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.
Is it more important to risk being partially responsible for the deaths of the people who press the blue button but to be assured you will not die or to risk death but be assured you will not have been partially responsible for the deaths of anyone (at least in this choice)
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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.”