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

shankwiler.com

281–290 of 333 posts

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

#281
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say so, I think encouraging your family to act morally (not murder people) is a good thing.

If you’d tell your kids to push blue and risk their lives, you’re not empathetic, you’re something else. More like one of those suicide cult leaders willing to sacrifice kids for an idea.

Teaching kids not to participate in a conspiracy to commit mass murder of innocent people in order to increase their odds of survival is not at all like teaching them to commit suicide.

Even kids aren't entitled to murder innocent people because it's personally beneficial.

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah pretty much everyone picks red if it was a real scenario. It's also bizarre to call everyone picking red a sociopath because they don't want to gamble their life on some naive and idealistic view of humans.

Believe what you want, the numbers disagree with you. As for the sociopath label, assuming psychopathy and sociopathy are the same thing, egocentrism and impaired empathy are central traits.

So I guess a sociopaths...

> the numbers disagree with you

It was a pool in X where people that press blue were not going to die. They just lied to feel better.

Try again with money, everyone puts $1000 so it's real but nobody dies. Red pushers get their money back, everyone if >50% press blue. I like my version where 10% have miss wired buttons, so the % of people that will vote "incorrectly" is inside the model. Send the lost money to an Khmer Rouge advocacy group so nobody feels good about losing the money.

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

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nash equilibrium 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.

You can have a system that is rational even if the individual participants are irrational. Among the mechanisms for this are statistical (if any given member of the population frequently makes errors, but the errors average out to the overall rational solution) and selection (if all the irrational people die and drop out of the population, which seems to be the case here).

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

#284
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’d tell your kids to push blue and risk their lives, you’re not empathetic, you’re something else. More like one of those suicide cult leaders willing to sacrifice kids for an idea.

Teaching kids not to participate in a conspiracy to commit mass murder of innocent people in order to increase their odds of survival is not at all like teaching them to commit suicide. Even kids aren't entitled to murder innocent people because it's personally beneficial.

Risking your own kids' lives to save the lives of strangers is psychotic.

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

#285
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching kids not to participate in a conspiracy to commit mass murder of innocent people in order to increase their odds of survival is not at all like teaching them to commit suicide. Even kids aren't entitled to murder innocent people because it's personally beneficial.

Risking your own kids' lives to save the lives of strangers is psychotic.

No one is saving anyone, we are simply not participating in the conspiracy to murder people.

Thinking your kids will be ok after you tell them to become mass murderers is the psychotic bit.

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

#286
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or blue doesn't want to live in the world where only selfish/cynical people remain.

Confusingly, though, as you are of course a nice person, if you vote red you'd demonstrate that some red voters are nice, and then the choice is less severe. Then voting red is like "I embrace humanity, warts and all", while voting blue is like "I cannot tolerate sharing the planet with anyone even slightly impure".

It has some conflicting circular dependencies in assumptions which is why the thought experiment is kind of dumb overall.

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

#287
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risking your own kids' lives to save the lives of strangers is psychotic.

No one is saving anyone, we are simply not participating in the conspiracy to murder people. Thinking your kids will be ok after you tell them to become mass murderers is the psychotic bit.

Folks pushing red aren't "murdering" anyone. Words have meaning!

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

#288
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain. Red guarantees safety. Why wouldn't everyone pick red? The only option that leads to a statistical chance of death is blue?

The only option that leads to a statistical chance of murder though is red.

Different framing:

The only option that leads to a statistical chance of suicide though is blue.

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

#289
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only option that leads to a statistical chance of murder though is red.

Different framing: The only option that leads to a statistical chance of suicide though is blue.

Being murdered is not suicide.

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

#290
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is saving anyone, we are simply not participating in the conspiracy to murder people. Thinking your kids will be ok after you tell them to become mass murderers is the psychotic bit.

Folks pushing red aren't "murdering" anyone. Words have meaning!

Yes, they do. And killing other people by taking an affirmative action that you know is likely to result in the death of others, with indifference as to whether or not they die, is murder.

There are exceptions. The closest is self defense (the use of reasonable force against the perpetrator of violence), it simply doesn't apply here because the people you are advocating for the murder of are not the perpetrators of any violence.

While we are talking about words having meaning, "suicide" has meaning, and it does not include "choosing not murdering people to avoid being murdered".

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