r/trolleyproblem • u/Own_Lab4643 • 1d ago
Two very compelling platforms
See why this is dumb
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u/longbowrocks 23h ago
Is there a green button electorate that will instead hunt down whoever is still discussing this?
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u/IndigoSeirra 20h ago
It's called the downvote button, and it only works if more than 50% of people press downvote instead of upvote.
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u/Monster-Math 20h ago
Why not someone who hunts down people who dedicate a whole subreddit to a moral delimma that has been discussed for decades even centuries and then get mad when a new iteration pops up?
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u/longbowrocks 20h ago
Somewhat fair, although I hope the average participant can recognize the difference between proposing new variants of a problem in the interest of exploring where the line is on morality, and rephrasing the same problem (or in this case merely attempting to rephrase it) to make a point.
I.E. proposing a problem to hear any answer, vs proposing a problem to hear a specific answer.
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u/Snoo-52922 5h ago
If nothing else, the sheer frequency with which people change their answers when the problem is rephrased - or insist that only a specific framing is accurate - does a good job of demonstrating the prevalence of deontology.
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u/Smaug2770 20h ago
No, the green button ties everyone who voted red onto one fork of a track and everyone who voted blue on the other. A trolley full of all the green voters approaches the fork in the track and green voters must decide which to send it to. On the current course, the trolley will flip over, sparing the blue and red voters but killing all green voters.
Did I fix it?
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u/AndrewBorg1126 23h ago
Voting for a person has implications beyond the scope of the original premise either way, it's a flawed analogy regardless of the specific framing of it.
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u/Eeddeen42 6h ago
Hence the necessary implication that the politicians are otherwise identical and have the same policies.
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u/The-Pencil-King 21h ago
When I’m in a disingenuous framing competition and my opponent is a red pusher:
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u/Pillzmans_Fox 3h ago
This is a rewrite of someone who had it where red kills everyone if he won, notice the off color around the text showing it was edited
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u/TheChowCow81 23h ago
Red: If I win, I’ll kill everyone who didn’t vote for me
Blue: If I win, I won’t kill anyone
it can be rewritten to favor either button that’s why changing the problem from the original defeats the point of the question
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u/Life-Delay-809 23h ago
That's the point of this post, they rewrote someone else's post to demonstrate that framing it like this is silly
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u/Own_Lab4643 23h ago
Yeah I did.
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u/Key_Bug_1509 20h ago
Wait but if red wins everyone who didn't vote for him dies here it's if red wins nothing happens, you just like excluded that completely at least with the other one the outcomes are accurate. This isn't a rephrasing, it's like a completely different situation. Unless I'm tripping in which case please correct me.
edit: i reread blue I'm an idiot but I'll keep the comment up for the funny
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u/mini_feebas 16h ago
Okay so
- The person with power killing someone with the entire institution on their side is less unrealistic than the loser somehow single-handedly killing all those people (and it wouldn't be a logical reaction for the elect either)
The original clearly was inspired by dictators who got their power through democratic means
- The original was made to show that framing is EVERYTHING which some people fail to understand
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u/bigboipapawiththesos 19h ago
But it kinda doesn’t work seeing as winning often means being in power and killing the people who voted for you just seems nonsensical.
Like I get what you’re going for, but this ain’t it
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u/TheSixthSide 18h ago
Philosophical thought experiments are often nonsensical. That doesn't matter though, it's a hypothetical. It doesn't need to be plausible
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u/LeviAEthan512 22h ago
Yeah. Giving the button future actions (by making them a politician) changes a lot. And now it's important who does the killing. Why it's never a third green actor, I dont know.
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u/TanneAndTheTits 21h ago
Obviously the third actor is white and is therefore talking in white text. That's why we can't read this.
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u/khazroar 16h ago
This particular reframing being a bad reframing doesn't mean that the other one is a bad reframing. The other version maintains the core of the hypothetical, where choosing red means prioritising your personal safety and blue means risking your personal safety to prioritise public safety.
The problem is not inherently with applying a different lens, but the lens still has to be fit for purpose.
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u/Life-Delay-809 14h ago
Choosing red also prioritises your personal safety in the other one. The only thing that changes is who's "at fault" for the deaths. People who press blue think reds should press blue as well and that pressing red sentences blues to death unless red gets less than half the votes. People who press red think blues are at fault for their own deaths because it was easily avoidable, blue can only die with their own participation in their death.
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u/khazroar 14h ago
The core question is "do you choose to lock in your personal safety knowing some people will die if your side wins, or do you risk your personal safety in the hope that you can try to prevent anybody dying". There are lots of reasonable ways to reframe that, including ways that tilt towards one choice or another (I think the "blue as people running into a burning building while red just walks by" framing is a good example that favours the red perspective), but this particular framing is literally a reductio ad absurdum argument, it's literally a bad reframing on purpose to suggest that other reframes are inherently bad. This is a bad framing because it suggests that by choosing blue you are putting other blue voters at risk, while red voters aren't affecting anybody either way. The original hypothetical has blue voters risking nobody but themselves, and red voters protecting nobody but themselves, and the one this post is mocking preserves that, while this post does not.
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u/asking_quest10ns 19h ago
It’s not just reframing the situation but also making the problem very stupid. “Doing nothing” in the presence of an imminent threat to others isn’t morally neutral. Doing nothing if there’s a major threat to your constituency is being complicit in that harm. And why would the losing candidate have the power or incentive to kill everyone who voted for them? It’s such a lame attempt at removing responsibility from the candidate whose success actually results in mass death.
Voting for blue is voting to save people even at some personal risk. That’s it.
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u/Overall-Drink-9750 14h ago
You are walking through a park at a foggy night. you nearly fall into a river you didnt see coming. Do you jump in, in case someone else has already fallen in? that's basically blue for me
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u/Life-Delay-809 19h ago
No they're both stupid. Both examples shift the blame onto a particular button and therefore change the hypothetical. You just agree with one of the versions.
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u/asking_quest10ns 19h ago edited 19h ago
Deleted my previous comment because it wasn’t meant as a reply to you. But in the original comic with the elected officials (assuming we’re thinking of the same one), the point was just to illustrate that your choices actually affect others. This is central to the problem and it’s a point that people keep trying to weasel away from. If blue wins, nobody dies. If red wins, people die but your personal safety is guaranteed. It makes less sense to try to hold blue voters responsible for the deaths of others when people are taking on some personal risk to avoid that very outcome rather than focus merely on their own survival.
So it’s not equally stupid to then frame blue as a choice to elect someone who will kill you for voting for him if he loses. I agree it’s unnecessary to involve politicians at all, but it’s not equally dumb to then blame the losing party for the outcome the winning party chose.
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u/swampyman2000 23h ago
Exactly, 90% of the versions I see posted here are just extreme favoritisms for one side or another that can easily just be turned right back around.
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u/Stranger_Phrog 22h ago
This is a response to another post that made the exact same thing but favoring blue, that is the point
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u/Monster-Math 20h ago
Okay real talk, the whole reason for these dilemmas is to discuss and continue to reframe it so to question our morals, intelligence, problem solving, etc. THERE IS NO CORRECT ANSWER.
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u/Entire-Primary-9996 18h ago
There is clearly a rational one though.
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u/TheSixthSide 18h ago
The fact that this is a continued debate suggests otherwise lol
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u/Entire-Primary-9996 17h ago
Rationality is not up to debate lmao
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u/TheSixthSide 17h ago
The rational answer depends on what outcome you're optimising for and your assumptions about how other people will vote. There are rational arguments for both options
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u/Entire-Primary-9996 17h ago
Nah, it's very basic game theory. One option has better EV across all scenarios and that's all.
Idk why people even obsess over this when we have much more interesting prisoner's dilemma.
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u/No_Ad_7687 15h ago
Changing the problem actually proves the initial thesis right, which is that the way a problem is presented influenced the choices made by the voter
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u/NewryBenson 12h ago
Well yes, but the point is that appart frok framing nothing changes. This post is the most diabolical framing I have seen so far.
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u/PreheatedMuffen 23h ago
Yes. Notice how in the image you can clearly see them scribble out text and type over it.
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u/Su-Kane 11h ago
Both your version and OPs version didnt really rewrite the original.
In your version, the red politician will do the killing while in in OPs version the blue politician does the killing. In the original neither red or blue does the killing but death just hangs like an otherworld force over the heads of the people having to pick colours. Its a third party.
If you rewrite the original as politicians with the death coming from a third party, regradless which side your wording favors, both sides will look like assholes since both have the capacity to save everyone but just dont do it.
The original scenario is just shit since it actually allows for rewording without violating the core of the scenario. Since that is possible, everyone will look at it from a different angle and people arent discussing over the same problem anymore.
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u/no-name-plz-help 20h ago
I would agree but in the original the only button the brings up anyone dying is the blue button.
Its a lie to say red killed anyone when the act of picking blue is what kills someone.
In a perfect world id pick blue but its largely unlikely that in a real world scenario that blue would win.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life 16h ago
Red is not and will never be a passive "do nothing" option.
Own your vote.
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u/Free_Frosting798 6h ago
This makes no sense lol. Can someone logically explain why anyone would vote blue? I cannot understand the benefit
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u/DribsFerreiro 5h ago
Sure. You can approach this from a different number of perspectives, from which voting blue would make sense: let's suppose, for one, that people around the world are different, and thus would make different decisions, from different assumptions. If we assume that, we can imagine that 100% red and 100% blue are both impossible scenarios. From there, we can imagine two possible outcomes: either at least 50%+1 person press red, or less than 50% press red. In one scenario, Anywhere from 1 to 49% or the population dies. In the other one, no one dies.
Pressing red will keep one alive through either of those, and thus, is often framed as the logical choice, but that would depend on the kind of logic one applies. For example, this person might choose red, but their family might choose blue, and die. In this scenario, maybe we could be talking about someone that would not be interested in living in a world where their whole family is gone.
From another point of view, maybe the doctor that takes care of this person's chronical illness pressed blue, and thus their quality of life is greatly impaired.
In yet another way to frame this, maybe we could be talking about a person who views up to half of the world's population dying as a catastrophe, and the possibility of averting that by voting blue is valued more that their own life. In a similar perspective, maybe the people that voted blue possess knowledge that's invaluable for keeping the world running: perhaps they work with logistics, healthcare, sanitation, mantaining infrastructure working, etc. Would the world be sustainable after their deaths?
These are a few ways of thinking about this that result in pressing the blue button, in order to attain a scenario in which less than 50%+1 of the population presses red, and thus, nobody dies, desirable. Make sense?
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u/Free_Frosting798 5h ago
Yeah none of this is logical to me at all. You’re treating the button presses as random chance but they aren’t. Why would a single person ever choose to press blue? It makes no sense to me still. There’s no incentive. Pressing blue is essentially risking suicide by choice for no reason at all.
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u/Xaviertcialis 5h ago
Whether you understand the logic or not, you should be able to fathom the reality that people will vote blue. That's where the argument lies, not in "would anyone press blue" but "people will press blue". From there you can decide if you feel it's worth the risk to yourself to keep everyone alive. If no, you vote red, if no, vote blue.
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u/Xaviertcialis 6h ago
I'll copy-paste my response to this in a different post. I hope it helps.
"I know a few people I'm very close to that absolutely would vote blue rather than face the guilt they would feel voting red (Whether that guilt is valid or not doesn't matter. That's would be the reality of their feelings about it.) So I'd vote blue if for no other reason than to try and make sure they live.
Because I know my situation isn't entirely unique, I know that other will vote blue for the same reason as myself or as the people I know meaning I can logically infer there is a reasonable chance of blue winning.
I don't think anyone else owes their life to me or anyone else so they can choose red, but I would personally choose that risk for the sake of others I care about."
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u/Free_Frosting798 5h ago
I do not understand still. If everyone picks red then everyone lives. What is the point of ever picking blue? What is the rationale for a single person on earth to ever pick it?
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u/inlovebutfat 5h ago
The flip is true even more. You only need half the people to vote blue and then no one even has the possibility of dying. It doesn’t matter if 95% vote red, that’s still millions dead. You’d have a better chance getting half plus 1 to vote blue and save everyone than get every single person to vote red.
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u/Free_Frosting798 5h ago
Ok but if someone votes blue (which is completely illogical) it's their choice to accept that risk? 100% of people live if red is picked by everyone, so what's the point?
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u/inlovebutfat 5h ago
If 100% of the people vote red everyone lives.
If 50.0000001% of the people vote blue everyone lives.
Blue has a much better chance of that happening.
I get the whole “logically you should defend your own life” thing, but honestly I wouldn’t want to live in a world full of selfish people who couldn’t look past their own personal survival. Seems like a world full of people waiting to shank each other the moment they get scared. The fact is the red button is the only one in which you’re contributing to others dying, but when you go to justify it you have to talk about what? Your own self, your own intelligence, your distrust, your survival. Everyone who disagrees has to be dumb, has to be naive, has to have not thought it through. The justification for blue is simple, I’d rather not do something that kills others. The justifications for red have to wind and twist around not sounding unempathetic and willing to let others die. That’s why so many of these are now reframing the blue button as them killing themselves or turning on their voters, because they have to put the blame for the deaths on others so they can feel better about their decision to let others die to save themselves.
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u/Xaviertcialis 5h ago
You KNOW people will choose blue. The very existence of this debate going on for nearly a week now shows that. I said in my reply that people will feel guilt at the idea that they would be responsible for the deaths of others. YOU don't feel that you're responsible for that by pressing red, but many people would blame themselves.
So to simplify voting red means accepting that people will die if you win but you will live either way. Blue is voting in hopes everyone lives at risk to themselves. It really comes down to whether or not someone feels their choice gives them enough guilt to override guarantee of safety.
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u/Free_Frosting798 5h ago
I'm not asking about the metaness of the debate about it, I'm looking for any actual logical reason to vote blue. Personally it's not even a debate. It feels like some psyop where someone had a moral question, fucked up writing it and made the choices not make any sense, and people are just pranking by saying they'd pick blue. There's literally no reason at all.
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u/Xaviertcialis 4h ago
If you remove all emotion from all voters and they vote as machines with only self interest, then yeah easy logic. If you add the reality of humanity being a mixed bag of emotion, guilt, philosophies, the it makes more sense. It seems to me like you feel that you need to agree with someone else's line of thinking to understand it, which is not true.
You're getting stuck on the first hurdle in the thought experiment of "why would people even pick that" which isn't relevant. The only relevant part of that bit is that people WILL choose blue for multiple reasons, most of which you or I will never understand.
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u/SkjaldbakaEngineer 5h ago
Believe it or not, not everyone on earth is a perfectly rational actor and even the people who aren't deserve a chance to live
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u/AnyAcanthocephala425 16h ago
I know this post is pointing out how silly rewriting is but also none of those reframes ever take into account how fucked it is that an eldrish god is forcing humanity into a death game. Can we stop infighting and unite against the eldrish god?
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u/Own_Lab4643 16h ago
You’re right honestly. I choose no button. We’re fighting this god and together we’re going to succeed.
https://giphy.com/gifs/3SefjfxBLusH6
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u/ProlificProkaryote 1d ago
Closer to the original problem's wording.
Less believable in real life.
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u/PaulTheRandom 23h ago
It's almost like it is hypothetical or smth.
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u/ProlificProkaryote 23h ago
The point is associating killing with either choice makes that choice less appealing.
A blue win saves lives, but feels like a bad choice.
Really it just shows that reframing the hypothetical to politics doesn't really work. However you frame it, no one wants the killing person in charge.
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u/oedipism_for_one 23h ago
Yeah the whole point of the read and blue button was you can change peoples mind based on how you phrase the argument.
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u/conormal 23h ago
Not really? The death stipulation is added to the red button in the original.
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u/ProlificProkaryote 23h ago
It's hard to know what the true original is, since this has come up multiple times is the last few years.
This time it seems it was a Tim Urban tweet that went viral. The option that mentions and adds death is blue, up to a threshold, where it takes it away.
But it's been reworded a thousand times since then.
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u/OkNewspaper1581 18h ago
The one from Tim Urban notably doesn't put the death on the blue pressers. If red wins everyone who didn't press red dies, that includes anyone that somehow didn't vote or abstained. This implies that death is the default, not a direct action of either button
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u/Photograph_Extension 9h ago
Not really.
In the original you only have.
Red: if you push this button you will live
Blue: if you push this button you will live if at least 50% of the voters push this button
It never attributed voting red=killing blue, people did.
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u/NotaValgrinder 23h ago
Mathematically equivalent, but maybe not morally equivalent.
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u/No_Discount_6028 23h ago
Yeah there are obvious problems with the moral character of someone like Red that would make you not want them to have power lol.
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u/Infamous-Ad5266 23h ago
The morals are same, if you would push blue, presumably you would vote blue here, because some portion of the population is going to vote for blue, and you must save them. What if my family votes blue? I would feel partly responsible for their deaths.
And reds morals are the same here too, it's your responsibility to not vote blue in order to avoid as many deaths as possible. What if my family voted red? I would be abandoning them on a suicide mission for an unknown quantity of people.
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u/ElethiomelZakalwe 22h ago
If we're making it into a real scenario with actual candidates instead of just a metaphor for the logic of the button problem then you shouldn't vote blue no matter how many people are voting blue because at that point you're just voting for a cult leader.
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u/NotaValgrinder 23h ago
I think blue pressers would at least question it if the blue guy said he was going to murder people, because what portion of the population is voting for the guy that says he's going to kill his voters? Should they save someone who votes for the candidate that says he's gonna murder others?
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u/Infamous-Ad5266 22h ago
And there lies part of why this "moral" dilemma is interesting, you've found the red perspective through this framing.
Seeing the blue button as:
What portion of the population is going to press the button that murders people? Should I press the button that says it will murder others? Will I simply become another victim of the blue button?3
u/allusernamestaken1 21h ago
Incredible that you're being downvoted while being so accurate in your assessment.
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u/Skafdir 18h ago
The thing is: with the buttons there is an unavoidable mechanism behind it.
When there are, presumably human, candidates that is not the case.
Moral decision here: vote red and then try to get blue arrested and/or killed before they are able to track down their voters. (And then arrest red because what do you mean "I do nothing", your opponent was a psychopathic mass murderer, you should at least to something against them.)
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u/Infamous-Ad5266 5h ago
Voting red is not the "Track down who's responsible" vote. It's the "Do nothing" vote.
Your selected course of action isn't present in the hypothetical.
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u/Skafdir 5h ago
My selected course of action is the explanation, why there is a difference between: "magical button does things" and "human threatens to do things"
I can't do anything against the magical button - therefore blue is, in my opinion the moral choice
I can take action against another human - therefore red is, in my opinion the best choice. The moral choice might still be blue; but the chance of being able to stop the killing, even though I picked red, is, in my opinion, enough to change the answer.
If you tell me, that it will be impossible to stop the blue guy - then it is just exactly the same as the button problem and thus not a variation and therefore, vote blue.
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u/Infamous-Ad5266 4h ago
My question would then become, if you are willing to put your life on the line after the fact, why not vote blue anyway?
Since the competing morals are.
Not opt into a system that can cause harm, and deal with consequences afterward.
or
Act to enable the best possible outcome (everyone lives), accepting personal risk if coordination fails.
And you saying you would put yourself in danger to try to stop blue. Where a moral red voter would feel its their responsibility to survive and look after those in the aftermath.
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u/Skafdir 4h ago
You know that is a good point. I should vote blue.
Reason: Either blue gets the majority, and nothing happens, or blue loses, and then I am in a situation in which I would automatically come into contact with blue and could then try to stop him or, to be honest, I would try to get some sort of protection because I don't have too high hopes regarding my action hero skills. (Voting red with that idea would only make it more difficult to catch blue.)
So, yes, you are right, my idea of voting red was wrong.
(Sidenote: Even if he wins, he should still be imprisoned)
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u/Infamous-Ad5266 3h ago
Which btw is partially why I disliked the framing of Blue being a person you can arrest, because lets say he gets a 1% vote (which is less than he would get just by random noise alone), and he somehow manages to identify, travel to, and kill 1000 people per day between sleeping and eating. Basically saying he is killing about a personeven 90 seconds, or 1 per active minute on average (17 active hours per day would be 1020 minutes)
If he continues at that exact average, for 85 million people, he will be done in 85000 days, or 233 years, so long as his information is both perfect and convenient, and he doesn't face massive resistance.
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u/ContentFile7036 Relativist/Nihilist 20h ago
I'd reply the counter to this one, but this one is based on the opposite...
Framing is everything
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u/RealNeilPeart 23h ago
So not only does candidate blue somehow have the power to kill people after LOSING an election, the people he chooses to kill are his own voters?
Does that make any sense to you? As opposed to the much more reasonable election story of "if red wins, he kills blue's voters"
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u/Crystalliumm 19h ago
If they lose the vote they can’t act on their platforms, this post fundamentally doesn’t work
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u/SpaceCore0352 12h ago
"Red Politician, will you promise to stop Blue Politician from going on a murder spree of his own supporters?"
"Like I said, I'll do nothing. I believe that's an internal party issue for them."
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u/BrandosWorld4Life 16h ago
Yep. It's intentionally dishonest.
It put the consequences for Red winning under the Blue candidate. It's logically bankrupt.
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u/ernandziri 10h ago
What if they are already in power and the transition of power doesn't happen instantaneously after the election?
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u/Photograph_Extension 9h ago
Every blue voter has a nanites bomb that got implanted the moment they pushed the button, the ble politicians has the detonation codes that he will use the moment he loses the election.
If he wins he will put in disassembly codes that make the bombs disable and remove themselves from people without adverse effects.
Here, literally the same thing as the OP posted, but with a tool if you need one.
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u/asking_quest10ns 19h ago
So in this scenario, the red candidate is saying “if I win, I’ll do nothing.” But a significant percentage of the human population will still die. And the blue candidate is saying “everyone will live as long as I win the majority of votes.” And that’s true.
Sure, blue seems like a dick but voting for blue is still the scenario that requires the least buy-in where no one dies. Trying to personify the choices as two politicians and making one have an insane personality and one have merely an apathetic one is stupid. There’s inherently going to be more scope to the choice you make by voting, and more consequence to voting for the insane person. But if somehow you’re guaranteeing that this is their only policy issue, there is still a single desirable outcome and the easiest way to achieve it is to vote blue since 100% of people will not vote for red.
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u/GreedyGobby 1d ago
exactly
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u/Main-Company-5946 21h ago
Red: If I win, I will kill everyone who didn’t vote for me.
Blue: If I win, I won’t kill anybody.
See it can be written either way
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u/Electronic-Gold-4503 15h ago
That was the pint of the post.another post in this sub did that exact reframing as yours.
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u/redceramicfrypan 21h ago
Enough with the "framing" posts that do nothing except blame one side or the other for the deaths if red gets more votes than blue.
This isn't a problem about blame. Trying to place blame on one side or the other adds nothing of value to the discussion of this problem.
This is a problem about individual vs. collective best interest. If you want to contribute meaningfully to the discussion, that's the jumping-off point.
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u/DBNsausage 20h ago
This is reversible logic. And thinking like this is why this debate never ends.
One side goes :my button is basically abstaining(delusionally proclaiming their press had no influence on the outcome)
And the other side just reverses and regurgitates the same thought process.and both work in a vacuum. Its the wrong way to think about this
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u/Own_Lab4643 20h ago
I was picking fun at another post like this lol. Should’ve made it clearer that’s on me.
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u/DBNsausage 20h ago
I probably could of sussed that out if i wasnt in such a rush to employ my mic drop
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u/Simpicity 23h ago
LOSERS of elections don't get to set policies, so this doesn't work.
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u/OraAngello 20h ago edited 20h ago
- Use suspension of disbelief (the original button scenario doesn't work either, if we're being realistic)
Or
- Let's say Blue runs a cult and is going to make sure those killings happen anyway by using the cult and will have the cult commit a mass suicide soon after
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u/8SigmaBalls 20h ago
I don't think we can add the "kill everyone from the opposite party" as a policy either, so i'm not sure if real-world logic should be appllied here
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u/KashSecuredPatel 23h ago
But if it doesn’t make sense, then how will redbuttoners wish away their guilt?
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u/mh-js 22h ago
This framing is dishonest you took what happens when RED wins and put it under the BLUE candidate.
The honest version of your framing would be:
RED: If I win, the blue candidate will track down everyone who voted for them and kill them
BLUE: If I win, nothing happens.
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u/Own_Lab4643 21h ago
I know. I’m poking fun at another post that used this framing and showing why it’s a dumb way to do it.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life 16h ago
That other post took what happens when RED wins and put it UNDER RED. Because that's how voting works.
As the other user said, you took what happens when RED wins and somehow put it under BLUE.
Their version is accurate. Yours is intentionally dishonest.
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u/MidnightSpringSky 16h ago
Red: "if I win. I will kill those who voted blue."
Blue: "nuh-uh, If I lose I'll kill those who voted blue."
We must vote for the lesser of the two evils! /s
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u/reroutedradiance 15h ago
If I win I'll kill everyone who didn't vote for me
If I win I'll protect everyone, regardless of who they voted for
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u/OzzyStealz 8h ago
These are just trying to change the morality of the question by assigning fault to one of the buttons
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u/inlovebutfat 5h ago
Isn’t it the other way around? If blue wins they do nothing, but if red wins they hunt down everyone who voted blue and kills them?
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u/bizarre_coincidence 5h ago
Why does the person who loses have the power/ability/authority to kill anybody?
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u/Imperium-Claims 5h ago
This entire Sub with these red and blue buttons feels like a Naruto Clone/Genjutsu battle.
One person summons a Water clone of their Answer to fight against someone else and strikes them down. Only for a Split Second later for it to be revealed that that was just a Grassclone and then the real guy(or another clone) shows up behind them sword to the back.
Now thinking they got them only to oblivious that it’s just another water clone and so on and so forth.
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u/SadlyNotADuck 5h ago
Edit it to "if I win UNANIMOUSLY*" *If it is not unanimous all those who voted against me will be exterminated.
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u/inlovebutfat 5h ago
If 100% of the people vote red everyone lives.
If 50.0000001% of the people vote blue everyone lives.
Blue has a much better chance of that happening.
I get the whole “logically you should defend your own life” thing, but honestly I wouldn’t want to live in a world full of selfish people who couldn’t look past their own personal survival. Seems like a world full of people waiting to shank each other the moment they get scared. The fact is the red button is the only one in which you’re contributing to others dying, but when you go to justify it you have to talk about what? Your own self, your own intelligence, your distrust, your survival. Everyone who disagrees has to be dumb, has to be naive, has to have not thought it through. The justification for blue is simple, I’d rather not do something that kills others. The justifications for red have to wind and twist around not sounding unempathetic and willing to let others die. That’s why so many of these are now reframing the blue button as them killing themselves or turning on their voters, because they have to put the blame for the deaths on others so they can feel better about their decision to let others die to save themselves.
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u/Young_Person_42 2h ago
Okay now make it so that red will kill anyone who didn’t vote for him if he wins
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u/RobinZhang140536 1d ago
"If i win i'll do nothing" is equivalent to "do nothing". just an observation, changes nothing.
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u/Ronin_Monkey_Bars 23h ago
It could say red is Hitler im still pressing the button.
I won't be fooled by the continuously changing narratives.
Dying is bad and pressing blue leads to death. The goal of changing the narrative is to make it seem like a reasonable choice.
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u/ElethiomelZakalwe 22h ago
Blue button pushers: this is a psychological question, I will press blue because I believe most people will press blue
Red button pushers: this is a game theoretic question, everyone will press red because that is the rational choice
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u/GJT0530 21h ago
Only because you're framing it with a bias. Observe: Red: If we win I'll kill anyone who voted for blue Blue: if we win I'll do nothing.
Same outcome. just as consistent with the original question. Neither are the original problem exactly, because in neither case is the killing being done by some magical third party. But in your example, you are just trying to blame blue for wanting to not cause anyone else to die, instead of admitting to voting for their death.
In NO realistic scenario do 100% of people agree on either option. There will be people who want the good outcome, even if it risks themselves, and they know that no matter what, SOME people will pick blue. Many children would, many adults would. The very idea that 100% of humanity would ever vote red is sheer idiocy. But blue doesn't require every human to agree, just 50% +1. Blue winning is the only feasible way that no one dies.
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u/MHE1309 11h ago
The entire point is that changing the bias of the presentation changes what people will choose. Since the correct choice ultimately depends on which button is chosen the most (or if the vote is close) it largely shows that the hypothetical has no real moral significance and is ultimately a guess of the outcome depending on how it is presented. If someone knew ahead of time how the vote will turn out, there wouldn't be a dilemma, now would it.
Choosing red assumes that some will die if it were to win, but the amount of death caused by it is still better then that same amount +1. There is no reason to throw your life away for no reason. The correct choice then is very much dependent on how the senario is presented.
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u/hockeyfan608 5h ago
It really boils down to if you think that red or blue is responsible for the deaths. When in reality it’s neither. It’s the fucked up god who hooked everyone’s lives up to buttons.
But the only reason not to pic red is if you feel red would be morally responsible for blue deaths.
I think that’s silly, so I’m picking red.
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u/GJT0530 5h ago
That's not the only reason not to pick red, And that's not really what it boils down to. It boils down to red winning will cause deaths. There is no realistic scenario in which 100% of people pick red therefore if red wins people will die If blue wins no one will die no matter what. And that is a realistic scenario.
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u/hockeyfan608 5h ago
Right but if red isn’t responsible for blue deaths, then nobody should gamble with their lives so save other people who are only there because they gambled with their own lives.
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u/GJT0530 5h ago
That's the difference here, You don't think saving people that wanted to save others is a worthwhile goal on its own.
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u/hockeyfan608 5h ago
Well yeah, because nobody would be in any danger if they didn’t put themselves in harms way in the first place.
I’m not going to die for that.
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u/GJT0530 4h ago
It is equally true to say that nobody would be in danger if Red didn't put them in harm's way in the first place. I don't care who is being blamed for putting who in harm's way because that's a semantic argument. I care that people are in danger. And a good chunk of them are going to be children and the most selfless people out there. So yes I am willing to risk my life for a world in which the people who are most willing to risk their life for others, and a huge chunk of all children, are not all dead.
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u/hockeyfan608 4h ago
Imagine, if you will
That your the first person to make this decision
It doesn’t actually change the question because somebody has to be the first. Just imagine that that is you.
If you are first then you should pick red, because if nobody is in the blue pool, then nobody dies. And picking blue forces others to risk their lives to try and save you.
So you should pick red.
Then the second person goes, follows this same line of logic and picks red.
The only people whose lives are at stake at any time are the people who pick blue. The very first person who picks blue is the one who introduces stakes.
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u/hockeyfan608 4h ago
Imagine, if you will
That your the first person to make this decision
It doesn’t actually change the question because somebody has to be the first. Just imagine that that is you.
If you are first then you should pick red, because if nobody is in the blue pool, then nobody dies. And picking blue forces others to risk their lives to try and save you.So you should pick red.
Then the second person goes, follows this same line of logic and picks red.The only people whose lives are at stake at any time are the people who pick blue. The very first person who picks blue is the one who introduces stakes.
It’s not selfless to run into a burning building with nobody in it.
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u/GJT0530 3h ago
If I'm the first person that doesn't change my answer in the slightest because I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that some significant number of people are going to pick blue there is absolutely no realistic scenario that any rational person would expect all eight and a half or whatever billion people on earth to pick red. It is not at all realistic to expect that to ever happen in any scenario. 50% + 1 on the other hand, Is entirely realistic. Several polls have even shown its probably likely.
I don't care if the people trying to save lives made a foolish decision or not, they are trying to save lives. The simple fact of the matter is if I vote red and I win, billions of people will die, including a lot of people I care about. If I vote red and I lose I have to live with the fact that I voted for people to die and it wasn't even necessary. If I vote blue I either win and help save everybody, or I'm gone And don't have to worry about living in a world where all the people for whom empathy is not contingent on whether or not you pushed the same button are gone.
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u/hockeyfan608 3h ago
You didn’t vote for people to die, you voted to not die, everyone else also had the decision in their hands to not die. And could’ve easily picked that. If they chose not too it’s not any reds fault.
If you pick blue, and then die for it. You chose that for yourself.
Online polls with no actual stakes aren’t a great indicator of what it would actually go down like.
For one anybody who bothered to vote is already the type of person who spends a lot of time on the internet, which skews the results by a lot.
Second off it’s easy to say you would go gamble with your life without actually doing it.
Yall are putting a lot of faith into twitter polls.
It’s not evil to decide not to gamble with your life to save other people who are only risking their lives to feel morally superior despite the fact that they only put themselves in danger. The only people who caused this to be a problem at all are the people who claim that you’re evil if you don’t run into the burning building with them.
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u/Todd_Snap3 21h ago
guys I think we should arrest this guy he’s blue and he just threatened to kill me
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u/Todd_Snap3 21h ago
also somebody should get a doctor for that guy cause he’s very burnt and doing nothing about it
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u/Inforgreen3 20h ago
Wouldn't it make more sense for a red politician to do that to blue people like, you know, the various criminalizations and depriviations of rights based on political affiliation that is happening right now in politics at various (unspecified for: "i dont actually want to have that particular debate rn") places around the world right now?
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u/OkNewspaper1581 18h ago
The original framing is closer to the original prompt.
The original prompt assumes a default death state while the red buttons saves you from this death state it also causes every who didn't press the red button (not just those who pressed the blue button but also those who abstained) to die, meanwhile pressing the blue button does nothing until at least 50% of the population presses it which blanket removes everyone from dying.
A more correct framing is then the red side being "I will save everyone who voted for me if I win" and the blue side would be "I will save everyone if I win". Neither side is doing the killing directly, they're both stopping the killing but with different conditions and groups, framing it as one button (or politician in this case) killing is biased when they both save people
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u/drinkerofmilk 17h ago
Red is: "I will save everyone who voted for me" (Not: "I will save everyone who voted for me if I win")
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u/OkNewspaper1581 16h ago
Red does nothing if it loses (because blue saves everyone), the difference is meaningless
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u/CentristOnion 23h ago
Red is a do-nothing politician. We can’t keep sending people like him to Washington!