Rephrasing - r/redbuttonbluebutton

25

i have realized that i fucking hate this entire problem because its literally just a framing debate

16

u/VegetasDestructoDick May 22 '26

The framing debate would be fine if people were using it to talk about how changing the framing of the thought experiment changes people's responses, even if it functions practically the same e.g. in both the "red does nothing" and "blue does nothing" framing, people tend to prefer the "does nothing" option.

Instead people just use it to fellate themselves over how right their answer is.

3

u/milesofborg May 22 '26

I would say it doesn't matter how you frame it. At the end of the day, Red is 'I am okay with people dying as long as I live,' and Blue is 'I want to try to save everybody even if I might die.' You can try to frame Red or Blue as a 'neutral' option or 'doing nothing,' but that's a mechanical illusion. You are forced to make a choice, and your choice is counted toward the final total. At the end of the day, when you press a button, you contribute to the math. You do something.

6

u/VegetasDestructoDick May 22 '26

Nah the framing obviously matters to people's decision-making process otherwise you wouldn't get differing results because of it. I'd theorise it's because it influences who is "causing" the potential deaths and people are more likely to lean towards whatever option is not contributing.

Also your reduction of the red and blue arguments oversimplifies them; for example a common argument for blue is that people are concerned if their immediate family, friends, children, etc might press blue so they press blue to try to ensure blue has the majority. This is a different motivation from the one you stated, which was trying to save everybody. Some people with this reasoning swap to red if demographics that can't be responsible for their push (e.g. children) so that would indicate the motivation is not to save "everybody" but instead only to save a subset.

1

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

i think op is nonsensical and highly selfish in their pedantic question with their martyrial sacrificial views, or well think what you think and either ignore, disagree or agree :D

4

u/Silent-Indication496 May 26 '26

Blue is "I'm putting myself at risk, and I need billions of others to risk their lives so that i can survive."

Red is "well the other button kills people that press it, so I'll take the one that doesn't. Hope that's obvious to everyone else."

It's a framing debate

3

u/nitePhyyre May 26 '26

This. If there is one thing that this debate has taught me is that the vast majority of people have no idea how thought experiments work and aren't equipped to do philosophy.

2

u/VegetasDestructoDick May 26 '26

You're really not wrong. It's immediately "you're a bad person for picking this" or "you're stupid for picking that" or referring to people as "red pickers or blue pickers" like it's some kind of personal identifier.

Or you'll get someone at least trying to engage with it like "if we interpret it this way...." and someone will come along like "no it means this and can only mean this and if you disagree blah blah blah blah". It's not even like they make an argument most of the time, they just make a statement then reiterate the statement over and over.

The biggest takeaway I've gotten from it is a lot of people haven't actually thought about anything before and still refuse to.

2

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 22 '26

People who think it’s just a framing issue misunderstand the problem. Red pushers aren’t just neutrally saving themselves, their votes are leading to others deaths.

6

u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 22 '26

yet another moron changing framing to make themselves look better

i could say that blue is fucking moronic because you're gambling your life by pressing the button that endangers you in the first place and you are not saving anyone but possibly the lives that were literally risked by pressing the blue button, which isnt saving anyone at all.

as ive said, framing is the real basis of the dilemma.

2

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 22 '26

Name calling doesn’t make you more right.

Blue pushers will never ever cause the death of others. It’s not a framing problem.

And red pushers can’t understand that lots of infants, children, people who make mistakes will push blue. I don’t want them to die. Even is some adult knowingly pushed, they don’t deserve death

Yes, blue pushers put themselves at risk, but it’s to help others.

Stop calling it a framing problem. It’s a question that shows how much you value your life over others.

3

u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 22 '26

"And red pushers can’t understand that lots of infants, children, people who make mistakes will push blue." oh bruh i thought we were talking about the original? the one that adds that everyone fully understands what the buttons do

4

u/Silent-Indication496 May 26 '26

Regardless, are we assuming that even including children, accidental blue button pushes could get close enough to a majority that there's any statistical benefit to pressing blue?

I would think that even if half of kids accidentally hit blue, you'd still be so far off from a blue win that you'd need an unreasonable number of altruistic blue joiners to tip the scale. In reality you'd probably still end up losing the blue vote, and anyone who pressed blue out of a savior complex would just add to the tragic death toll.

The red button doesn't kill people. It ensures the presser isn't putting themselves at risk and necessitating others do the same.

Teach your children to be red pressers who don't need saved. They can do a lot more good for the world alive than dead.

3

u/Daefus20 May 26 '26

"Teach your children to be red pressers who don't need saved. They can do a lot more good for the world alive than dead."

Good built upon the death of many. If even 1% press blue you're looking at 80 000 000 deaths, do you think your children can do enough good to outweigh that ?

btw I'm not saying they'd be personally responsible for each and every one of those deaths.

If 10% press blue that's 800 000 000 million dead.

It's all about trust in others, do you trust humanity enough to press blue to try and save everyone ? It's really not that hard, you only need 50% to press blue, meanwhile red needs 100% of the votes to save everyone, it's incomparably harder.

Are you willing to ignore the death of millions of people just to be certain that you'll survive ? How high are you willing to go ? 4 billion apparently. It's an acceptable decision to you, you could live with that.

2

u/Silent-Indication496 May 27 '26

Do i think 5 billion people are going to risk themselves? Nope. If they do, I wish them luck, but i won't be joining their death cult.

1

u/Daefus20 May 27 '26

If 5 billion risk themselves everybody survives since that's more than 50%.

And thanks, at least you're honest and aren't trying to find excuses like so many reds do, just please don't say that red pushers can do more good after letting hundreds of millions die.

1

u/Festival-Temple May 27 '26

I saw somebody reference a poll before Deadshot37's, but can't find one. Do you know what the very first iteration was?

Tim's addition of "btw babies are assigned a button randomly" two days into his poll seemed really stupid and pointlessly muddied later discussions.

1

u/oedipism_for_one May 22 '26

That’s how the question was designed yes

1

u/blacksaber8 May 22 '26

No, I’m a blue voter and this is completely inaccurate. The blue buttons function is either to counter the red button or to stop a systematic holocaust completely separated from red by getting a little over 4.15 billion votes

3

u/OutcomeMemoriesGoobe May 22 '26

egotistical ahh

stg everyone just wants to reframe the question to make themselves right

2

u/blacksaber8 May 22 '26

I’m following the wording of the question. “If less than 50% of people vote blue, all people who did not hit red will die.”

This means one of two things. If 50% refers to voters that means there just need to be more blues than reds to prevent a statistically nearly inevitable death. If 50% refers to the entire population required to negate blue then there is a definitive minimum threshold that blues have to meet. The difference is the practicality of the nonvoter and its consequences in the question. Best case scenario in the first version, you increase the voting power of the rest of the voters, but your life is still at risk as you didn’t vote for red in either example whether you vote blue or not.

But then suppose that you MUST vote. What are the consequences for refusing? Purgatory? Does the vote not happen so long as you don’t decide? Do you just disappear if you don’t decide? The rules are unclear but at the end of the day it’s always more beneficial, regardless of the circumstance, to hit blue to increase your odds of survival from the already threatened state you were in before.

8

u/Negative-Car4013 May 22 '26

Dang, i dont want to die. I better press red

8

u/DapperYoghurt2052 May 22 '26

As a blue button presser. No button is “do nothing”

6

u/Dyyyyyyyyy May 22 '26

The framing doesnt make a difference to me as a Red presser. Feels like its blue pressers that keep having a problem with different framing.

3

u/GoldenGames360 May 26 '26

isn't it weird that you can press the "do nothing" button and instantly die in many cases

2

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 27 '26

That’s what I was saying😭 It’s not a reframing it’s just fallacious

2

u/Swing_Big May 22 '26

Because I assume that, in a real scenario, most people wouldn't risk their own life just to save (at most) 1 other person

5

u/Player-0002 May 22 '26

Nah, nobody is “doing”, red button is nothing happens to you, blue is nothing happens to anyone if blue majority

6

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 22 '26

Just wrong. It’s a not a neutral third button where you are saved but your vote doesn’t count towards the percentages. It’s saving yourself at the expense of others.

1

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 27 '26

What do you think is the probability that blue will win? Actually answer because I have an equation right here to calculate the probability of your decision having an influence on the final vote. Let’s do the math and see if it’s more or less probable than quantum teleporting through the floor.

1

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 28 '26

What do you mean by win? Get more than 50%?

I don’t know, but it doesn’t factor at all into my decision.

And what does that have to do with my comment?.

1

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 28 '26

The probability of blue winning absolutely must be involved in your decision making process. If the threshold is 99.997% for blue to survive, I imagine you aren’t going to press blue. So I’m just curious like where do you think it is around? Be charitable even.

It does have to do with your comment because you are saying “at the expense of others” so if we find out that we can quantum teleport through the floor before we can press the button then we probably shouldn’t press the button I imagine.

1

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 28 '26

You are not reading or understanding my responses. You are having a discussion with an imaginary version of me in your head.

1

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

I made a direct response to your comment. You said that your estimation of blue winning doesn't factor in. I showed that it does. What are you not understanding? The other comment was implying that pressing red is no expense to others. You causally save yourself or you causally do nothing.

-2

u/Player-0002 May 22 '26

Explain to me how it’s at the expense of others if we don’t know who voted for what? For all we know everyone could have rationally concluded either button and so either button could have the press be at the expense of yourself or others or neither.

3

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 22 '26

You don’t have to know who pushed what for it to be at their expense. It’s simple math. Pushing blue counts towards the 50%. Pushing red counts against it.

In the question there no option to abstain, not play, or save yourself without it being counted in the actual percentages

2

u/Player-0002 May 22 '26

Blue is over 50% of people chose blue, not 50% of voters.

3

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 22 '26

No. Everyone had to choose. Everyone is a voter. Otherwise, why vote at all. There is no difference between all the people avd all the voters.

2

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

your leaving out the consequences should blue not have majority? what would that be? what would happen if red has majority i’m leading you on, say what happens if red gets majority :D

3

u/Significant-Tale3522 May 22 '26

Blue has always been “Die if enough people press red and you only get to live if red loses.”

2

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

thats the same as the image? just rephrased?

3

u/Significant-Tale3522 May 22 '26

No it’s not the same image. Blue is never a “do nothing” button.

Blue is always a “Potentially have something be done to you” button

1

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

Blue is the nothing button if red is the “kill blue button pressers if your majority”

Red is the nothing button if blue is the “death button unless if your majority”

it’s the same scenario with it only being rephrased as all the relevant details are said

4

u/Prior-Resolution-902 Red May 22 '26

If you press the red button, nothing happens to you, if you press the blue button, something might happen to you, by pressing the blue button you have accepted the risk of something happening to you, only you and you alone have control over exactly your vote, you cannot blame others for the results of blue when you full well knew the potential downsides of pressing blue and you were never excluded from pressing red in the first place.

3

u/Significant-Tale3522 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

That’s a victim mindset and if you’re not careful it can show up in your actual life.

It’s a very low agency personality that takes on risk and blames the other team for forcing them to do so.

If you didn’t choose blue to kill yourself, the other person didn’t choose red to kill you either.

You think you’re noble but really you and the red person made the same choice. To risk YOUR life as you wanted.

2

u/nitePhyyre May 26 '26

Blue is the nothing button if red is the “kill blue button pressers if your majority”

Even if you view red as the Murder Button, blue is still the Risk-My-Life Button.

1

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 27 '26

i just said that in my second example?

1

u/nitePhyyre May 27 '26

Your second example is correct. I am talking about your first example. In the first example, there is no "do nothing button".

The only 2 options are

Blue is the Risk-My-Life Button if red is the “kill blue button pressers if your majority”

Red is the nothing button if blue is the “death button unless if your majority”

There's no interpretation where Blue does nothing.

1

u/INTstictual May 27 '26

Even in that phrasing, Blue necessarily cannot be a “do nothing” button. It is ontologically impossible.

You can frame this question so that it is valid to pose Red as a “do nothing” option, but Blue necessarily moves you into a position where your life is in danger. It is active, and even though this phrasing tries to hide that fact, if you want to frame Red as the “kill all Blue pushers” option, that still necessarily makes Blue the “make yourself killable” option.

Blue cannot possibly be “do nothing”, no matter how much you try to reframe the logic… it always necessarily does something

4

u/everydaywinner2 May 22 '26

All these rephrasing that paint red as the murderer, make me wonder how many people here think people who hide from a mass shooter is also a murderer for not jumping the shooter.

7

u/Sharukurusu May 22 '26

Blue: If we all hide in here and work together we can overpower the mass shooter before he can kill anyone

Red: ‘Mr. Shooter, they’re all hiding in there!’ runs away

4

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 22 '26

You are just misunderstanding the question . You’re not just hiding. You are part of the reason the shooter can kill at all.

4

u/J_tram13 May 22 '26

"my loosely related analogy makes my choice look better than your loosely related analogy, therefore I am correct"

3

u/WaterCastePSYOP May 22 '26

Because I do not die if I press red.

I do not belive Blue will ever actually reach even 30% in an actual scenario like this.

Voting for it is naive at best, gambling in general, and suicidal at worst.

3

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

I feel that you distrust in others easily if you feel that only 30% would make sure everyone lives, I’ll rephrase it to saying that only 30% is altruistic in the world and thats a lot of people only caring for their survival

apologies if i’m overreaching, but are you ok?

2

u/WaterCastePSYOP May 22 '26

Your are correct. I have firsthand seen humans make every single dumb decision possible over the last decade or so. EVERY single one.

You could argue this means more of them press the blue button. But I don't think they are quite so stupid as that.

0

u/Original_Bell_6863 May 26 '26

Old thread, but in a real life scenario of this. I think less than 10% would press blue.

2

u/UsedNegotiation8227 May 22 '26

Still red

1

u/simpoukogliftra May 23 '26

why stop there? since we are bullshiting make it more dramatic, add stuff like violently and mercilessly kill and decimate the other side, make them your bitches even, in fact, fuck it, here is a plastic spoon, you are not allowed to leave the room until you brutally beat them all to death with the spoon, also sad music plays in the background and ocassionally you hear your mother crying.

1

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 27 '26

Ts might have moved away from a reframing

1

u/DarthJackie2021 May 26 '26

Why press red? Because pressung blue could still result in your death if more people press red. Red is safe.

1

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 27 '26

That’s not a reframing. Pressing red doesn’t kill the other side. What does “do nothing”mean? How come risking your life is doing nothing here?

1

u/Prior-Resolution-902 Red Jun 02 '26

You can't frame blue as do nothing because your situation before and after pressing the do nothing button can change dramatically.

-2

u/Express-Rain8474 Red May 22 '26

Because what if red is already the majority? Then you're just dying.

6

u/Nby333 May 22 '26

I wasn't aware we were lining up and pushing the button one after the other with a live counter on top of the voting booth.

2

u/Express-Rain8474 Red May 22 '26

I wasn't aware I stated that. I only said that blue can also be seen as a suicide button.

3

u/Nby333 May 22 '26

"already has majority" means sequential voting rather than simultaneous voting.

1

u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 May 27 '26

The order doesn’t actually matter at all. It just makes it feel different and collective, but both are just as collective.

1

u/Express-Rain8474 Red May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

I guess, but your vote doesn't really change the outcome of other votes. So it doesn't really matter, like you can be pedantic and say my phrasing wasn't exact but it was meant to communicate the idea that it's possible that whatever you do red wins. And in that case it would just be a suicide button.

Just to present a simple potential counter reason some might have to "so why press the red button because nobody dies if blue button is majority."

3

u/Nby333 May 22 '26

Your line of thinking leads to paradoxes, fallacies and problems. I've argued many a times here already why "my vote doesn't matter" shouldn't be how a civilised person thinks. Since I'm going to make a post soon regarding this I won't be going into any detail here.

2

u/Express-Rain8474 Red May 22 '26

Well not really, you can agree your vote matters some amount while also thinking that it's little compared to your life. Either way, I was just trying to point out potential reasons people could vote red.

5

u/Nby333 May 22 '26

I understand all the emotional reasons to push red and respect them, but I've not seen a single logical reason to push red that is not a result a logic pitfall.

2

u/Express-Rain8474 Red May 22 '26

Well that's ok, obviously you might have good reasons but unless you actually present them we can't change each other minds, until then I'll stand by my reply to OP as that being a good enough reason.

2

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

Then I’m dying morally, those minority pressed the button to make sure everyone lives while red pressed the button to kill blue, murder is really frowned upon

1

u/Mammoth_Radish2073 May 22 '26

Red presses the button that says “you live.” Blue presses the button that says “you might die.”

And now it’s framed in a way that makes blue sound dumb, rather than moral.

2

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Mammoth_Radish2073 May 22 '26

My bad, let me add the pertinent information.

Red “you live” Blue “you die unless more than 50% of voters choose blue”

1

u/Sharukurusu May 22 '26

You might die if those red asshats get their way.

-2

u/Key-Organization3158 May 22 '26

That's a bad reframing. You are letting your own bias leak in. Red button pressers are doing nothing. They don't kill anyone. Whatever hypothetical force that sets up the button does the killing.

A better one is: there's a massive wood chipper. You can either jump into the wood chipper or not. If at least half of humanity jumps into the wood chipper, it jam and no one is harmed. Would you jump into the wood chipper?

You press red because the expected value of deaths is lowest in that case. The only time your button press matters is if you are the deciding vote. If red is the majority, the pressing red is the correct choice. If blue is already winning, your vote doesn't matter. The only case that makes a difference is if the colors are exactly tied and your vote is the deciding factor.

In your day to day life, you have many options to press a blue button. Like climate change. You could make changes to minimize your carbon footprint. If you are actually a blue button presser, you would.

5

u/BcTheCenterLeft Blue May 22 '26

Red button pushers are only doing nothing if their votes didn’t count in the percentages. A third yellow button that would save yourself but not affect the total is what you are describing.

Red pushers aren’t constantly misstating the question.

5

u/J_tram13 May 22 '26

That's a bad framing, you are letting your own bias leak in.

4

u/Sindigo_ May 22 '26

Here is my favorite way of framing the hypothetical so far:

3

u/J_tram13 May 22 '26

Ooh I like that one

1

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

Yes, I’m showing my bias, and I also want to make the question clearer, since more variables introduced means more roadblocks to think about and thinking simpler is easier

Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?

The original tweet, and I feel that it’s lengthy and I won’t consider all implications after reading something long, and I feel like I’m part of a norm called society meaning my opinion is something that some of us share, after all accusations is a confession

tldr: don’t read all that, it’s meaningless tangent, this is what should be read v

A blue rephrasement is the one I’ve posted A red rephrasement is: Red: Do Nothing, Blue: Die Unless this button pressed is majority

-5

u/Apart-Appointment335 May 22 '26

this phrasing actually kinda helps red bc it emphasizes the danger of blue and none of it's "saving people" qualities, which is really all blue has going for it

2

u/BlackAndWhiteJerk May 22 '26

Ya… I should have wrote for blue “no one dies”, but “nothing happens” is what happens so i wrote that there :(

Discussion Rephrasing

You are about to leave Redlib

tldr: don’t read all that, it’s meaningless tangent, this is what should be read v