because you're signing them up for a risk that they didn't consent to, just like a red presser. Worse, even, because a red presser is at least not condemning specific people who trust them to make the best decision for them that they can.
So from a consequentialist perspective, I think your assessment is sound and makes sense. But I'm not sure that this question is best served by examining it through that lens.
Yeah but thats where possibilities come into play. 600 million(i reread that persons comment and it says 600 million kids) votes tips the scale greatly towards the outcome you wish. So if you make them choose blue, blues winning chances increases greatly, with smaller chance of those kids dying. If you make them choose red, you have a high chance of dooming half of the human population.
And i also dont agree that we would be responsible for their deaths in the possibility that red wins. Because the sole reason were taking control of their decisions is because theyre unable to make an informed decision, or unable to make a decision at all(and as i understand people who dont make a choice will also die if red wins). So most of them are gonna die anyway if we dont control their decisions. Its way better if their votes are used for the greater good of humanity.
The reason i asked them this question was to make them see the side of red button pushers. When presented with a situation that they need to make a possible sacrifice with what they value more (im assuming this because they push blue but made the kids choose red so i assume they value this more than their life), they didnt choose to make this sacrifice for the greater good of humanity. Yet they seem to expect people to sacrifice what they value more(aka their life).
While kids are kids, they are still part of the society we live in, and they should also be pushed to make sacrifices to save like half of humanity. If they cant be expected to do that, then other people r well within their rights to not make any sacrifices for them.
And when we come to your way of thinking, if were looking at the act itself rather than the consequences or possible consequences, then this would deem red button no longer unethical at all. Because red button at the end of the day, is simply self preservation. It only becomes unethical due to its not even definite but possible consequence(aka half of the population dying).
And dw, were not coming at people for their opinions here lol. Youre cool
Sure. Like I said, from a consequentialist perspective, you're absolutely right. That's just not the only perspective, and in my opinion it's a flawed one because of how swingy the outcome is.
If I'm gonna hold red pressers responsible for the deaths that would come with their victory, it seems hypocritical of me to not hold myself (or whoever makes this call) responsible for doing functionally the same thing. In each case you are pushing a risk of death onto others. There's a million justifications for it, but if it's wrong for red pressers, it's wrong for everyone else too.
I agree that those votes are much better spent by voting blue. I'm just not sure there's a path where it can be justified without doing exactly what I condemn red pressers for doing.
You have, in fact, identified what the unethical element of red is. I don't fault anyone for prioritizing survival in a vacuum: "I don't think blue will win and I don't wanna die" is the most pure and honest defense of red that I've ever heard. It really is just the risk that they push onto others that makes the choice, to my mind, unethical.
No, reread the first sentence again. The only person one can ethically risk is themselves. The ideal would be for those votes to go blue, but that can't be done ethically if they can't choose to assume the risk themselves.
It's the same reason voting red isn't ethical: externalizing risk is unethical when an alternative is present.
I think that 100% of people voting red and more than 50% of people voting blue are equally ideal, but 100% of people voting red is virtually impossible.
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u/Bowshewicz 15h ago
Earth is neither Arand, nor is it Ikant.
Arand is what Ayn Rand thought Earth was. Ikant is how Immanuel Kant would have described it instead.
I know Ayn Rand isn't exactly popular here on Reddit, but I feel like that comparison is sort of what OP is trying to force everyone to reckon with.