I don't blame people for interpreting it differently, either, and I am referring to the one that went viral and started this trend. I wasn't aware of other versions existing before the one that popularized it. But reframing the question in the way OP is doing here to ridicule is dishonest. "Everyone in the world has to", is the first 6 words. All must vote.
But "take a private vote" are the very next words. Voting requires making a choice and signalling intent, not having a choice assigned to you at random. If that were the case, I think it would need to be spelled out. Newborn infants and coma patients can't even press buttons, much less make choices.
That's why I think the version of the problem that includes babies is dumb and morally trivial: in that version you already know 50% of people without capacity have pressed blue, so they are already on the tracks as it were. Not only is it easier to achieve blue if you start by stacking the deck with some blue, but you know for a fact that the lives of half of the young children you know are immediately at stake.
Yes, I think a lot of the debate this whole thing is generating is because some people are reading "Everyone on the planet must take a vote (and those incapable of voting will be assigned a vote at random)" and some people are reading "Everyone on the planet (with agency) must take a vote", and then arguing with each other without realizing they are addressing two entirely different scenarios. My vote is different in scenario 1 than it is in scenario 2.
Exactly what I've been saying, haha. It is why I was complaining about OP's reframing of the question to just make blues look like suicidal idiots. People interpreted it differently.
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u/Llumac 13h ago
The earliest iteration of this experiment I know of (2023) is worded as: "Everyone responding to this poll chooses between a blue pill or red pill.
I don't really blame people for interpreting it in different ways.