241–250 of 333 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thinly veiled political post.
As a political post the formulation in the article is crass in the extreme, misrepresenting both the motivations of red and blue voters and also the and the long-term consequences of those parties' policies. There's no progress to be made in a conversation held so close to the surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism#Scientific_viewpoints
evolutionary game theory
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I notice that this thing you and others call empathy doesn't extend to the outgroup: if anybody doesn't subscribe to it, fuck 'em, is the general sentiment.
I have no idea what you are referring to. This isn’t a question of ingroup or outgroup.
In this instance of course what you're proposing is very mild: you think they should suffer one another's company - which you imagine would be a terrible experience. Unless you further imagine that they'd like it? But my impression was that you thought they'd have a bad time, and since they're your non-compassionate outgroup, you very compassionately don't care.
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I have no idea what you are referring to. This isn’t a question of ingroup or outgroup.
No idea! Well, I must assume good faith and believe you. To me it looks like you're labelling everybody you dislike as "probably a psychopath, best disposed of". I suppose that's consistent with saying they're not the outgroup, it's just a practical necessity or something. In this instance of course what you're proposing is very mild: you think they should suffer one another's company - which you imagine would be a t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a political post the formulation in the article is crass in the extreme, misrepresenting both the motivations of red and blue voters and also the and the long-term consequences of those parties' policies. There's no progress to be made in a conversation held so close to the surface.
It's very inaccurate/loaded as a political post, but the choice of colors makes the intent fairly obvious. Politically speaking, in the US where everything is rigged by corporate media and a uniparty of capital interests with red/blue facades (where blue manufactures consent for red every step of the way), the only winning move is to not play.
Interestingly there are variants of the question where "no one pushes any button" should also be a "winning condition". The original problem states "if less than 50% of people press the blue button only people who push red survive" which rules this out, but it could be changed to "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then only red pushers survive" (allowing for people to opt to be a non-pusher). Or it could be "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then only blue pushers die" (with the non-pushers also being spared).
I think the latter is more interesting since now there's a moral consequence to voting vs abstaining.
Or you could lean into the political framing. I bet if the vote were retaken with question phrased as "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then people who pressed blue die", you might end up with some switchers who vote purely out of spite. Or maybe that framing makes it feel like voting red has a more significant moral consequence (actively condemning people to death) that the original question doesn't, so it results in more people pressing blue.
You could even add in a penalty if you press a button but are a non-majority, but then that's just the prisoners dilemma.
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Since if a rational actor would understand that the group can avoid ever dying to this game by simply choosing blue. There is no consequence for choosing blue - but there is a consequence for choosing red. Also, regardless of these specific consequences, people who are rational/ethical will by default choose blue because it is a good color. See also, people by default choose blue at 5x the rate as red, really putting…
There are two globally optimal solutions to this problem: > 50% pick blue (saving everybody), and 100% of the people pick red (saving everybody). There is only one Nash equilibrium, which is for everybody to pick red. This is also strictly dominant for each player (if they choose red, they have a 100% chance of surviving, while if they choose blue, they only survive if > 50% of other people also choose blue). Knowing…
Bro... Game theory laws like Nash equilibrium dont apply if the population is irrational. Which it largely is!
Good luck explaining Nash equilibrium to a baby.
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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.…
This is about predicting real people!
People are not perfect rational actors.
Good luck explaining your Nash equilibrium theory to your 6 month old niece and nephew who are good pick blue because it's their favorite color.
You aren't gonna get an all red movement to succeed. There are a small minority who will vote red or blue regardless of the community sentiment - and some of those people will be kids who would probably grow up to be smarter than your game theorizing selves if they are given to opportunity to grow old enough to fully mature.
Full propaganda team blue.
I like this framing: > Every person in the world is provided a gun. If a person wants to, they can shoot themselves in the head. However, these guns are special so that if more than 50% people in the world shoot themselves in the head, the guns will all jam and everyone will survive. Or, the person can choose to set the gun down and walk away.
A baby or toddler is way less likely to randomly shoot themselves in the head of given a gun than they are to do nothing or shoot something else.
The 2 buttons made it 50/50.
The odds of random death are what is causing people to vote blue, and you just massively changed them in your thought experiment...
The arguments made about wanting to protect the children/babies and those with cognitive impairments are well meaning, but I think misguided. The bottom line is that the world has been put in a shit situation and you can't fix it. Encouraging blue is encouraging an increase in the likelihood that all the truly nice and wonderful people that would would actually follow through on a blue vote for altruistic reasons win…
If you think it's possible to convince everyone to vote red then it's certainly possible to do the same for blue given how much lower the threshold is!
This is absolutely possible and realistic.
Imagine a scenario where public polls were taken and it showed 95% support for blue? Would you still be out here calling 95% of people martyrs? Blue is an absolutely winnable propoganda game!