I certainly don’t think it’s guaranteed. In either direction. But
I think a whole lot of people are going to pause on their way to the red button and think ‘wait a minute. My children/parents/best friends/siblings are probably going to press blue. Do I really want to kill them? Do I really want to live in the world that results, knowing that I helped cause it?’
As to the choices we’re all making every day — many people make some in each direction. And upending one’s entire life for day after day after day is different from a single moment pushing a button — especially when the possibilities aren’t just whether you live or die, but three: one, that if enough people press blue, things will continue no worse than they were; two, that if almost everyone presses red, things will continue mostly as they were except for people (likely including you) grieving their dead; or three, that if a lot of people but not enough press blue the world will immediately become much worse, and your life will be upended, quite likely much shortened, and almost certainly quite unpleasant in the meantime.
These statements are at odds with each other. There are a lot of posters who are equating this decision to our recent political environment, for what I think is a fairly obvious parallel, in an effort to show that with just a little nudge, the Blue Button Brigade can win out. I may have missed it, but I don’t believe anyone has brought up the extremely large percentage of people who don’t vote. Taking red/blue politics out of it, let’s focus on the very large conglomerate of extremely selfish, self-absorbed people with seemingly little interest in their community or others. They’re all pressing the red button, maybe to the extent that the BBB doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of hell of succeeding.
I hope they do. But I sure as hell won’t be one of them.
Sorry, when I said “blue is the obvious solution” I didn’t mean it in the sense of “the only possible conclusion is the blue solution”, I meant “upon hearing the options, most people are going to think of course I pick blue, that’s the option where no one is killed, problem solved.”
I think the vast majority of people’s first thought will probably be “why wouldn’t everyone just pick the blue option?” It’s to emphasize that it’s the immediately apparent solution before some people start thinking “wait a minute, what if other people press the red button because they’re worried everyone else will press the red button” – where essentially red button pushers are defending against their paranoia that other people will think like them.
I disagree. I’m pressing red because I have to guarantee that I survive, because people in my life depend on me. I’m not worried about people who think like me - I’m worried about people who I KNOW think only of themselves, and that I KNOW live amongst us in droves.
I know you think that’s a real zinger, but every blue button pusher in here is having to explain their reasoning like they’re rewriting Thomas Aquinas’ City of God, and red button logic is simply “no one dies if they pick red for themself”. It’s overly simplistic and doesn’t address some really good points made by the blue button people, but no one is going to convince me society is populated by a large percentage of people who aren’t selfish Idiots.
I don’t think that’s the case at all. People have written very little to justify blue, it’s justification is more or less self-evident. Blue is really obvious and simple: we’re a social species and most of us have at least a basic sense of utilitarianism. No one dying is better than a lot of people dying. Blue gets us there.
Red requires the extra steps to rationalize and justify. “Anyone who picks blue is committing suicide, red is obviously game theory optimal” is a lot more complicated to justify than “let’s all pick the option where no one comes to harm.” It takes some work to explain why the option that will kill inevitably kill a significant fraction of the human race is clearly the correct choice over not harming anyone at all. Most of what I’ve written has been a criticism of red (and their rationalizations) rather than a justification of blue.
Even if you don’t it’s still not a no brainer even from the totally altruistic point of view, where you don’t consider your life at all. The outcomes in order from best to worst are this (I’m not even including the everyone chooses red option as its so unlikely):
More than 3 billion people choose blue. 0 people die.
Everyone but one person chooses red. 1 person dies
Everyone but two people chooses red. 2 people die
. 299999999. Exactly more person votes red than blue. 299999999 people die.
It’s perfectly reasonable to want the outcome for society (all or society not just you) to be closer to 2, rather than risk aiming for case 1 but actually ending up closer the worst case, where human society is seriously imperiled.
There is also the question of what you do for living. Politician? Crypto entrepreneur? Sure go ahead press blue, take the risk. Surgeon? Farm Worker? Crematorium worker? (Especially that last one) I don’t think pressing blue is an ethical choice, we’ll need you after “button day”
I’m glad you brought up kids, because I have been thinking about that a lot. Let’s say you have a family and you get to discuss what to do before the voting happens. Do you tell your kids to all hit blue and hope half the population does the same, or do you tell them to vote red and hope everyone else you know and care about does the same? What about the 6 month old baby? Do you take his hand and have him push the blue button (because you think it is the right thing to do) and hope half the population does the same, or do you take his hand and have him push the red button so he will definitely live? Are we expected to gamble the lives of all our children on the hope that half the population will also gamble the lives of their children?
Let’s make it even more complicated. Let’s say you sister calls you in tears saying her 2 year old just reached out and pressed the blue button before she could stop him. Now your nephew is going to die if half the world doesn’t pick blue. Do you tell all your family to vote blue (thereby risking all of their lives in a futile attempt to save the 2 year-old) or do you accept the possible loss and tell your family to pick red so they don’t die. After all, the odds that the vote between red and blue comes down to 10 votes is very small. Your family voting blue is almost certainly going to have no impact on the end result. So, do you tell them all to risk death for no reason because of a toddler’s mistake or do you tell them to save their lives and just hope your nephew survives?
It’s easy to pretend you are doing the right thing when it is your life (because self-sacrifice seems noble), but telling your family and small children to risk a significant chance of death for your sense of morality isn’t so noble. Telling all your friends and family that they should risk their children’s lives so that you can vote blue without dying isn’t particularly noble either.
It is far more reasonable (and even noble) to tell everyone you know to take care of themselves and their families and vote red. No one in their right mind should be voting blue. Absolutely no one in this experiment has to die. Why do you think it is necessary for anyone to vote blue? We all understand the rules. We all understand that there is no reason for anyone to risk their lives and vote blue. Literally everyone can survive by voting red. If there are not incompetent voters (like the toddler in the example) there is no reason for anyone to even consider voting blue. It isn’t selfishness. I would tell everyone to vote red because I don’t want them to die. I tell them to vote red because I care for other people. If the goal is to save as many people as possible (and you don’t have the ability to control half the votes) telling people to vote red is much more likely to result in more saved lives. Honestly, if there were a town hall and someone was trying to get everyone to vote blue, I would be wondering if he were a psychopath trying to get people killed. There is no reason to tell anyone to risk their life when there is a completely safe solution that everyone can pick (red).
It actually took you a whole paragraph here to justify the “self-evident” blue choice.
I can justify red in one simple step, just like @Bear_Nenno’s wife:
That’s going to be the response of most people, I think—certainly more than half the population.
Now I think I’m both conscientious and thoughtful, so I actually turned the question around in my head for a moment and recognized that choosing blue is indeed the more altruistic choice, and being a generally altruistic person, I considered it. Then realized what kind of country (and world) I live in, and concluded that choosing blue is foolhardy in the extreme: it is virtually certain to result in my death.
So kudos to those who would choose blue: you have indeed chosen the more altruistic option. As the saying goes, they can put that on your tombstone.
And for those of you who say that you would be happy going to your death having done the supposedly right thing—sacrificing yourself in the hope that enough people do the same thing and tipping the scale infinitesimally in the right direction—why aren’t you doing this now? Why does there have to be a button?
Someone like Gandhi would undoubtedly choose the blue button. But you can emulate Gandhi without a button. Why aren’t you?
It’s funny you say that, because I think the vast majority of people would do the opposite. They would ask, why wouldn’t everyone just pick the red option? The second question would be, “Am I missing something? It seems like the red option comes with no risk? Does something bad happen if everyone chooses red? Why wouldn’t everyone just choose red?”
I don’t think it is normal for people to needlessly risk their lives when there is a totally safe option that everyone can pick. If you say, “We are going to have an experiment where everyone will be asked if they want to be thrown off a cliff. If more than half the people choose to be thrown off, we will install nets that will save the people that get thrown off.” I would once again want to know, does anyone have to be thrown off? Can we all just choose not to be thrown off the cliff?
People are making this experiment far more complicated than it has to be. The cliff analogy is exactly what this is. I think people are so used to other situations where there is an option that hurts the individual for the good of the group that their mind goes straight to that when they hear this button story. This is not like that. No one needs to be hurt. The only people tossed off the cliff are those that choose to be tossed (most of whom just hope there are nets, and a few that probably wanted to die and chose the needlessly dangerous choice for that reason).
Oh please. You’re essentially going on a discussion board and criticizing me for engaging in discussion. Yes, I spelled it out because we’re having a discussion and I want to make sure my point is complete and understood.
Fine. “Push blue. No one dies.” Is that simple enough?
So I actually disagree with this, but I can’t prove it without doing a bunch of polling. I’m just going with my interaction and assessment with other people through my lifetime. You could disagree and I could not prove I was correct. But I think the vast majority of people’s initial thought would be “so if we all pick blue, no one dies? Why wouldn’t everyone pick blue?” – and it’s only if they think about it, and they start thinking about why they might pick red, that some will talk themselves into picking red. I think most people understand that not causing a hazard/harm is obviously superior to causing a hazard/harm for no benefit, and that this will be their first thought. Logically, “let’s not create a hazard” comes before “how do I protect myself from this hazard we just created?” I suspect that if we polled random people, you’d see this pattern. I cannot prove this but I would be very interested to see if I was correct.
I’m not sure if the difference here is primarily because of people who are more self focused and those who are more collectively focused, or if the people who would press the red button don’t acknowledge or agree that they’re creating the hazard by doing so. Perhaps you look at it as surviving something that has been inflicted on you, rather than worrying about what you’re inflicting on others.
Setting aside that the evil creature posing these hypotheticals to us, of course, has ultimate blame, no hazard can exist except for people taking proactive effort to create it by choosing red. If none of us actively take part in creating the situation where people have to die, there’s no crisis, no harm. So where you see “if I pick red, I protect myself”, I see “if someone picks red, they’re creating a hazard that can kill a lot of people, and without that action, there’s no hazard”
I have asked many of you over and over again what percentage of people do you think would pick blue. Only one poster was willing to respond to that. That, incidentally, is very telling I think, that no one else is willing to answer that question. He said 25-30%. So keep repeating your mantra of “everyone COULD pick red” but he acknowledges that 25-30% of people will not and they will die. We have the option to simply not create the hazard that’s going to kill more humans than any event ever in history.
Incidentally, I respect his “yes, 25-30% of people will die, but I’m pressing the orange button any way” far more than everyone else’s unwillingness to say that, and instead pretending that somehow everyone can survive when they know there is zero chance that will happen.
Let me twist this hypothetical a little bit in a way that better demonstrates the active creation of the hazard. I know this is not exactly the same (one of the key differences is that you cannot hide behind “everyone could choose red”), but I do think it’s similar in principle. Let’s say that everyone is rounded up by whatever God-like entity is doing these horrible hypotheticals to us. They’re put in a room for an hour with a red button. Only red, no blue. No discussion, just an individual choice. They’re told that you do not have to press the red button. You can do nothing. If everyone sits there for an hour and doesn’t do anything, everyone is fine. But if 50%+1 of all people in the world press the red button, the other half of humanity is instantly killed. The people who press the button are safe. Do you still press the red button?
I know people have aimed a lot of discussion my way. I’m not ignoring it when I don’t reply in this post, I’ve just got a lot of discussion coming my way and I’ll try to get to more points later.
It is interesting hearing how you look at it. Yes, I definitely think the hazard already exists. The red button does not, in my mind, create the hazard. The hazard is coming. There are simply two ways to protect ourselves from it. One way is a gamble. The other way is a sure thing. When people hear this hazard is coming, I assume they would default to the guaranteed way to protect themselves (and everyone else) rather than the gamble that only might work.
It’s very difficult for me to answer your question of how many people would pick blue, because I don’t understand the mindset. These people must think they have some incredible power that I just don’t see. This is a lot like voting. When you pick blue, you are behaving much like a voter in an election. You are having next to no impact on the final result. Unless the election is won by one vote, your vote doesn’t matter. Same with picking the blue button. On the other hand, the red button actually does something (unlike voting). The red button has a significant impact (guaranteed survival). There is no reason to pick blue unless you think others cannot help themselves and foolishly pick blue and need you to save them.
It’s quite interesting because you say “no hazard can exist except for people taking proactive effort to create it by choosing red.” But I actually see it the opposite way. The hazard is created by the first person to pick blue. The first person that chooses blue writes their name on a death list and needs half the population to add their own names to the death list in order to save them. There is no hazard if we all choose to keep our names off the death list. The blue button is the hazard. The blue button is what kills people.
Your do nothing or push the red button is an interesting one. Just changing that feature makes the default choice to do nothing (which I would probably do). Because in your example, the button causes the death and there is no death as long as most people don’t push it. In the example of this thread, however, the blue button is the one that causes death. Each person that pushes the blue button volunteers to die unless half the population also volunteers to die in order to save them. The red button is simply the “I don’t volunteer to die” button. The red button saves a life. The blue button adds another name to the kill list unless so many people volunteer to die that the machine breaks and no one ends up getting killed.
Thinking about this some more, I think there is paradox here. The more likely you think blue winning is the less likely an altruistic button presser should be to press blue, as it’s also more likely you’ll be pushing society over the edge if blue falls short. There is only one “blue wins” line but there are a bunch of “sh*ts effed up” lines between 49.9% of people dying and say 33% dying.
On the contrary, there is a pretty clear benefit: they guarantee that they get to live without depending on the votes of a bunch of other people.
This is also where your logic breaks down. The red button-pushers didn’t create the hazard. Nobody created this hazard other than the entity that created the scenario. Blaming the red button-pushers for the blue button-pusher’s deaths makes as little sense as blaming those who choose not to be thrown off the cliff in @Procacious’s analogy.
The only hazard created is when people decide to push the blue button out of sense of misguided (IMHO) altruism.
I’ve not responded to that only because that fact that a significant percentage of people will pick blue is not in dispute so far as I am concerned.
Indeed, those percentages sound about right to me. Per the OP, there were polls indicating that around 60% would pick red (so presumably 40% blue). I think in a poll some people would give the answer they are “expected” to give (because altruism is prized), so the likely percentage who would actually pick blue would be lower than 40% and closer to 25-30%.
Yes, they could…and per the scenario yes, they will.
That I reject. I didn’t create the hazard. And by pressing the blue button, all I would be doing is joining of the ranks of those sacrificing themselves for no reason.
This is an interesting twist. I think it strikes me as making a choice between choosing to actively harm others, or do nothing (and risk being killed). I think I would not press the red button in that case, nor do I think more than 50% of the population would, either.
You’ve already said what I wanted to say about how the whole thing is framed as blaming the red button pushers. But I do have an answer to this:
The button pushing is a singular event with an obvious, one time choice. These other actions are generally just things I do to exist, and do not have an obvious alternative. And, even if I do find an alternative, I’d have to consistently hit that alternative over and over, and be consciously aware of that choice, rather than blissfully unaware.
I will admit that I initially had to fight the urge that picking red would mean prioritizing my life over that of others, which is not a decision I like consciously making. Instinctually that made Blue seem like the right choice. I had to think about how red could be okay, and then even prove to myself that it wasn’t just selfishness.
Because I believe selfishness is the root of all evil, so I have an innate desire to avoid it when I have an explicit choice. I suspect this is true of nearly all the blue button pushers. And, honestly, I do think people with that instinct are better for society.
I’m just not naive enough to think that there will be enough of them that I wouldn’t die if I pushed blue, and my death will not make anyone’s lives better.
Nearly everybody is a selfish idiot occasionally. Some people are selfish idiots all the time. But if most people were generally selfish idiots, there wouldn’t be any society; and probably wouldn’t be any people.
And yet many people do vote — often majorities of those eligible. And the results of the vote do matter.
Do you have the same trouble understanding why people vote? Do you try to talk people out of voting? Do you vote yourself?
It’s the exact same choice. It’s just differently phrased.
The “blue wins” line is everywhere from 50% plus one to 100%. (I agree that 100% isn’t going to happen.)
But there is no difference between 50%+1 to 100% blue. That doesn’t change the outcome for anyone. There is difference between 49% of the world dying and 40% of the world dying (and 45% and 5% etc)