Yes, you’re right. I literally have not had any coffee yet. I think it’s finished brewing now…
No. If less than 50% of people press the red button, this means more than 50% of people press the blue button, thus everyone is saved anyway.
OK, if I cannot convince even the rational people on this board I guess it makes no sense to hope everybody will act rationally from sharp thinking alone, so I will reluctantly and against better judgement change my vote to blue.
But I still think it is an arsehole move to set up a problem in a way that the “evil” move has no downsides (red never dies) and the “decent” move risks one’s life (blue dies if under 50%).
It’s just a mind game, so nothing is lost by choosing wrongly. But good set up mind games allow us to gain insights into human nature and can orient us in real life situations. This problem does not clear that bar. And now I am going to put this thread back on “normal” from “watching” because there is nothing more to learn here.
Yes, see above^^ I missed a simple logical conclusion, and I blame lack of coffee. This is also why I hate responding to hypothetical scenarios 
Looks like I left the reply window open too long so didn’t catch the updates.
After thinking this through, I think part of the disagreement on here is that people are reading the hypothetical differently. If one reads it as a theoretical question, in which everyone being asked to push a button fully comprehends the circumstances and can adequately distinguish the two buttons, it makes full logical sense to choose red, guaranteeing your own safety regardless of what others do. But it is also a fine choice from a moral perspective, because, as fully rational, mentally competent people, you can assume others will also push red, and therefore no one else will die either. There is no one to “save” in this scenario.
But if one reads the hypothetical as a “real world” question, with babies, mentally incapacitated, colorblind (thanks Chronos), and all the other people in the world who cannot be expected to understand the scenario, and even if they did to not be able to make the correct choice, then it becomes more problematic to pick red. As Chronos and others advocating for pushing blue state, there will undoubtedly be many individuals who push blue in such a “real world” setting, and thus the moral choice would probably be to push blue as well, in the hope that enough others will also do so as well in order to save everyone.
So, if we are thinking of the question as some game theory hypothetical in which all actors are rational and competent, then I am picking red. If we are thinking of the question as something the present population of the world would have to do, then I would pick blue.
I just feel bad for the unfortunates who find the red button irresistibly alluring.
I’ll press red while praying most people press blue.
As a blue button boy I am not sure red folk are necessarily morally vacant.
If my assessment was very confident that far more than 50% of everyone else will choose red, that there is no remotely reasonable chance of hitting over 50% blue, then choosing blue is a vote that does not matter and throwing away my life for nothing.
Pushing blue is the only moral choice however if one thinks that there is a realistic possibility that at least half of everyone else will do so.
Yes the morally vacant will not imagine that enough others could push blue. But neither would the highly moral who have an assessment of most of their other citizens such as to think they’d choose red for any reason. And many have good reason for confident cynicism.
I contributed several posts to the other thread on this topic, but got philosophical here:
You and everyone else on Earth walk up to a railroad track. Actually, let’s make that trolley tracks. You have two options. You can either stay off the track, or you can go lay down on it.
If you lay down on the tracks, then when the train trolley comes it will run you over and squish you.
If 50% of the world’s population goes and lays down on the tracks, then the trolley will stop instead of running anyone over.
It’s very dark, so you can’t see what anyone else is doing.
Do you lay down on the track?
If not, how is this scenario at all different from the red button/blue button scenario?
The altruistic thing to do would be to press the blue button. If enough people press that, everyone lives.
The rational, pragmatic thing is to press the red button. You are personally guaranteed to live. If most people press blue, you’ve made no difference and you still live. If most people press red, you’re among the survivors.
My knee-jerk is “blue, of course” but the history of humanity is not supportive of people being altruistic to that degree. And in this simple example, altruism is VERY unfavorable to your survival.
I phrased a similar scenario in the prior thread. You and everyone else on earth are on a sinking ship. There are enough life vests for everyone. If you choose, you and everyone else can grab a life vest and bob on the surface until a passing ship rescues everyone. Alternately, if at least 50% of the people agree to tie their life vests together, they can create a raft that will support everyone. If less than 50% decide to donate their vest to make the raft, the raft will not support everyone and those that decided to do so will drown. What do you decide?
I think this scenario is much too generous to the blue button team. On the one hand, it’s still an incredibly stupid thing to do - life rafts are designed to be worn, not haphazardly tied together to form a raft - but at least, if you can guarantee that one would work, it’s actually a significant improvement over bobbing with a lifejacket, because you’re not in potentially freezing water, your feet aren’t dangling in front of sharks like with the sailors of the USS Indianapolis, etc.
In other words, there’s a real argument for building a raft, beyond “some idiots already ripped up their life jackets for raft materials and the only way to save them is to join in on their stupidity until we reach a critical mass”. Even if it isn’t a very good one.
That’s why I think that the train trolley track analogy works so well. There’s no reason to lay on the tracks other than “some other people might have been stupid enough to do it, and maybe I can save them”.
lol, fair enough! In the interest of reducing complexity in the decision, I was hoping readers would assume either bobbing in the raft or in a life vest would be equally desired by the individuals making the decision. I suppose I should have made that explicit!
Another analogy: everyone in the world is offered a pill. It’s either a cyanide pill or a sugar placebo. If half the people or more choose to take the pill, it will be a sugar pill; if not, it will be a cyanide pill. You don’t know what everyone else is choosing and can’t talk to anyone else before making the choice. Do you take the pill?
I don’t understand why people are making a moral issue out of it. It’s strict game theory. Given the rules of the game, there are two things to consider.
- When has more than 50% of the planet ever agreed to one thing? Do you really want to stake your life on that?
- There’s no way you die if you choose red.
The only sensible choice for each INDIVIDUAL to make is to pick red. To pick blue out of some sense of altruism would be foolish.
I’m not living with the guilt of killing anyone because they chose blue. So I’m choosing blue.
They (you in this case) killed themselves because given the clear conditions, they still chose blue. You are not responsible for their decision. Why are you killing yourself knowing that more than half the planet, when faced with the same logic, is not going to pick blue? It’s essentially a stupidity tax for misplaced altruism.
Hey great! You won. You Holocausted me and all my fellow blues who were just trying save you. How does that make you feel?