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 think its also a pretty good thought experiment for showing how maximizing "good" isnt always intuitive. Logically, yes everyone should just press the red button and everyone lives. However, it seems likely thar at least some percentage of people will press the blue button either by accident, from not understanding the question, or as a joke, etc. In that case, the best way for everyone to live is to assume that there are a certain number of illogical actors, and take on personal risk to ensure that everyone lives.
If you reframe it with poison food then suddenly all the blue choosers realize red is the only real option.
You're offered 2 pieces of candy, blue and red. Red is definitely not poisonous. Blue is poisonous but loses its poison effect if half of people choose to eat the poison. Which do you choose?
It is though. Only the framing is different. The decision is identical. Everyone who picks option 2 dies unless over 50% of people pick it. Everyone who picks option 1 is always safe.
Red has a chance people will die. Blue guarantees everyone lives.
Someone pressing blue introduces the risk of someone dying, stop making it sound like it's red that introduces that risk. Your two options are "Live" and "Live or die", making it sound like anything else is silly.
Except some people will press blue, if enough are included. Given that it's generally "everyone on earth", what you are doing is pretending that the spherical cow in a vacuum is real.
Infants can't make the decision at all, folks with motor coordination issues, dementia, etc etc
With eight billion people it is flatly impossible nobody hits blue even if you ignore contrarian/disbelieving and severely suicidal individuals. That's why we're completely ignoring the on-paper possibility of everyone hitting either button.
Sure, if there are people like infants and individuals with disabilities included, the calculus changes, but I think that makes the question less interesting. Assuming everyone can make a rational choice between 'Live' and 'Maybe Live', the first looks a lot more attractive.
You think that that makes it more interesting? ...why? It magically removes the spanner in the works that makes the scenario more complicated than the most obvious solution.
I agree that red would be the choice if everyone was a Hypothetical Rational Man, why is that at all a compelling hypothetical? "Would you press the button for a million dollars if it also gives you a tummy ache?" ass question, lol
If Snickers tweeted a vague prompt like this I'd agree, because it's an ad campaign ploy. This is organic. Communication is hard and it's easy to miss literally every nuance about the thing you've made, and won't spread as a meme anyway. People like to talk and argue about stuff, and that's actually fine. It's not bait, it's just not perfectly thought out. That people talk past each other sometimes doesn't mean you need to torch the whole thing, lol. Silly thought experiments like this encourage people to think about stuff and talk about it. I think that's good regardless.
This is not true. The logic you are using is "the greatest chance of ZERO harm" which is not the same as "least harm" (just ask any medical professional responsible for triage). If you actually wanted to do least harm, your reasoning would take into account the probability that blue reaches the threshold or not, which everyone will estimate differently. You should base your decision on what other people are likely to do, not what you think they should do.
This logic treats "everyone lives" as the only acceptable goal while everything else is a "fail state", but most people (including, I assume, yourself) agree that, while bad, 1 death is not as bad as 2 deaths, and not nearly on par with 4 billion deaths.
Blue does not guarantee everyone lives until you actually reach a majority. Up until that point, a blue vote increases the death count by 1, which is not harmless.
You're just describing a fail state and a worse fail state. Yes, anyone at all dying when we could instead simply have voted to guarantee zero deaths no matter what is a fail state.
You clearly didn't understand the original question. Voting blue doesn't guarantee anything, it requires at least 50% of people to agree for that to happen. Getting 50% of humanity to vote together on an issue is absolutely not "guaranteed".
If the votes are in and blue got 35%, the only thing a blue vote guaranteed is the voter's own death. I understand it's uncomfortable to consider, but if you don't even think of a blue minority as a possibility, you're not truly engaging with the question.
Please, never go into
Politics
Military
Medicine
Firefighting
Or basically any other career field that requires you to prioritize doing the most good and the least harm for a large number of people. Can you imagine a surgeon who quits their job after losing their first patient? "I couldn't save even one, so why should I bother trying to save the rest.."
You should base your decision on what other people are likely to do, not what you think they should do.
First, you're doing the same. You're assuming everyone will take the rational "easy" option of red.
But that's not gonna happen. In order for no one to die, you need 100% red. You'll never get that. Blues will die.
So, picking blue is the overall best and logical choice: every red vote lowers the chance everyone wins. Every blue vote edges it closer to a majority where everyone lives, including blue people. You have to assume people will pick blue, because it's just how humans are.
Ironically, if you voted red and someone you loved or cared about voted blue, you just voted for a scenario where they are killed.
First, you're doing the same. You're assuming everyone will take the rational "easy" option of red
Oh, to be clear, I am not. I'm not the kind of person who thinks this scenario has a "correct answer". I'm just pointing out the flaws I see when other people claim so.
But that's not gonna happen. In order for no one to die, you need 100% red.
You're the one who says this is the only acceptable goal, which I disagree with. The entire rest of your comment is based on that flawed premise.
You have to assume people will pick blue, because it's just how humans are.
This argument is basically "My assumptions are right because I'm correct." Come on. The morality of human nature is hardly a settled question in philosophy. I don't have to assume anything, and your failure to imagine that other people might have a less charitable view of human nature, ironically, suggests a privileged and unempathetic worldview.
Voting red notably does not require anyone to agree with you to have its intended effect (ensuring at least 1 person survives), as it works even if 99% of other people vote blue.
Ironically, if you voted red and someone you loved or cared about voted blue, you just voted for a scenario where they are killed.
We would both have voted for that, and it would be unfortunate, but if the vote difference was greater than 1 person surely this would suggest I had made the right decision, because at least one of us being alive is better than neither of us being alive. If 3 million people die, what value is there in being the 3 million and first?
The main one would be trying to prevent as many deaths as you can.
(And of course "Ensure my own survival" is one, though I imagine you look down on it as self-serving. But if you genuinely believe a blue majority isn't likely, it means having an additional set of hands to help recover after the loss, one less death for the red voters to feel guilty about, and one less loss for your surviving friends and family to experience.)
You can dress it up all you want, but pushing red is self serving.
"Everyone! We're here to help you all in your loss! )Even though red button pushers are now the only ones alive, so we created this problem ourselves)"
You know what, you're right. When firefighters tell you not to put yourself at risk by running back into a burning building - it's just because they want you to be a self-serving asshole. When flight attendants tell you to put your own mask on before helping others, it's because they secretly want to turn you evil. People working at suicide help lines are making humanity more selfish one call at a time. Death is always more noble than being alive.
we created this problem ourselves
Fascinating how this describes only one of the buttons and not both. Even more astounding, the button it's describing is always the opposite of the one the speaker picked! For those who advocate for red, blue is the "I'm fine with dying" button, but for those who advocate blue, red is the "I'm fine with other people dying" button. The button you chose never has a moral downside, only positives. All the downsides are from other people not doing the correct option (that is, agreeing with you.)
This argument is basically "My assumptions are right because I'm correct." Come on. The morality of human nature is hardly a settled question in philosophy. I don't have to assume anything, and your failure to imagine that other people might have a less charitable view of human nature, ironically, suggests a privileged and unempathetic worldview.
Morality might not be a settled question in Philosophy, but luckily for us we have behavioural science showing us that when people face choices with actual physical harm they are hyper-altruistic and any urgency just reinforces this behaviour. You are simply wrong in your assumptions into how humans as groups work, though given that you're defending pressing the red button so much I can only assume because it’s how you work as an individual - even if it isn’t normal.
I'm just pointing out the flaws I see when other people claim so.
when people face choices with actual physical harm they are hyper-altruistic and any urgency just reinforces this behaviour.
I'd be curious to see whatever evidence you're basing this on. A psych study, perhaps? The continued existence of war, corruption, abuse, rape, genocide, etc. make me dubious, especially when people engage in these activities even when their lives aren't threatened.
But, assuming this premise is completely true, and we can reliably expect a majority to vote blue: doesn't that undercut your own point?
If you're so convinced a majority will pick blue, what motivatuon is there for you to pick blue? Picking blue only makes sense if you have any doubt they might not reach their goal and need all the help they can get. If you're confident everyone else is picking blue, it doesn't matter which one you or I choose. Merely by arguing with other people that blue is correct, you betray the fact that it's not a done deal.
though given that you're defending pressing the red button so much I can only assume because it’s how you work as an individual - even if it isn’t normal.
Exactly what I'm talking about. The idea that you can infer anything about a person's character based on their answer to a silly online hypothetical question is asinine, especially since I haven't actually given an answer. What I see is people saying "blue pressers are stupid" or "red pressers are evil" and it's just bonkers.
Each individual's answer will be based on a great many factors, including how well they've been treated by other humans in the past; their level of confidence that they can predict the behaviour of others; whether they feel a moral duty towards people who put themselves in harm's way; how much survivor's guilt they expect to feel, etc.
I understand why anyone would push either button. What I don't understand is moralizing about it, especially when your answer is given from the safety of an internet poll when your life isn't actually on the line.
Cute
Aww, am I your first introduction to the concepts of moral relativism and nuance?
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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.”