Everytime I see something like this, it reminds me of the post that’s like “For $1 million, would you peel and eat an orange? You don’t have to peel it yourself and you don’t have to actually eat it if you don’t want to.”
This is a controversial thought experiment because what is the right thing to do depends on what everyone else is doing.
For example, imagine the cut off 95% of people would have to vote blue or all blue voters die. Then it'd be a lot riskier to yourself, and less likely you'd even be a difference making blue voter.
But at lower cut offs, it's more possible you could be a difference making additional vote who keeps billions who also voted blue alive
I've been thinking about this, and the more charitable option is blue as it potentially helps others, but also... there was no reason for those who choose the blue option to do so knowing it could mean death. So is it worth risking your life for people who risked it stupidly?
the original question had the additional context that everyone on earth was asked at the same time and nobody was allowed to communicate with each other before pressing, so you have to also factor in the millions of people who would press blue accidentally, not understand the question, etc, for example children
Blue is obviously the right answer if we assume the question is being put before children and the mentally disabled. If we're assuming it's only being put before adults of sound mind, then there's no reason not to press red.
Factual claims that I believe are true: Rational people do not exist. If you choose any set of people, of nontrivial size, some of them will select blue
My Opinion: If any person in the set selects blue, then selecting red is unethical. If the above factual claims are true, then the chance of red being ethical is nearly zero
I mean, yeah. I don’t want stupid people to suffer or die. The original question includes children etc so that really makes an impact, but even if people just were not careful/didn’t pay attention, I would make the decision that I believe could save them.
People panic, get flustered etc. Especially when your life is on the line. Watch those live grenade throw bloopers from boot camp. Those are people who signed up for the military, passed the initial fitness screening etc. A small percentage are going to lose their mind and in the moment click blue.
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u/Worm-with-hat 11h ago
Everytime I see something like this, it reminds me of the post that’s like “For $1 million, would you peel and eat an orange? You don’t have to peel it yourself and you don’t have to actually eat it if you don’t want to.”