Is your point “I’ll eventually die anyway, so why not possibly now?”
One of the few contexts where “If not now, when?” Is not good advice.
Maybe you can “realize that.” I find that a completely irrational conclusion if one believes “all that” regarding human … social organisms to varying degrees … nature resultant of evolution.
Now I get that the red pushers here believe that they know what the four out of five of us who said blue would actually do better than we do. Sounds to me like the confident claim that “there are no atheists in foxholes” … but what do we know about our own true thoughts compared to them?
FWIW I completely accept that there will be some contingent who will look no farther than “red means I live no matter what anyone else chooses” and comfort themselves with the thought that the fraction choosing blue could all have all pressed red too, on them. Humanity has always had those people too. We are not as hardwired as ants or bees.
I actually have no idea what you or anyone else would (not will) do. Honestly, I have no idea what I would do. I say would because this hypothetical in no way maps on to my lived experience or my shared reality with anyone else up until this point. It is so patently absurd as to exceed my capacity to comprehend, particularly if part of the conceit is that we cannot communicate with others about or intended decision before hand (ie: all come to an agreement beforehand).
That said, as a not at all realistic hypothetical, it seems to me the answer is simple enough: people who want to die will pick blue. People who don’t… will have to wait and see when the time comes to make that choice. Which will never come.
That said, in deference to the thread, I suspect I’d go with red. Who am I to impose my judgment and inhibit the agency of someone who wants to die? If other people (who don’t want to die) also choose blue, that’s on them. Unlike so many real world moral dilemmas, we do all really have an equal opportunity to choose here. It’s not like part of the framework is that only the wealthy really have a choice, and the poor are more likely to die regardless of which color they choose.
I just can’t help but wonder why so many here would insist on preventing people from exercising what I believe is a fundamental right to take one’s own life (because, again, that seems to be the only “benefit” of all selecting blue vs. almost all selecting red: people who want to die… don’t get to). And if that sounds absurd… yeah. It kind of is, but it’s actually slightly less absurd than the hypothetical itself.
No I never said anything if the sort, your gut instinct (and mine and everyone else) will be to choose the “don’t die” option. You can choose to override your gut instinct and risk death, for all the reasons you explain in this thread, I’m not doubting that we aren’t unthinking automatons. But if you do you will be in a very small minority of the world population. Almost everyone else will choose “definitely survive” over “maybe die”.
I can’t take this seriously as a good faith post of trying to understand why people would pick blue. I mean, the rest of your post seems like it’s an earnest attempt at conversation. You don’t seem to be mocking or satirizing this discussion, and yet the conclusions you come to are not even remotely within the realm of what could be a plausibly good faith assessment of the motives of the other side. I’m a little befuddled, actually. Maybe I missed the joke if there is one.
If you missed the joke, so did I.
Not a joke. It is a straight-faced reductio ad absurdum.
In selecting blue, the assumption (I think in some cases even stated explicitly, but otherwise implicit) appears to be that one’s fellow “blues” want to live, and that the moral thing for the rest of us to do is to select blue as well to preserve not only their lives, but everyone’s life.
Except (1) if someone wanted to live, we might just as easily imagine them selecting red (the guaranteed option), so I really think it’s kind of a *wash as to whether people who actually want to live would actually select blue, and (2) I think we all know that in reality, some non-zero number of people presented with this choice will want to die. Now, I grant that some amount of people who want to die might also be terrible misanthropes, so much so that their desire to see harm done to humanity outweighs their desire to die (after all, most can probably choose to die later, outside the scenario, as long as they are able), and so they might choose red out of spite. As to those people, I do not care about respecting their agency because, again, they are misanthropes and want to do me and the rest of us harm. I discount them from my moral calculus.
But the people who (a) want to die and (b) are not more interested in taking a large swath of the rest of humanity down first? I respect their agency and ability to choose not to live any more. Indeed, this absurd scenario might be the only real chance that a person who is terminally ill (to the point of being physically incapacitated, but still very aware of their own pain) or severely depressed (to the point of being unable to complete even simple tasks) might have to take their own life. Because, given how absurd the scenario is, I can only assume that along with the magical inability to discuss options beforehand, come to an agreement, and track progress (you know, problem solving tools that would be available to us in the real world, outside this absurd hypothetical), there will also be some way to “magic” people who are otherwise incapacitated into suddenly being able to press a button or have a surrogate press the button for them. Because this utterly absurd hypothetical does not appear to contemplate the possibility that there are people who can’t make a choice.
So… the only people I am confident who would choose blue are people who want to die and who are not more misanthropic than they are suicidal. As someone who values human dignity and the right to exercise agency over one’s own life, I would consider my decision to go with red a moral virtue to the extent it may give effect to their choice. And if that seems absurd to you, it’s because this whole scenario is absurd.
QED.
*As I said in the rest of my post, which you appear to accept as at least a serious argument, I have no idea what I or anyone would actually do when confronted with such an absurd hypothetical that is completely at odds with my lived experience snd I daresay the lived experience of anyone else to date. Show me a real world scenario that is comparable and it might cause me to reevaluate my position, but a I think you will be hard pressed to so in light of the various constraints of the scenario.
Oy. If you say so.
So % of responders here say blue. Bigger survey, nearly 100,000 responders, that possibly got this meme out there recently also majority blue across red blue politically, even two time Trump voters (!!):
So either they and we are all lying, or they and we don’t know what they/we would do when their and others’ lives are on the line than you do. Or what?
Well think about it. Unless they are terrible misanthropes, what else would they pick? The scenario is very clear they will be magically forced to make a choice without being able to consult anyone else. Why would someone who wants to die pick red (unless they are a terrible misanthrope)? It’s the only clear conclusion I can draw: people who want to die but don’t hate humanity so much will pick blue, because it gives them that chance.
If that seems absurd to you, it’s not my fault. I’m just working within the bounds of the scenario.
ETA: To be clear, I’m not saying only people who want to die will pick blue. I am instead saying I at best simply do not know what people who don’t want to die would actually pick, and I don’t consider polling on this hypothetical to be reliable because of just how far-fetched it is. We have no basis for evaluation. So far as I know, no human as actually been confronted with such an absurd and yet rigid scenario.
ETA2: this isn’t even a Squid Games scenario. In that, (1) not everybody died on either side, (2) people had the opportunity to discuss and observe before and during the selection, and (3) there was never the kind of metaphysical certainty as to consequences that this hypothetical apparently demands.
Why are we expecting this to map on to political leaning? I would expect it to lean more along lines of your moral system, such as deontologists picking blue while consequentialists pick red.
When I was younger (like high school age) I was less utilitarian and more deontological, and along with that I was more conservative (and so it took me a long time to understand that this isn’t universal, and many left leaning people arrive at their view through deontology and not utilitarianism - that tripped me up for a while). And I think I would have been much more likely to say that blue was right when I was more deontological in my thinking.
Or shockingly an online survey does not in fact represent accurately what all 7 billion people on the planet earth will actually do when locked in a room with a death button
How about we start with the reasonable assumption that the vast majority of humans are not wishing to die at any particular time?
And let’s take it further … let’s play with the assumption that what people’s expert opinions about their own choices in an absurd hypothetical is unfounded and irrelevant, you might actually pick blue, who knows?
What is the basis for majorities here and in that large poll choosing blue, believing that they would take a risk in service of the greater good?
My position remains that the answer hinges less on any sense of morality or logic and more on what we individually believe others will individually do.
What complete rubbish! What possible reason do you have to make this inference. This is about as logical as saying people who choose Ken in Street Fighter are more likely to get into bar fights.
Personally I wouldn’t say there’s much correlation between the percentage of people who intervene in public in circumstance where there is an obvious victim to be helped in front of them and the effect of their intervention is very obvious, and the number of people who would choose death when its just them and the button and they know their pressing red will only make infinitesimal difference on the outcome for anyone else.
But even if you do this example is making the exact opposite point. Only a minority of people do in fact intervene in those circumstances (e.g. the four who intervened in the London Bridge attack). So if that is an analog of red-blue then red will definitely win. That’s not to say we are all rational self interested automatons and society is a just a myth perpetuated by hippies who want free stuff. Its just that people don’t like to die. Given the option between maybe dying and definitely surviving most people choose the latter.
If you say so. 
Consistent Trump voters are more than a political leaning. They are explicit endorsers of a “me first” articulation of policy. And indeed it does track: they appear less likely to pick blue than the other sets, but a majority still do.
Disagree with the assessment of MAGA voters, fine, the question still stands: for the sake of discussion assume all of the majority here who say blue, the majority in that poll that say blue, are delusional and if actually in such an absurd hypothetical would do as your version of human nature expects. People overwhelmingly are not wanting to die yet most apparently believe they would make a decision that takes that chance, believing that enough others would as well that all survive.
Why do most not “realize” that they would be throwing their lives away?
I think the way the question is posed in the article in The Independent predisposes people to pick blue without much thought. Blue is the altruistic choice, people are generally altruistic (or want to appear that way, even if only to themselves), and it takes some thought to realize all of the implications of choosing blue — like the fact that you are putting your life on the line.
But I think if the question were worded like I mentioned upthread, there might be a very different result:
Something like:
Everyone on earth takes a private vote by pressing a red or blue button, including you. If you push red, you will be safe. If you push blue, you will be killed…BUT, if at least 50% of people also press the blue button, you will be ok. Which button would you press?
But however the question is posed I also think that if people are actually asked to put their life on the line instead of simply answering an internet poll, they might choose differently as well.
Your phrasing is however not accurate for the hypothetical:
is not the hypothetical. An “unless” there would be fine, not a “but”, and no I don’t think that phrasing would change the responses: it is already very clearly stated that all blues die unless they hit the 50% threshold
I agree that “unless” is a better word choice than “BUT.”
Obviously I disagree. I think that when the “happy outcome” is presented first (i.e. everyone lives if enough people press blue), then people are encouraged by the wording to choose blue.
Whereas when the “safe outcome” is presented first (i.e. you will be safe no matter what if you press red), then people are encouraged by the wording to choose red.
Unlike a lot of puzzles or thought experiments, changing the phrasing changes the problem itself, no matter what. That’s because your decision has to take other people’s decisions into account, recursively. There can never be a “neutral” phrasing, but rather a vast array of interrelated non-identical problems that are each phrasing dependent.
It’s like if I said “Is this question six words long? The answer is yes” And you said “That’s misleading: The answer is no, because in order to be more precise and account for the all-months-have-twenty-eight-days problem, the question should be 'Is this question exactly six words long?”
So a new thought experiment this raises is: Supposing that you get to choose between a strongly red-leading or strongly blue-leading phrasing? I’m often shocked at red-pressing people choosing a red-maximizing phrasing and thinking they’re only being “honest” and “logical” and would save the most lives that way. It’s like a fundamental failure to think on more than one order of logic.
On a similar note, suppose that you use the pro-blue phrasing but the problem is also altered so that every blue pusher is given $5 (and this is universally known). Do you (assuming you were a red-presser before) switch from red to blue? If not, then I don’t even know how to begin to explain the second-order aspects of the situation that are going over your head. In any case, I should assume there’s a price point at which you’d switch, and it’s not something nonsensically high like a million dollars.
I would very much assume not. I’d guess there is an amount of money which the average person would accept for a very significant risk of instant death but it is probably ‘nonsensically high’.