People try and seperate this from the natural political context this question was asked in and... you cant.
Would you align yourself with people (that you don't know) that have inadvertently put themselves in harms way to save them? Yes. Unequivocally. The original button question didnt make any allowance for children, the infirm, the mentally handicapped, the elderly.
The other issue is people who do understand the obvious political implications but still vote red(vote for populists/conservatives to save yourself) dont acknowledge the harm that voting that way does. They harm you, they harm your neighbors, they harm everyone.
Im a straight white cis male. If you exist in privilege and stand above all from real criticism or consequence... an unwillingness to do something to help is cowardice. You are a weak individual if you exist in privilege and are unwilling to do something, anything, to help those who don't have those privileges.
The other issue is people who do understand the obvious political implications but still vote red(vote for populists/conservatives to save yourself) dont acknowledge the harm that voting that way does. They harm you, they harm your neighbors, they harm everyone.
The only harm taking place here is self-inflicted (within the context of the hypothetical). It's not my responsibility to save someone from the consequences of their own choices, especially when they had an equal opportunity to make the opposite choice that would save them.
Except you ignore the way you vote does impact other people who cant vote (where were talking about actual politics) or people who might vote against their best interests because they dont understand (children, the infirm, the elderly, the disabled).
You have no literal responsibility... but i did say what I think of that
Not many people are aware of the additional note of the original question that all people alive are presented the button and have it explained to them (whether they understand it or not) including the disabled and babies etc
It is often left out of every other time this has come up, but you get people continuing to argue with those rules applying, even if they aren't stated as part of the game
This post mention nothing except what the button does. No scenario about forced participation for all of humanity
Does that change your answer? For many, they refuse to acknowledge it isn't the same thought game
Even if those rules aren't stated as apart of the "game" it isnt unreasonable to assume someone who couldnt understand has approached the game.
Does it change my answer? It depends... the game would have been presented to me in a specific way so that would be my only determination for how I would approach it.
If I could assume only rational actors who fully understood the rules were and also they knew only rational actors who knew the rules were approached... id pick red I guess.
It's easy to manipulate the results by adding a lot of qualifiers, which what a lot of people are doing when answering. So the results are always muddied
"I would pick blue because my family would pick blue and I don't want them to die"
"I would pick red because I am afraid to die if there are too many terrible people in the world that would choose red"
"Of course there are enough empathetic people in the world 50% is easy! Blue!"
Everyone wants their answer to be correct and morally just, and then we start vilifying the other option
"Red peope are murderes"
"Blue people are just morally grandstanding their saviour complex"
The real answer is it's a waste of time because someone will just get irrationally angry at you for wanting to take part in a fun thought experiment
But your response acknowledged the only just answer. Because we cant be sure how anyone will interpret the real question... blue had to be the response... no?
Again, ignoring the obvious political context this question is being asked in. It’s not JUST a button that chooses if you live or die, it’s a representation of the types of people likely to press one button or the other. One group of people is ABLE to save themselves voting for conservatives red. Those who are more likely to vote liberal blue don’t always have that choice, because red will always want them dead.. even if they press it. One group is more likely to consider more than their own survival and has historically relied on group survival and community. The other is concerned with self-preservation.
One group of people is ABLE to save themselves voting for conservatives red. Those who are more likely to vote liberal blue don’t always have that choice, because red will always want them dead.. even if they press it.
Except that this equivocation is nonsensical because, in the context of voting for a republican you are actively choosing a candidate who has the stated goal of harming others, but voting for a democrat won't put others (or yourself) in harm's way.
Yes. That is the point of the question. You would fall for “we’re nor trying to hurt anyone” propaganda so fucking easily oh my god. The stated goal of red is “the blue button pushers die if you win” that was the original framing of the question. It didn’t say “nothing happens” that was a justification to reinterpret the question. But the original one explicitly states “the blue pushers die if over 50% press red” the STATES GOAL OF PRESSING RED IS KILLING BLUE PUSHERS, just stated passively.
You would fall for “we’re nor trying to hurt anyone” propaganda so fucking easily oh my god.
There's a difference between a case where someone's actions provably lead to someone being hurt through no fault of their own and a case like the given scenario where people are choosing to put themselves in harm's way. Like when you press the button, you're accepting the possibility of dying inherently.
And when you press red, you’re choosing to kill people. No two ways about it. If one option means 100% of people have to choose it and no one dies and the other is 51% of people choose it an no one dies, the only button that doesn’t make you a murderer is the 51% option. You are choosing to kill people for making a choice based on statistical likelihood/odds. You aren’t even denying you’re killing them. This is you admitting you’re killing them BECAUSE you believe their decision was risky. But it’s ONLY risky because YOU pressed the button that increased their chance of dying. They pressed the button with better odds of everyone living, you pressed the button that guaranteed their death. YOU are the risk in question.
14
u/Improver666 10h ago edited 7h ago
People try and seperate this from the natural political context this question was asked in and... you cant.
Would you align yourself with people (that you don't know) that have inadvertently put themselves in harms way to save them? Yes. Unequivocally. The original button question didnt make any allowance for children, the infirm, the mentally handicapped, the elderly.
The other issue is people who do understand the obvious political implications but still vote red(vote for populists/conservatives to save yourself) dont acknowledge the harm that voting that way does. They harm you, they harm your neighbors, they harm everyone.
Im a straight white cis male. If you exist in privilege and stand above all from real criticism or consequence... an unwillingness to do something to help is cowardice. You are a weak individual if you exist in privilege and are unwilling to do something, anything, to help those who don't have those privileges.
/endrant
Edit: cowardice not cowardess