# Red button or blue button dilemma **URL:** \ **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:** 8
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/8 "2025-10-16T23:30:23Z")
Yes. Any of these games change massively when the players get to do it repeatedly. Aa a broad rule of thumb single-run games encourage selfish play, and repeated games (eventually) teach the value of cooperation. Humans evidently have some capacity for cooperation, but like democracy, they’ll try it only after they’ve exhausted all the other possibilities. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Heck, there’s research showing how in many such dilemmas people will pick the less optimal choice out of sheer _spite._ See this post and the cite within if you have not. It’s interesting. Sad, but interesting. > [@The current second Trump administration: a compendium of horrors](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-current-second-trump-administration-a-compendium-of-horrors/1009774/2376): > > So… a large fraction of the population is being encouraged and incentivized to indulge their inherent oppositional defiant disorder? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041)._