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Everyone on Earth has to press a button

Which button do you press?

  • Blue

    Votes: 104 41.4%
  • Red

    Votes: 147 58.6%

  • Total voters
    251
People voting red are decreasing chance for blue to win = everyone survives scenario.

So yeah, they ARE responsible.
No, they are only not diminishing the chance. Again, you are confusing causation and negation. The people voting blue do not start with 0% chance of death and then have that percentage increase for every person voting red. They take on a risk of death that is 100% if they are the only voter, then if more people vote it is not decreasing progressively, rather it remains at 100% and each person is increasing the number of potential dead people until it crosses the threshold and completely removes the threat. So each person voting blue is maximizing the number of dead until the death is removed in whole. They started out with 0% chance of dying before voting and by rejecting red they introduced the chance of death to themselves, not the people voting red. People voting red only decided to not participate in the "majority or die together" gamble.

You can tell yourself that. But if that scenario actually happened, and half your family died because they voted blue while you would see them die and continue living having voted red, you might feel differently.
If the results were revealed and it was lost by one single vote, maybe. However I would still be fully aware that I had no idea at the time of choosing and it was a foolish gamble to join into, as proven by the results.
 
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GAF are a higher intelligence tier than Twitter
Meh Kinda GIF by Cultura
 
No, they are only not diminishing the chance. Again, you are confusing causation and negation. The people voting blue do not start with 0% chance of death and then have that percentage increase for every person voting red. They take on a risk of death that is 100% if they are the only voter, then if more people vote it is not decreasing progressively, rather it remains at 100% and each person is increasing the number of potential dead people until it crosses the threshold and completely removes the threat. So each person voting blue is maximizing the number of dead until the death is removed in whole. They started out with 0% chance of dying before voting and by rejecting red they introduced the chance of death to themselves, not the people voting red. People voting red only decided to not participate in the "majority or die together" gamble.


If the results were revealed and it was lost by one single vote, maybe. However I would still be fully aware that I had no idea at the time of choosing and it was a foolish gamble to join into, as proven by the results.

You can't control how women, young, toddlers, old people, disabled etc. would vote - but you can be 100% sure that some of them will vote blue on purpose or by accident.

If you vote red you are willing to accept their deaths and contribute to eventual "win" of red votes, if you vote blue you try to achieve blue majority to save all people.
 
You can't control how women, young, toddlers, old people, disabled etc. would vote - but you can be 100% sure that some of them will vote blue on purpose or by accident.

If you vote red you are willing to accept their deaths and contribute to eventual "win" of red votes, if you vote blue you try to achieve blue majority to save all people.
Yes, I am willing to accept that people bear the responsibility of their own decisions, even if that results in death, even if their foolishness or ignorance in choosing what they choose is why. I do it every day. Literally everyone does it every day. I do not risk my life to increase the chance of saving others by 8,000,000,000th of a chance.
 
I'm guessing the point of his question is ostensibly how much faith do you have in people to do the smart thing rather than what decision is smartest. How much faith you have in others will influence your decision.
 
Blender and gun examples are changing the question, and you have to do something requiring way more from you - not to mention you see the dangerous objects in front of you.

With the buttons you just have to push them and blue choice seems to be the "good" one ("what would hero Himmel do?") - there are no negative correlations like with gun or blades of blender.
 
Joining a completely volunteer suicide pact that only gets cancelled if over half the world joins you is a really weird notion of "good." Seems more like some chaotic evil that a demon would try to fool you into.
 


Another example of how simply changing the phrasing makes the correct answer glaringly obvious

Ok imagine the everyone choose loaded or unloaded guns in a room with let's say ten people - 7 average adults, a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and an adult with severe learning difficulties. You need 50% to choose loaded guns, otherwise anyone who picks a loaded gun has to shoot themselves with it. I think the answer is glaringly obvious to me - but I think my answer doesn't risk a 2 year old having to blow their head-off.
 
Ok imagine the everyone choose loaded or unloaded guns in a room with let's say ten people - 7 average adults, a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and an adult with severe learning difficulties. You need 50% to choose loaded guns, otherwise anyone who picks a loaded gun has to shoot themselves with it. I think the answer is glaringly obvious to me - but I think my answer doesn't risk a 2 year old having to blow their head-off.
It's the empathy part that many of the people here seem to struggle with I think. It's quite interesting, (and relieving), to see that most votes elsewhere were for blue, but I'm curious as to the correlation of pressing red and not being a parent. I theorize that whether one has kids or not is going to massively influence their vote.
 
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And for those parents out there who say they'd vote blue. Would you also tell your child to vote blue? Or would you tell them to vote red to guarantee they survive?
 
It's the empathy part that many of the people here seem to struggle with I think. It's quite interesting, (and relieving), to see that most votes elsewhere were for blue, but I'm curious as to the correlation of pressing red and not being a parent. I theorize that whether one has kids or not is going to massively influence their vote.

- Blue 'is the humane choice' (but I haven't really thought why). Why would anyone pick red?!
- Blue. Red is correct and totally sensible, but I have to save the Blues from themselves!
- Red. Why should I risk my life for no obvious reason? I won't miss any idiots that can't save themselves with such a simple choice.
- Red. Surely nobody is dumb enough to pick blue? We'll be fine.
 
I chose blue because it's the top option, which is basically the left option. When I don't know which way to pick, a little line from the Beastie Boys plays in my head:

I'll fake right, crossover and shoot lefty
 
Red. And think of all the free leftover shit we'll get from dumbass Blue voters!

I don't want to hear any of this "but but the fetus in the womb is going to have to randomly paw at the buttons with its proto-hand" bullshit either.
 
Joining a completely volunteer suicide pact that only gets cancelled if over half the world joins you is a really weird notion of "good." Seems more like some chaotic evil that a demon would try to fool you into.
You're trying too hard to pretend that voting red has no moral consequence.
 
Pressing red is a valid and rational choice, ensuring self-preservation and opting out of the gamble. But it is also a vote for the death of the blues.
 
It really needs a "if everyone presses red, then everyone also dies" clause to try to FORCE the altruistic choice, the blue button, over the purely self survival of the red. Plus if little kids have to press, definitely some of them will randomly press blue.
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I have no faith in today's society. Social media made everyone a narcisist.

I'm 100% sure Blue wouldnt get 50%

I'm Team Red all the way, and would tell all my friends and family to vote red
 
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Since people are throwing politics into it because of the colors, I'm extremely far left and will be pushing red. If you're dumb enough to push the blue button that's on you.
I just break it down to red = guaranteed to live, blue = might die. Simple as that. I'm pushing red.

BUT WAIT, with the actual wording of the question...even children who don't know anything about anything will be pressing the button. And if they die I'm dying with them. So I'm going to try to help them by pressing BLUE. Final answer given the proposed scenario.

Edit: Also I'm an idiot and chose red in the poll results when my actual answer is BLUE. I think I just killed a bunch of people. My bad.
 
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And for those parents out there who say they'd vote blue. Would you also tell your child to vote blue? Or would you tell them to vote red to guarantee they survive?
The question is about private vote. Meaning you cannot discuss it with anyone, and everyone must vote, incl. people who cannot even comprehend the question. So there WILL be blue voters (some even in your family) and you WILL be contributing to their death if you vote red and red wins.
 
Again, I don't see how pushing red is voting to kill the blue voters. It is simply choosing to not attempt negating their action of choosing to risk their own death. They decide to put themselves in a situation where over half the world needs to join them to not die. If I do not attempt to save them from that choice it doesn't automatically mean they will die. Maybe over half the world will choose what they do and it will be okay. I don't know but I am not risking my life to potentially weigh my 8 billionth measure of influence towards it, as it may do nothing but add the weight of influence to a failed attempt and add another death; my own, which is worse to me, yet also objectively just another increase of the negative effect of voting blue in a failing scenario.

There is no causative function in voting red, there is only the absence of effort towards negating a situation blue voters cause to be. The moral weight is on their decision to needlessly take on risk of death and red voters bear no moral weight. Personal intention of salvific purpose in voting blue does not exist to the outcomes; objectively, every vote for blue is a vote for death until it clears the bar, at which point it becomes innocuous. It is 100% failure and death until it is 100% no change. Yet failure/death would not occur until blue votes under threshold occur, so as the total vote is happening in the same moment, it would be those voting blue who cause it to take place, not the people voting red. A red vote does not add a single person to the death list. A red vote does not need to be negated. It is from the outset, materially, a vote for no change; essentially leaving blue votes to bring upon themselves whatever they do or do not.

Even if one assumes blue votes are absolutely inevitable, then it would be whatever imposed and enforces this vote on humanity that is the causative function bearing moral weight. Red voters never decided or acted towards making blue votes happen, so how can they be morally implicated? To me this is the same as people who make child soldiers by threatening to kill their family. The child is not morally implicated for this decision forced on them, whether it is the death of someone else or of their family. The moral weight would fall on the person trapping them in a double-bind. Yet even that analogy is failing this because the voting is not doing the killing and a red vote is simply a rejection of the double-bind made possible by the proposition and manifested by blue votes.

No one has properly demonstrated how this is untrue. I also don't see how there wouldn't be a large measure of hypocrisy in the lives of those saying blue votes are some sort of mortal duty. Every day people are in situations which can lead to their death that they put themselves into with bad decisions. Every day people are in situations where they did not decide and may die from natural disasters and climate change and whatnot. Do you think you have a moral duty to risk your life to prevent those outcomes from occurring? Have you structured your life around doing this? If not, then apparently you do not think the moral responsibility actually falls on you, but that each person bears the weight of their own choices and navigation of the risks imposed on their life.

Making the effort may be a good thing to do, a sacrifice, a heroic deed of some sort, but saying that is very different from saying you are morally implicated for the deaths that occur if you do not do such things, especially if we are talking on the level of risking your own life. I think those trying to impose risking one's own life as a moral duty are the ones who are actually morally implicated from the act of that imposition. I would never expect it of someone else to risk their life to save others from their choices or judge them for not doing it, which is the very thing that makes such acts heroic/worth celebrating if they do. Yet this proposition is also not equative to voting blue, since voting blue would be causing the danger that one is hoping to also negate. The russian roulette analogy I used before seems more fitting. It is not heroic to win russian roulette, it is only a lucky outcome of recklessness.
 
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Since people are throwing politics into it because of the colors, I'm extremely far left and will be pushing red. If you're dumb enough to push the blue button that's on you.
I just break it down to red = guaranteed to live, blue = might die. Simple as that. I'm pushing red.

BUT WAIT, with the actual wording of the question...even children who don't know anything about anything will be pressing the button. And if they die I'm dying with them. So I'm going to try to help them by pressing BLUE. Final answer given the proposed scenario.

Edit: Also I'm an idiot and chose red in the poll results when my actual answer is BLUE. I think I just killed a bunch of people. My bad.
This question does seem to be more about nihilism than left or right. But technically I don't think that nihilism describes it as a true nihilist would have no problem picking blue even if they thought they were the only blue voter. Possibly they would just sit and watch the buttons to see what happens if they don't choose. Technically it is more of a test of Egoism, which is often called nihilism. Egoism is a sort of horseshoe position were many regular people would be freaked out by it but you have people on the fringes of left and right who advocate it like Max Stirner and Ayn Rand.
 
Again, I don't see how pushing red is voting to kill the blue voters. It is simply choosing to not attempt negating their action of choosing to risk their own death. They decide to put themselves in a situation where over half the world needs to join them to not die. If I do not attempt to save them from that choice it doesn't automatically mean they will die. Maybe over half the world will choose what they do and it will be okay. I don't know but I am not risking my life to potentially weigh my 8 billionth measure of influence towards it, as it may do nothing but add the weight of influence to a failed attempt and add another death; my own, which is worse to me, yet also objectively just another increase of the negative effect of voting blue in a failing scenario.

There is no causative function in voting red, there is only the absence of effort towards negating a situation blue voters cause to be. The moral weight is on their decision to needlessly take on risk of death and red voters bear no moral weight. Personal intention of salvific purpose in voting blue does not exist to the outcomes; objectively, every vote for blue is a vote for death until it clears the bar, at which point it becomes innocuous. It is 100% failure and death until it is 100% no change. Yet failure/death would not occur until blue votes under threshold occur, so as the total vote is happening in the same moment, it would be those voting blue who cause it to take place, not the people voting red. A red vote does not add a single person to the death list. A red vote does not need to be negated. It is from the outset, materially, a vote for no change; essentially leaving blue votes to bring upon themselves whatever they do or do not.

Even if one assumes blue votes are absolutely inevitable, then it would be whatever imposed and enforces this vote on humanity that is the causative function bearing moral weight. Red voters never decided or acted towards making blue votes happen, so how can they be morally implicated? To me this is the same as people who make child soldiers by threatening to kill their family. The child is not morally implicated for this decision forced on them, whether it is the death of someone else or of their family. The moral weight would fall on the person trapping them in a double-bind. Yet even that analogy is failing this because the voting is not doing the killing and a red vote is simply a rejection of the double-bind made possible by the proposition and manifested by blue votes.

No one has properly demonstrated how this is untrue. I also don't see how there wouldn't be a large measure of hypocrisy in the lives of those saying blue votes are some sort of mortal duty. Every day people are in situations which can lead to their death that they put themselves into with bad decisions. Every day people are in situations where they did not decide and may die from natural disasters and climate change and whatnot. Do you think you have a moral duty to risk your life to prevent those outcomes from occurring? Have you structured your life around doing this? If not, then apparently you do not think the moral responsibility actually falls on you, but that each person bears the weight of their own choices and navigation of the risks imposed on their life.

Making the effort may be a good thing to do, a sacrifice, a heroic deed of some sort, but saying that is very different from saying you are morally implicated for the deaths that occur if you do not do such things, especially if we are talking on the level of risking your own life. I think those trying to impose risking one's own life as a moral duty are the ones who are actually morally implicated from the act of that imposition. I would never expect it of someone else to risk their life to save others from their choices or judge them for not doing it, which is the very thing that makes such acts heroic/worth celebrating if they do. Yet this proposition is also not equative to voting blue, since voting blue would be causing the danger that one is hoping to also negate. The russian roulette analogy I used before seems more fitting. It is not heroic to win russian roulette, it is only a lucky outcome of recklessness.
You are right.

Still many people will choose blue. There is no way to logic people out of their feelings. And they have a right to choose according to their feelings.

The basis for both sides are so different yet fascinating.
 
but I'm curious as to the correlation of pressing red and not being a parent. I theorize that whether one has kids or not is going to massively influence their vote.
And for those parents out there who say they'd vote blue. Would you also tell your child to vote blue? Or would you tell them to vote red to guarantee they survive?
Yes, this would be the more interesting second question. All those moral-high-ground blue parents deciding whether to make their own kids risk their lives too for other people.
 
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Blender and gun examples are changing the question, and you have to do something requiring way more from you - not to mention you see the dangerous objects in front of you.

With the buttons you just have to push them and blue choice seems to be the "good" one ("what would hero Himmel do?") - there are no negative correlations like with gun or blades of blender.
Yes, there are. In all three examples the negative correlation is death. The only difference is the giant blender and the loaded gun are scarier while the button hides the fact.

You wouldn't jump in the blender and you wouldn't pick the gun. So why would you press the blue button?

I get that the blue button would confuse way more people so you want to save them. But in 8 billion people some will even jump in the blender and some will pick the loaded gun. They will be fewer than the button experiment but there will be some. Are you going to join those too?


It's the empathy part that many of the people here seem to struggle with I think.
It's the math part that many people here seem to struggle with. If the question was for you to place your bets, which one will win, red or blue? What do you think the outcome would be? You know even more would bet on red. Because we know how the world works. So the only reason you vote for blue is because you want to press blue but you wouldn't because you know it's futile. You only vote for blue because you don't really have to press it, it's a forum game.

Also, seriously, you think i lack empathy? That i want a bunch of naive children who pressed blue for some reason to die? That i don't want to save them from doing the senseless thing? Do the math and you will see it doesn't matter what i want. The only options here are: 1) People who pressed the blue button die and i live. 2) People who pressed the blue button die and i also die with them. Conclusion: They cannot be saved if they press the stupid button! The only way to save them is to make them press the red button instead so that would be my way to do so.

And killing yourself because "you can't live in the aftermath" isn't empathy, it's a way out for yourself. And again, people say they would do it in a fun forum game but most would not, they would chicken out.


And for those parents out there who say they'd vote blue. Would you also tell your child to vote blue? Or would you tell them to vote red to guarantee they survive?
They wouldn't press blue, they just say so because it's a forum game, they are not really in danger. If they had the chance to prep, every parent would urge their kids to press red and then press the red button themselves as well to be with them.

Everyone wants to say they are the hero who would most certainly die for a 10% (at best) chance to save the senseless minority but they wouldn't. Very few of them would be brave enough to do it in a real case scenario, which they know brings the percentage even lower, making it even more futile than it already is. The 40% blue result isn't at all realistic, in a real case scenario the vast majority of them would do otherwise because they know it's certain death and they won't save anyone anyway.
 
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The only options here are: 1) People who pressed the blue button die and i live. 2) People who pressed the blue button die and i also die with them. Conclusion: They cannot be saved if they press the stupid button! The only way to save them is to make them press the red button instead so that would be my way to do so.
This conclusion is based on the premise that blue cannot get 51% of the vote in a real scenario, which we don't know to be true.
 
This conclusion is based on the premise that blue cannot get 51% of the vote in a real scenario, which we don't know to be true.
Based on the fact that blue won in most other places, we can actually deduce that blue will absolutely get far more votes than a lot of the red voters seem to reailze.
 
Based on the fact that blue won in most other places, we can actually deduce that blue will absolutely get far more votes than a lot of the red voters seem to reailze.
I would like to see this question be asked on non-Western centric platforms. There's a big difference in mentality in Nordic countries vs MENA/Africa. In what way that would show is a questionmark.
 
Yes you can only guess the probability of something happening or not. And IMO, the probability the blue button pressers will be saved is extremely low. I would say about 1/3 of those who say they would press it would actually do it in a real scenario. At best i would expect a 20% of the population would press it on a whim and a 8-10% if there was time to bring your friends/family to their senses.
 
Yes you can only guess the probability of something happening or not. And IMO, the probability the blue button pressers will be saved is extremely low. I would say about 1/3 of those who say they would press it would actually do it in a real scenario. At best i would expect a 20% of the population would press it on a whim and a 8-10% if there was time to bring your friends/family to their senses.
I disagree, adamantly, but we can't know, at the end of the day it's all conjecture and philosophical debate. The nature of this question and the nature of how stubborn people are in general means it could be debated endlessly and still not reach consensus.
Interesting social experiment though.
 
Another aspect of this challenge is the (fake) posture of blue voters. There is no downside to say you vote blue, you're just afraid.

sci-fi film GIF
 
Yes, there are. In all three examples the negative correlation is death. The only difference is the giant blender and the loaded gun are scarier while the button hides the fact.

You wouldn't jump in the blender and you wouldn't pick the gun. So why would you press the blue button?

I get that the blue button would confuse way more people so you want to save them. But in 8 billion people some will even jump in the blender and some will pick the loaded gun. They will be fewer than the button experiment but there will be some. Are you going to join those too?

What would you do if you saw some of your family members, toddlers, elderly people and mentally disabled already sitting there in the blender before you vote? Would you vote red and send them to their deaths (contributing to red winning) and saving your selfish ass?

Because with the button vote you KNOW that some people will vote blue no matter what, and you are ok with them dying.
 
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Another aspect of this challenge is the (fake) posture of blue voters. There is no downside to say you vote blue, you're just afraid.

sci-fi film GIF

I think you are, at least in part, right. Personally, as a sensitive person, I have a hard time currently: lot's of conflicts worldwide and personal turmoil. It is hard not being pessimistic or depressed. I tried being a cynic, but that is not working in the long run.

Maybe I should be more stoic and calculating for my own good. I wish I was, to be honest.
 
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