# 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:** 64

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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 18, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/64 "2025-10-18T14:33:29Z")

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> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> I don’t know about the rest of you, but I know and love many people (children, the logic-challenged, and just general do-gooders) who would be incapable of pushing the red button even if the logic was explained to them. I’m not going to condemn them to death. So by extension, I can’t push the red button either. Those arguing that all we need to do is all push red for all of us to survive are deluding themselves that people they care about will not die due to their decision.

This is indeed a sobering thought you have brought up.

However…you’re implicitly blaming the red-button pushers for the deaths of the blue-button pushers, but I would instead put the blame on whoever set up this rigged game.

And by pushing the blue button, you are undoubtedly acting altruistically and out of concern for others, but the most likely end result will be your sacrifice and death. And by pushing the red button, you are acting out of self-interest (and possibly selfishness), but you are not directing hurting anyone else…just making a choice to ensure your continued existence.

I’ll try to make an analogy: simply by living on this planet I use up resources (food, housing, clothing, etc.) and produce waste (including climate-damaging excess carbon dioxide). I’m sure I have worn clothing produced in sweatshops overseas. I’m not intentionally hurting others, but just my existence on this overcrowded planet necessarily has that effect.

I could make life better for someone else less fortunate than myself (perhaps a homeless person) by giving them my house and possessions and sacrificing myself. But my own self-interest prevents me from doing that.

It’s supposed to drop below freezing tonight. Am I condemning a homeless person to death tonight by not giving them my warm house?

So whether you realize it or not, we are all pushing the red button every day—unless we are literally sacrificing ourselves for others.

The button dilemma just makes this more explicit.

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