# Red button or blue button dilemma

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 16, 2025, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041 "2025-10-16T22:59:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 283

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**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/283 "2025-10-21T14:31:40Z")

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> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> It would be shitty to live in a world of people who were rewarded for choosing their own self-interest at the expense of everyone who prioritized communitarian altruism. I don’t mean that I’d be sad that my preferences didn’t win out. I mean it would be pretty miserable to live in a world that’s decided it’s every man for himself, because it puts the possibility of a functioning civilization in serious doubt. It would be a world where there’s no need for a red button to be pushed, people would simply be killing others if they felt they could get away with it. Which they could, because the only thing that can stop such a thing is a state monopoly on violence, and this requires subordinating one’s interests to the common interest, which the entire world will have just proven that it has no interest in doing.

I’ve got news for you, then. This is literally the world we live in right now.

And the only reason we have a functioning civilization is because there is indeed a state monopoly on violence. If the government collapsed tomorrow (due to nuclear war, pandemic with a high mortality rate, supervolcano eruption, asteroid impact, etc.) civilization would promptly collapse as well as the survivors banded together in small groups and started warring with their neighbors.

And yes, people would be killing others and taking their resources if they felt they could get away with it. This has been human nature since before there were humans. In such a situation, the only reason we do cooperate is because we have made a calculation that it might benefit us.

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