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If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

shankwiler.com

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Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#141
post #39
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dilemma is that a lot of people will press blue so if red gets above 50% a large number of selfless but not game-theory aware people will die.

but why would anybody choose blue? there is no moral benefit to doing so. If you altered the game to say that only some fraction of the population get the choice, and everyone who doesn't get the choice is assumed blue (or, is killed if less than 50% of voters choose blue) then there's some question to be explored here. But at it stands there is literally no reason to choose blue.

> but why would anybody choose blue? there is no moral benefit to doing so.

Why? To contribute saving the others who chose blue. How isn't that moral?

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#142
Is this repeated or one time?

Can you force people on red or not?

Seems difficult to guarantee you don't kill a bunch of kids each button press cycle...

Many people aren't old and developed enough to reason it out yet...

If this is repeated I'd certainly be on the team of trying to convince people to go blue... Otherwise the chance of someone randomly pressing red every time before they get to the age of 5 or whatever seems too low to guarantee the long term survival of the species... I guess it depends on how often it happens?

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always be someone who chooses blue. Choosing red is choosing to kill them.

Choosing red is choosing to survive knowing that there will always be people who choose blue, potentially an amount that would mean you don't survive if you didn't take explicit action against it.

The people who chose blue in no way contributed to the peril you are in, thus you aren't justified in killing them in self defense.

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how anyone could choose blue, the certain scenario is everyone chooses red, and this whole post is a nothingburger.

> I fail to see how anyone could choose blue Depends on the scenario… or the number of people in the experiment. A sufficiently large number of people will guarantee votes in both bins. The specific scenario (reading this outside of a vacuum) will also have knock-on effects. Eg: reading this into the current political landscape in the US vs reading this into another toy problem about jumping off a cliff or not will h…

The article makes a good point with their reframing.

"Give everyone a magic gun. They may choose to shoot themselves in the head. If more than 50% of people choose to shoot themselves, all the guns jam. The person also has the option to put the gun down and not shoot it."

The "dilemma" is asking to what lengths we should go to save people choosing to commit suicide, and does that change when they are unintentionally choosing suicide due to being "tricked" into it.

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#145

This question has multiple layers of thinking: 1. People who can't read pick randomly. 2. People who can read, but are too dumb to model or care about other people pick red. 3. People with enough intelligence for basic cognitive empathy pick blue. 4. People a little smarter and think through game theory overall pick red, and think they are smart for doing so. 5. People smarter than #4 and capable of seeing the big pi…

So… you're 6?

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#146
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but why would anybody choose blue? there is no moral benefit to doing so. If you altered the game to say that only some fraction of the population get the choice, and everyone who doesn't get the choice is assumed blue (or, is killed if less than 50% of voters choose blue) then there's some question to be explored here. But at it stands there is literally no reason to choose blue.

There’s a moral benefit to choosing blue if you think there’s a chance that the end result will be split 50-50 and you’ll be the deciding vote between a blue majority and a red majority.

There's an argument to be made that anyone choosing blue wants to die and you should respect their choice.

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#147
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first point is interesting. You could fork the question over this and have a few variants: 1.) The pure form where the button presses and restricted to legal agents (i.e. people with credible legal standing over their choices). 2.) The mixed form with the caveat listed here inclusive of all humans whether they are even physically capable of pushing a button. 3.) you could also go for a more expansive scenario tha…

You don't even have to go that far from the original question. If instead of the entire world being a single game, if you have hundreds of millions of sub-games where 9 random people are placed within, what should you do? Surely some of those groups are going to be filled with selfish red pickers. Should the kind coordinating players still go blue? All the red pickers are going to lie that blue is sensible. I suspect…

Why would a red picker ever lie about it? If I can get all 8 of my fellow players to pick red then we’re all safe. If it’s a button I’ll just break the blue button or wire it to red.

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#148
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but why would anybody choose blue? there is no moral benefit to doing so. If you altered the game to say that only some fraction of the population get the choice, and everyone who doesn't get the choice is assumed blue (or, is killed if less than 50% of voters choose blue) then there's some question to be explored here. But at it stands there is literally no reason to choose blue.

There will always be someone who chooses blue. Choosing red is choosing to kill them.

The blues sound like idiots.

Press the red button you survive, or press the blue button you might die

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#149

Is this repeated or one time? Can you force people on red or not? Seems difficult to guarantee you don't kill a bunch of kids each button press cycle... Many people aren't old and developed enough to reason it out yet... If this is repeated I'd certainly be on the team of trying to convince people to go blue... Otherwise the chance of someone randomly pressing red every time before they get to the age of 5 or whateve…

> Is this repeated or one time?

I think it's meant to be one time.

> Seems difficult to guarantee you don't kill a bunch of kids each button press cycle...

Seems extremely easy to guarantee that I don't kill a bunch of kids, just press blue. It's only the red-pressers who might end up murdering kids. By pressing blue the only person I am putting at risk is myself.

Re: If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

#150
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downside of redding is that some portion of the world probably dies and you now have to live in that worse world that if you and 50% of the rest of the world has just blued, would not have happened.

But why would those pick blue? They have the same incentive to just pick red.

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