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

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

#221

Post by rayiner »

card_zero wrote: post #210
jerkstate wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if red choosers really don’t understand that they are choosing to live in a world where half of all people, the more selfless half, are dead. It’s like living through a nuclear war except all of the nice people are gone, not just a random sample

I guess you base that surprising "half" on the transparent analogy with politics, and so you think real-world Democrats will press blue to assert their Democrattiness. This is probably true. However, since this is the internet, and being a Democrat is associated with being online and living in a city, there are probably more than 50% blue-pressers, as shown in the poll. Just like in the real world, you won't change t…

I disagree that the hypothetical maps onto politics. Voting for democrats is mostly a vote for someone else (billionaires, etc.) to shoulder additional burdens to achieve some positive end. By contrast, this game involves serious risk to one's self and family. Lots of people would vote to raise corporate taxes to increase funding for schools in Baltimore. But those people aren't going to move their kids to Sandtown to help increase the property tax base.

I think if you played the game for real, blue would get maybe 5% of the vote, tops.

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

#222

Post by rayiner »

selfhoster1312 wrote: post #161
owenpalmer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps red is selfish, but blue is most certainly foolish.

I would personally assert it's foolish to pretend a species can survive without empathy and mutual aid. That's certainly not how humanity (or most, if not all, species) developed so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolut...

"Empathy" isn't a binary in this context. You can exercise empathy and aid your community by making sure everyone you know votes red. That's the kind of cooperation that humans have evolved with. What you're talking about is undifferentiated, universal empathy, where someone would be willing to risk the lives of those close to them for a greater chance to help those who are outside their immediate reach to persuade.

I suspect if you played this game, lots of tight-knit, high-cooperation groups would undertake coordinated campaigns to ensure the survival of their members by ensuring everyone votes red.

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

#223

Post by hackable_sand »

jjj123 wrote: post #170
riffraff wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The end of the article mentions it. Some people are not purely rational decision makers, some people are altruists who know others are not purely rational, etc. By choosing red you will kill some people.

Bringing rationalism - or whatever - clouds the discussion.

Blue is purely a win-win for me, so it's rational to only choose blue. Reds have their own value judgement.

"Rationality" is a useless quality to debate here.

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

#224

Post by Jordan-117 »

giardini wrote: post #2

Silly. Everyone will press the red button and everyone will survive.

>Everyone will not just. If your solution to some problem relies on "If everyone would just..." then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they're not going to start now.

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

#225

Post by rayiner »

atmavatar wrote: post #213
denkmoon wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone picks red everyone lives, nobody needs saving by picking blue. Picking blue obliges others to pick blue to prevent your death, risking their own life in turn. Red is the moral option.

There is no topic in which you'll get 100% of people to agree with you, and this is no different. There will always be people who choose blue. Arguing that you could ever get 100% of people to pick red is a coping mechanism to deal with the knowledge that your choice to pick red will result in some deaths (i.e., unless blue wins). That isn't to say I categorically judge anyone who would choose red. If there's good re…

> However, where I take issue with the article is the assertion that it's impossible to get a blue majority, especially in the face of polling that suggests such a majority already exists.

The people saying they'd vote blue would never actually do it. People support lots of altruistic things in the abstract, but almost nobody does it when it involves real risk and sacrifice. The cost of saving a kid in Africa by donating malaria medicine and insecticidal nets is only about $5,000. How many people do you know who will cancel their Hawaii vacation and donate that money to an African charity?

Every time you choose to take a vacation, or get a tricked out Macbook Pro, etc., you are in a real way choosing to allow some kid in Africa to die. But you do it anyway.

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

#226

Post by jmull »

tristanj wrote: post #29

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…

I was thinking that if some evil god could credibly force this sadistic choice on humanity we’re all in trouble, regardless of the button you push.

I’d probably turn my mind to resistance and refuse to push any buttons if possible.

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

#227

Post by rayiner »

disruptiveink wrote: post #167
chias wrote: 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.

You're thinking of this like a game where the only point is to "win". That's not how this would actually work in practice. Blue is the only moral and logical choice. If red gets over 50% and you picked it, therefore contributing to the "red" outcome, you are now effectively a murderer. Plus you now get to live in a world where everyone else alive are sociopaths that picked red, where everyone with a conscience is now…

You're ignoring the dimension of universalism versus insularity. In practice, high-trust, high-cooperation communities are also insular. They cooperate within their community, but not people outside their community. Those communities can ensure the survival of their members by using their social infrastructure to ensure everyone votes red.

Assuming that the red/blue choice doesn't have a theological valance, you'd have a lot of tight-knit Mormon, Muslim, and Orthodox Jewish communities surviving in the red scenario. I suspect also all the highly authoritarian Asian countries.

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

#228

Post by robocat »

That would genetically remove altruists from the population (assuming altuism is heritable and assuming children also have to press button).

The world would be a more selfish place in a generation after the experiment.

Presumably parents press the button for their babies.

As a family you would have to agree to all push the same colour otherwise you run the risk of only some of you dying. As a group decision I would think everyone would agree on red as the safe bet. Also making altruistic choices for children has two edges - and many parents would put their children's interests first not some strangers.

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

#229

Post by 2muchinternet »

tristanj wrote: post #29

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…

You're missing the seventh group: trolls/assholes who will always press red but try to convince/muddy the waters about the blue button aiming to get a not-insignificant amount of Prime candidate pool: 4chan.

If the question was restricted to local communities with 0 internet access, I would be more inclined to press blue.

But on a global scale? No fucking way.

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

#230

Post by sunrunner »

gpm wrote: post #143
sunrunner wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They didn't cause the peril, but knowing that their choice is possibility, if I don't make a decision to protect myself now their decisions may then be the cause of my continued not-survival.
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