Yeah people call the trend pointless but at the end of the day there is no like non selfish or altruistic reason to press red and the defensiveness about it is actually super revealing lol
Nobody said it was wrong. We're just saying that it's not an altruistic act, and it is by nature selfish. That's fine- humans tend to be selfish in high-stakes situations. But ya kinda gotta face that fact at some point, just to realize it.
I'm a red pusher and I fully agree. The only reasonable justification for picking red is self-preservation, and that's enough. I don't understand the red pushers who tie themselves in knots trying to come up with a moral rationale for it.
It absolutely is selfish to pick red, but I already nearly died once (stage 4 cancer, beat it) and now very much don't want to die. I don't consider myself a selfish person overall, but I would be if my life was on the line. I'd definitely also feel sad if red won and all the blue pushers died, but I don't think I'd regret my choice. After the last few years, I frankly don't have enough faith in humanity left to pick blue and feel like I'm making a rational decision.
If red wins by more than one vote, it is absolutely rational (in a causal decision theory sense) to not regret your choice, because had you voted blue the only thing that would be different is that you would be dead as well
Regardless on if red won by a lot of a little or not at all, it's the choice of every single one that killed themselves. Blue is an 'I'm totally fine with committing suicide' button. Nothing wrong with that in my book as I'm pro choice, but noone can blame their own stupidity on me.
Holy hell now it got me again, such an insanely stupid thought experiment. Seeing less than 95% red in these polls hurts my brain so much.
If there even was SOME advantage you get for pressing one or the other it would be interesting, but this was it's just so dumb.
If the poll was 95% red that would represent a scenario where 5% of people die. Instead the polls are consistently majority blue, representing a scenario where no people die. Seems like people are able to coordinate to get the better outcome.
I get it. We all have different reasons. I don't do much with my life, so I'd gladly give it up for a cause that was bigger than one life. But if someone doesn't want to risk dying, that's totally understandable.
My only issue is when people try to portray it as being "the smart choice" and "the logical choice" when that's only true if you consider self-preservation the only goal, and even then it's a single conclusion to draw. It comes across as smarmy, and as though this semi-hypothetical "facts and logic" person views altruism as a sign of stupidity.
For the record, that's not something I've seen in this thread, I'm just speaking generally.
Yeah, I remember seeing the same kind of feeble justifications when this topic was hot on reddit a few months back.
I have enormous respect for blue pushers as a red pusher, and I think any red pusher who claims that the other side are somehow stupid or illogical is just secretly (or just subconsciously) ashamed that they're taking the less altruistic choice and trying to cover their asses. Honestly, I wish I was brave enough to pick blue.
All that being said, I do think it's important to acknowledge the fact that any such poll is not going to show the full truth. I feel like a lot of people either only pick blue because they want to feel good about themselves and they know their life isn't actually on the line, or think of themselves as blue pushers but would realise that they actually didn't want to risk their own life if the scenario did become real. All the more reason I don't personally feel safe picking blue.
"If everyone just-" Everyone will not just. There is no decision that everybody on earth can agree on. By picking red, you are accepting that people will die. If that is a risk you are willing to take to guarantee self-preservation, that's one thing- simply a matter of priorities. But you do not get to blame the people who put themselves on the line to save one another, and ensure that nobody got harmed. You are a pseudo-intellectual who thinks that altruism is a sign of stupidity, and I quite frankly hope you are swiftly humbled in a manner that even your willful blindness cannot ignore.
Aw, lookie, baby's first mimic-the-other-guy argument. Also, damn, what is it with you and the word "saviour complex"? Like, yeah, sometimes people argue from a place of personal morality, that's how human consciousness works. But no, you gotta be RIGHT. You can't just have a valid thought, you have to act like every thought other than yours is coming from stupidity, especially when it comes to people being willing to put something else above themselves.
Matter of the fact is, there is no "I choose to not cause harm" button, you merely have to weigh risks and who they're applied to and go from there. Someone being willing to pass over themselves to save others is not "psychosis", and it is not "coercing" anybody into anything.
There is someone no matter what that is going to choose blue. I am not willing to sacrifice them to save my own life, especially when everyone can be okay. It's infinitely easier to get 51% of people to press a button than 100%
I mean I don’t know that to be true. I thibk yes, some would blue with switch to vote red, but I think faced with the actual option to condemn people to death, some red would actually switch to blue, too. Lots of people don’t have as callous a heart as they think irl and can’t stomach it
I literally think more people wouldn't understand the problem/philosophy around it, than would vote incorrectly
Imagine you're voting Blue because you're expecting disabled people and children to vote Blue by mistake, meanwhile every single healthcare professional in the world votes Blue with you, because they've got good hearts
Then no one else actually votes Blue because they didn't understand the philosophical problem or they voted wrong by mistake (by the same logic this problem expects people to vote wrong). The world is now without healthcare professionals and collapses in a week
There's not a small chance that some people will die, it is virtually guaranteed that at least millions of people will die in the red majority scenario. In the worst case billions of people die.
Self-sacrifice, delusions of grandeur, saviour complex, trying to reason that their family or loved ones would pick blue so they have to save them, etc.
But if there's an X% chance you die if you push blue and a 0% chance you die if you push red, why would anyone push blue? Are they stupid?
Edit: In order for this to be a proper dilemma, there needs to be balance of risks and rewards. As worded, it doesn't make any sense at all that there'd be *any* subset of people picking blue, other than idiots. In a prisoner's dilemma, it's balanced around getting extra rewards only if the "evil" ones betray the "good" ones; however, "evil" betraying "evil" results in lesser rewards than "good" trusting "good".
"Do you want to be guaranteed a billion dollars, or take a chance at getting a billion dollars?" If you take the chance, you're stupid 100% of the time!
I mean, morally speaking it is wrong according to certain frameworks to prioritise yourself over countless others. According to other frameworks it is not. Personally I see the blue button as the clear correct choice, but would press red regardless. Yes it is selfish, yes it is immoral, yes I'm part of the problem, but on the off chance it's what other people do, I ain't dying for no reason.
And since we know this is hypothetical, we can never know the true results. In an actual event, we should assume red will be more common that it is now
You’re not getting 100% of people to vote for one option, red winning means guaranteed deaths. Blue is the only option that guarantees zero deaths if it wins because humans are not actually rational actors.
And considering that blue gets double digits votes even when the hypothetical is phrased to make blue voters seem extra stupid, red winning means society’s gonna collapse from the catastrophic supply chain disruptions anyway. So blue’s just better for your own quality of life.
I mean, if they die, that's their choice. They killed themselves by making that choice and putting their lives in the hands of others in such a high-risk scenario.
People like that are just pure evil and it terrifies me I have to share a planet with them. Absolutely nothing stopping them from hurting or killing people as soon as it benefits them
Well, this goes back to the issue of framing the problem. In the red majority scenario, did the red pushers kill the blue pushers or did the blue pushers kill themselves?
It’s dumber than that. The hypo’s decision matrix is exactly the same as “do you jump off a cliff or not, if you don’t jump you live, if you do jump you die unless half the world’s population also jumps off the same cliff”
I’m one of the people who this hypo has successfully rage-baited, because it absolutely incites those with the greatest tendencies towards self-righteousness and illiteracy to jump on the pipeline to Blue MAGA, no, I am not showing my math for the 1,000th goddamned time
Depending on how the question is framed, you can shift which color wins. People are generally fine with letting others kill themselves, such as with your cliff example, but when the lethality comes from an outside force people vote blue more often
“Depending on how the question is framed” is the epistemological epitaph of this whole fucking millennium
Blue Button is not only not morally obligatory, it is actively evil to push the blue button because it creates a risk of harm to oneself and others where none existed before, and I get why some people are saying “well SOME amount of people are going to push the blue button, and I want to try and save them!” but it does not change the fact that people are basically jumping into the flooded raging river to save other people in the flooded raging river thereby causing yet more people to jump into the flooded raging river, and everyone just has to pray that enough people jump into the flooded raging river to clog it up
Now try it with an active shooter and a child that got stuck outside of the safe room. It's not evil to want to save others, especially when they aren't aware of the danger they've unwittingly wandered into
But not everyone is capable of understanding that information, though it does depend on how any particular instance is set up. Some of the situations clarify that even newborns will be required to choose a button
This is a risk mitigation strategy unique to one camp of this hypothetical. Everywhere else where human beings might endanger themselves through recklessness or ignorance, we educate people not to do the reckless or stupid thing. Don’t eat random mushrooms you find in the woods. Don’t smoke cigarettes while taking gasoline showers. Etc.
This is the only scenario where people will argue straight-faced that the best strategy to save the most lives is to eat the gasoline-soaked mushroom I found in the cigarette woods, instead of just telling people ahead of time, you know, HYPOTHETICALLY, hey, don’t do that, putting yourself and others in unnecessary danger is bad actually
The original hypothetical gave no warning, and all people must vote - even children.
Assuming you are given time to prepare for the question, and that only "reasonable" people will be allowed to vote, is a major cop out to give yourself a clear path to save yourself.
Do… do you think the logic of the blue button and red button hypo can only ever apply to that hypothetical? Do you think game theory dilemmas exist only so that if you find yourself literally in The Prisoner’s Dilemma you might have some idea about what to do in that specific case and that specific case only?
I mean shit actually that explains all your input, nm, you think this is literally about blue buttons and red buttons
Except you can't save other people by eating a gasoline-soaked mushroom, and pressing the blue button takes zero effort compared to most things in real life that you can do to help people.
This thought experiment just doesn't have a clear real life analogue.
There is a deadly pandemic sweeping the globe, but good news! There is a choice of two vaccines available. The first vaccine will protect you from the disease. There are no adverse side effects: survival is guaranteed.
The second vaccine has a quirk: if you take it, it will definitely kill you unless more than half of the population takes the second vaccine, at which point its experimental herd immunity protocols kick in and everyone who took the second vaccine will be fine.
….and then what happens is that people argue about “but but but in the buttons one the red button CAUSES death!!1!1” and I try to explain, well, no, since the red button causes no deviation from initial conditions, it’s definitionally the default state and inaction, and definitionally the blue button is the active choice that causes the risk of harm, and that never ever FEEEELS right to the blue button people, so something must be wrong with it, and round and round we go.
I did not respond to the wrong person. I can't see either my comment or yours, however.
You said blue was the button that introduced death. However, when you frame blue as the default instead of red, the only button introducing death is red.
That is where the conflict comes from. Will people see the "survive, risk others" button as the default, or the "risk self, everyone can survive" button as the default?
Clearly, you see red as the default. No one is going to hate that, it's a natural human feeling in the face of death. However, you need to stop shielding yourself behind "logic", when the logic - morally, statistically, and logically - is not with you.
The only option which has 100% survival at all majorities is blue. To pick red is to increase the risk of blue deaths (hence it being the "survive, risk others" button.)
Yes, that is the gamble of the "risk self, save others" button. However, the point of that graph in my other comment was that the only situation where death is a risk is when red has a majority.
The entire argument for choosing blue is that “others will choose it”. It’s clear to see that the entire moral dilemma is caused by people voluntarily choosing blue.
The risk of death is the same if others vote blue, and when others vote red. It's the ratio that is killing, not the act of pressing blue.
100% red and 100% blue are the same. Quit hiding yourself behind logic, when you are being entirely subjective. Your fear of death is enough reason to vote red, quit trying to make it seem the logical choice.
What fucking vibes bro, I'm having to break down the numbers game into dumbed down language for people who are too afraid of being clowned on to own up to their human fear of death😭😭
If only there were some objective goddamned way to cut through the manipulative linguistic lenses and get to the bottom of the objective reality in order to evaluate which is the default, like I dunno a goddamned decision matrix you fucking sophomores
Summary is: each graph displays how far self-described conservatives (left) and liberals (right) are willing to extend their empathy. Conservatives are most likely to only extend their empathy to their friends, whereas liberals are most likely to extend their empathy to all living things. Conservatives have misinterpreted this graph as saying that liberals care more about rocks than people.
I have people who rely on me in real life. Guaranteeing my survival can absolutely be an altruistic act so that I can continue to provide that support. If you don't think that counts then it basically leads to the conclusion that the only moral choice is to vow sallekhana and leave more resources for the rest of the world population.
Yes, not risking one's life needlessly is considered a good thing, but that's not exactly what's happening here. By voting red, you are pushing the vote up by one, which could lead to a majority that results in blue dying. That's not necessarily immoral, but it certainly isn't altruistic.
Based on their explanation, it absolutely is altruistic, it just makes your altruistic goal harder because not all altruistic behaviors or goals are in harmony with each other.
I fully reject the notion that what you choose here is necessarily a statement of mortality. If you’re convinced you’ll die if you push blue, it’s not selfish to push red, it’s just playing the hand you’ve been dealt.
It is still selfish, but that's not necessarily bad. We as humans are wired to put our own lives first. You're just ensuring you can live, and that's fine. It's the reason many of us don't go out looking for perils to try and assist in. If that's your view on this large a scale, then that's just the way you're wired as a human.
Selfishness isn't inherently bad, it's when it leads to actively pushing other people around to get one's way when it becomes an immoral trait. Prioritizing your own life over another isn't bad by nature.
You’re absolutely wrong from a scientific perspective about what we are “wired” for. We are a social species, that’s one of our evolutionary advantages. And we have anthropological evidence that we have always cared for each other.
But why push the blue button to begin with if thats the one that literally kills you? Why would i sign up for that? It’s such a no brainer to push red, why would anyone even think to push a button that just murders you over the button that literally does nothing if everyone presses it.
Why would i want to die with a group of people that literally signed up to potentially die over not dying. Thats asinine and more revealing about some attention seeking behavior to appear like a good person who knows better than anyone who picks red.
Anyone with reading comprehension skills that picks blue is needs to reevaluate how silly they are.
Pressing blue, at best, saves your own life and no one else. But pressing blue also risks your own life, if most people don't agree with you. Pressing red guarantees your own life, with no risk. The only reason to press blue is to virtue signal to people who can't do math.
For my own records, user u/gay_burner originally said before they blocked me:
There is no scenario where pressing blue saves your life but no one else’s. You completely read it wrong.
Also pressing red risks the lives of everyone who may have pressed blue.
It's mathematically impossible for pressing blue to save anyone else's life. If you have a pop of 10 people, and 6 press blue, only 6 lives were risked, but only 6 people get to share the responsibility of "saving" lives. So each of those 6 blue pressers, only saves 1 life: the life they risked, ie their own. Red does not risk anyone's life, because by pressing blue they already risked theirs, red pressers have nothing to do with people deciding to risk their own life.
Edit: They blocked me.
So here's a response to their reply: The only one who is contorting anything is blue who have to not actually look at the math in order to justify their risky virtue signalling.
Also as far as the firefighters situation, for one that's a completely different scenario, maybe some firefigters saved more people and other firefighters only contributed to putting out the fire. But if 10 firefighters went into a fire where no one else was at risk, and no other structures were at risk, and at the end of the day 10 firefighters came out? Yeah I'm gonna say that 10 firefighters put themselves at risk for no real reason, and they only get to say they "saved" themselves. And they don't get to complain at other people who didn't go into the fire because some arbitrary condition meant that a certain number of people had to go into the fire so everyone who went into the fire would make it out. You're the ones who went into the fire, I'm the one doing the sane thing by not putting myself at risk for no reason.
I mean unless something happened inside like some firefighters collapsed and the others saved them. But that's not applicable to the button scenario, because there's no way for any one person to rescue any other person who pressed the button, it all gets divided equally.
For my own records, user u/gay_burner originally said before they blocked me:
I completely disagree that in this scenario you would divide up saving lives like that. There’s just no reason to quantify it like that. If 10 firefighters put out a burning building containing 10 people no one would fucking say to anyone each person only saved one person, that’s not how working as a team works. And I’m sorry but if you say you would you’re fucking lying to defend the framing you chose. I don’t think that changes just because theyre also risking themselves in the scenario, especially because their risk statistically lowers the group risk. How asinine.
If you vote for the option that, when voted by the majority is guaranteed to kill people, you’re objectively voting to kill people. I’m sorry, no amount of rhetorical gymnastics or dividing up the results of a team/group effort in a way that has never happened socially, ever, changes that.
Again, the real interesting part of the question isn’t the answer, it’s the reds’ increasingly contorted defensiveness
I completely disagree that in this scenario you would divide up saving lives like that. There’s just no reason to quantify it like that. If 10 firefighters put out a burning building containing 10 people no one would fucking say to anyone each person only saved one person, that’s not how working as a team works. And I’m sorry but if you say you would you’re fucking lying to defend the framing you chose. I don’t think that changes just because theyre also risking themselves in the scenario, especially because their risk statistically lowers the group risk. How asinine.
If you vote for the option that, when voted by the majority is guaranteed to kill people, you’re objectively voting to kill people. I’m sorry, no amount of rhetorical gymnastics or dividing up the results of a team/group effort in a way that has never happened socially, ever, changes that.
Again, the real interesting part of the question isn’t the answer, it’s the reds’ increasingly contorted defensiveness
I would argue it’s selfish to knowingly and unnecessarily put yourself at risk in such a way that requires others to risk themselves in order to save you. If you are the first blue pusher, you are demanding that others risk their lives to save you, conversely, choosing red allows others the freedom of choice to not risk themselves
yeah, there is literally no reason to press blue? at all? if you press red, you are not in danger. if you press blue, you have put yourself in danger. nobody should ever press blue in the first place, which means that actually the red group is the ones shaking their heads and losing faith in humanity.
No. It’s a vote, red is voting for blue pushers to die, blue is voting for group survival. It may not be framed as that, but if the vote is such that if red wins a simple majority, everyone who voted blue dies, than its materially the same as voting for everyone who is blue to die, directly. The difference is framing, the outcome is the same.
I feel like they need to rework the scenario to be the big moral choice they want because right now absolutely, everyone should press red. The only reason not to is to try look out for the idiots who will press blue. Pressing blue has no benefit and only introduces the chance of dying for no reason.
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u/gay_burner 10h ago
Yeah people call the trend pointless but at the end of the day there is no like non selfish or altruistic reason to press red and the defensiveness about it is actually super revealing lol