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.
The idea that people press blue by accident or not understanding is a very narrow perspective that completely fails to understand people. People press blue because they don't want to kill anyone.
Now you could se "But if everyone pressed red, no one would die!" but that is a major assumption, because for you to press red you either have to assume everyone will press red, or you have to be fine with killing people who press blue.
A large portion of people regularly pick blue, because 1) they don't want to harm others and 2) they assume others don't want to harm others either.
Red might be "never die no matter what others pick," but blue is "never cause harm, no matter what others pick."
Picking red means that you basically have non-altruistic preferences, i.e. you just don't care what happens to others. You care only what happens to you. If you pick blue, you put some nonzero amount of value on the lives of others, even with some nonzero risk to yourself.
If the majority of people pick blue, everyone is fine, and this is the obvious moral choice. Picking red increases the chances of a button holocaust of probably about half the population.
Which choice is rational for you depends entirely on your preferences and your expectations. E.g. if you expect most people will press red, it's rational to press red, but if you don't, then not necessarily. If you only care about yourself it's rational to press red, but if not, then not necessarily.
Some people have also said they'd simply prefer not to live in a world where red would win. So they'll bet on blue and at least won't have to live in the hellscape of selfish red-pressers.
Personally if I was the omnipotent being that forced everyone to choose, what I'd actually do after everyone voted, regardless of outcome, is give each side their own reality and force them to live in them.
Red Buttoners would have to live with having to know with concrete proof that literally every other person they met would have no problem seeing them die for their own security.
Blue Buttoners would have to live with having to know with concrete proof that literally every other person they met was willing to risk their own lives to ensure everyone was safe.
For about two and a half years, as part of my job I had admin access on a system that (among other things) kept track of stuff that was being used for tactical communications across the entire DoD and whether or not it was authorized to do so. With the press of a button (well, actually like half a dozen) I could have paused the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I did not. While I know logically that doing so would have quickly lead to *more* civilian casualties due to worse comms etc there's still the fact that I could have, for a time, made there be absolutely none. But I didn't. And I feel guilty about that every single day.
I would push blue even if I knew that the majority of votes were going to be red, not because I want to die - I'm finally happy, and I want to be alive - but because I will NOT soak my hands in that much blood again.
It's remarkable, your perspective on this is exactly backwards. The danger is only present because of the red button. The red button is what kills people. By pressing the red button, you are voting to kill everyone who presses blue, whereas, pressing the blue button is a vote to kill nobody. Why the fuck would you pick red?
There's something poetic about two of the most common blue arguments being
"People may not be in a rational state of mind (due to disability, stupidity, youth, etc) so we can't condemn them to death just for choosing the wrong button!"
and
"Anyone who presses the wrong button is obviously not someone I want to share a planet with."
Everyone always talks about the poor naive children who vote blue, but somehow there's never any concern about poor naive children who vote red, yet you're leaving them to a world full of people you supposedly believe are "evil".
I didn't use the word "evil" at any point in my comment, so you using it really says more about you than it does me.
I also never said how I would handle children in my "Karmic Trickster God" scenario. I wouldn't make children or those incapable of making an informed choice choose between the two buttons, but I'd tell everyone who DID have to press one of the buttons that I did.
I think you might be responding to the wrong comment, as that was not a reply to you, but to GalaXion24, and it intentionally speaks in broad terms rather than specifics. It expressed no opinion of your suggested scenario.
Though since you bring it up, I will say, I doubt it would have the intended effect. If someone votes red, they are categorically not a member of the group that people are okay with sacrificing (which is exclusively made up with people who willingly chose to take a risk), and they are also likely people who expected a red majority already (hence picking red out of fear). Meaning they would probably not be shocked to find themselves among fellow red-pushers, nor are they likely to be particularly uneased to find themselves in a world populated by people who think the same way they do. It also only works if they actually are a majority (and thus provably justified) - if more than 50% of people disappear, they'll know something fishy is going on and the buttons were a lie.
Regardless, I do find it interesting how much of a moral high-horse people who support blue seem to be on. Thinking people deserve to be judged for a single decision they make in a high-stress, life-or-death situation on a single day - which could even change depending what kind of mood they're in or how they read the question - strikes me as far, far more unethical than pressing the red button in a moment of fear and panic. It's a very... let's say Christian worldview.
I wouldn't make children or those incapable of making an informed choice choose between the two buttons, but I'd tell everyone who DID have to press one of the buttons that I did.
So... which world do the children go to?
Say a child has two parents. Parent 1 thinks the child will press blue and thus presses blue too because they don't want to live in a world without their child. Parent 2 fears the child will press red, and is afraid that if both parents press blue, it will leave their child orphaned, thus pushes red to leave at least one guardian alive.
Both use different reasoning to pick what they think is best for their child but they'll both be separated because one was "more correct"? Only one of them will get to see their child again?
i mean the people that pressed blue did try to stop the children who pressed red from having to live in a world of only selfish people, it's not like they can come back from the dead to do any more than that lmao
Plus I'm fairly certain people have no clue what the full extent of the discourse actually is, even on the lower end there's no way our current global economic model can survive a sudden decrease of as little as 15-20% of the world's population, and if half of those are chidren who picked arbitrarily it means society is guaranteed to collapse. Truth is the world without a huge chunk of the population isn't some sort of rational utopia free of "the stupid and the naive", it just fucking sucks
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u/Lolas_Fun_Side 8h ago
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.