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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

#301

Post by zahlman »

adverbly wrote: post #248

The number of people trying to use game theory here is frankly embarrassing. 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 entire point of the "press red" strategy is that it does not depend on what other people do. So there is no question of predicting them.

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

#302

Post by NekkoDroid »

gpm wrote: post #296
NekkoDroid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where in the original post is specified who does "the murdering"? As far as I see blue pressers are explicitly putting themselves in harms way and red pressers have fuck all to do with it. Just because someone jumped infront of the train and died doesn't mean the conductor is a murderer.

The red pressers commit murder. If people don't press red, the blue pressers don't die. Train conductors and companies take reasonable precautions to avoid killing people - they aren't indifferent to it. If they just built tracks and started running trains on them without taking measures to avoid mowing people down they absolutely would be guilty of murder.

> The red pressers commit murder.

For it to be murder it would need to be unlawful (lets just assume this entire hypothetical is unlawful) and planned, so unless red pressers are specifically doing it to kill blue pressers it is factually not murder. Blue pressers have put themselves into the situation of possibly dying, which was entirely their choice and isn't the responsibility of anybody else (ignoring the "forced to press a button by some mystical force/being").

There is a reason why even "duty to rescue" laws usually do not require the rescuer to endanger themselves doing it, which in this case would most certainly be the case (going from 0% of death to "who knows, this is entirely out of my control but non-negligable chance of dying" % of death).

> If they just built tracks and started running trains on them without taking measures to avoid mowing people down they absolutely would be guilty of murder.

Most stations in the world do not have any guardrails to the tracks themselves. If someone decides to walk onto them as the early end of a station they will most likely die if the train is arriving. The tracks were there, the train was scheduled just the person decided to put themselves into harms way. At most it would be considered manslaughter.

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

#303

Post by eesmith »

zahlman wrote: post #299
eesmith wrote: post #7

These sorts of problems assume that actions have no consequences beyond the immediate decision. These tests, run in places which have higher long-term expectation of social connections, give different results than in the US. In the world where I don't want to live in that world, so blue for me. And it's the fault of everyone who pressed red should I die.

> In the world where Well, no; in this world you pressed red too . Therefore, what you "know" is that nobody alive would be so foolish as to risk their own life for a mere chance at saving you when you're suicidal, given no clear incentive and no consequences for staying alive beyond... what they've already chosen. For that matter, one can argue that only in the world where blues get the slimmest possible 50%+1 major…

And what's your point? That I don't realize that a bunch of assholes who don't care about the people who aren't clever enough to figure out Prisoner Dilemma style puzzzles have no problem knowing the rest of the world are assholes just like them? And that the only opposite to "asshole" is "hero"?

Do you also think that any male opposed to sexism is a white knight expecting to get sex out of it? And that anyone who doesn't agree with your logic is being politically correct?

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

#304

Post by BobaFloutist »

troglodytetrain wrote: post #72

I would describe it like this. We are all standing on the edge of a cliff. You can choose the 'Red' option. That option means you don't jump off the cliff. Or you can choose the 'Blue' option. You jump off the cliff. If 50% of individuals choose also the 'Blue' option then there will be a net to catch you so you don't all die. So, now we agree? Red option it is every time.

How about this: everyone has a magic gun. The guns don't go off until everyone has pulled the trigger or pressed the magic disable button. After everyone has decided and the guns have fired, the bullets kill everyone that disabled their guns and then any remaining bullets collide with each other in the air, falling harmlessly to the ground. However, if a majority of people pressed disable, the guns never fire.

Hooray, it's mechanically identical but your preferred choice is framed negatively! I am very persuasive.

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

#305

Post by gpm »

NekkoDroid wrote: post #302
gpm wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The red pressers commit murder. If people don't press red, the blue pressers don't die. Train conductors and companies take reasonable precautions to avoid killing people - they aren't indifferent to it. If they just built tracks and started running trains on them without taking measures to avoid mowing people down they absolutely would be guilty of murder.

> The red pressers commit murder. For it to be murder it would need to be unlawful (lets just assume this entire hypothetical is unlawful) and planned, so unless red pressers are specifically doing it to kill blue pressers it is factually not murder. Blue pressers have put themselves into the situation of possibly dying, which was entirely their choice and isn't the responsibility of anybody else (ignoring the "force…

> For it to be murder it would need to be unlawful

You have this backwards. It is unlawful because it is murder and we have laws against murder, not the other way around.

You might be thinking of "felony murder", which is a way some places promote crimes that wouldn't otherwise be murder to murder if someone happened to die in their commission (e.g. you intended to rob a bank, and the bank guard shot someone else trying to stop you, so now you get a murder charge) but that's not necessary when you are the one intentionally performing the action that you know will kill people.

> so unless red pressers are specifically doing it to kill blue pressers it is factually not murder.

This isn't how "intent" works. This would be like saying "I shot the opposing soccer player so I could win the soccer game, not so that he would die, so it's not murder". Intent requires that you intentionally performed the action that could result in death, not that death was the goal. I.e. the intent requirement means tripping and falling and accidentally pressing the red button wouldn't be murder, choosing to press it would be.

Similarly if you're falling off a building, and you somehow have the option to pull some bystander off the building throwing them to their certain death but saving yourself, it would be murder to do so.

> There is a reason why even "duty to rescue" laws usually do not require the rescuer to endanger themselves doing it,

We're not in a "duty to rescue" situation, merely in a "duty not to commit murder" one. There is no duty to press the blue button, merely one not to press the red button. That the scenario apparently leaves no other choice but to press the blue button is irrelevant.

You could imagine a 3-choice game. If more people press the red button than press the blue button everyone who presses the blue button dies, but you can also not press any button and not be at any risk. Pressing the red button is still murder, but you're under no obligation to press the blue button and put yourself at risk to potentially save other blue button pushers. Doing nothing is not a crime... but the red button is just as much murder in the 2-choice game as it is in the 3-choice game.

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

#307

Post by imoverclocked »

zahlman wrote: post #297
imoverclocked wrote: post #47

The problem posted is being taken at face value by some and being interpreted outside of a vacuum for others. The reality is that we don’t live in a vacuum and the framing of red vs blue is almost certainly not an accidental alignment with political colors. If you are in the US, voting blue is also highly correlated with broader empathy characteristics. It’s telling that some folks think 100% voting one way is just a…

> is almost certainly not an accidental alignment with political colors. If you are in the US, Please keep in mind that the association of colour to political wing is radically different, even the exact opposite, in other countries. > It’s telling that some folks think 100% voting one way is just as attainable as more than 50% voting a certain way. I don't see anybody arguing this. The entire point of the red strateg…

> The entire point of the red strategy is that it is not dependent on how many press red.

Yes, but depending on the specifics of the actual implementation of this problem there are extended consequences. What is missed by the red POV is, in some implementations of this, you are losing collaboration/collaborative populations. Society works because of both competition and collaboration. Some people can’t see anything but one side of that.

> Please keep in mind that the association of colour to political wing is radically different, even the exact opposite, in other countries.

Yup, that’s why I worded it the specific way I did. It doesn’t stop people from having a strong opinion on which color they would choose in this scenario. My point is that red vs blue is pre-charged.

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

#309

Post by ttz »

adverbly wrote: post #251
ttz wrote: post #191

if everyone were rational, and knew everyone else would act rationally, then obvious answer is to pick red, because everyone would pick red, and hence everyone would survive.

Agree. Question is super easy is everyone is rational. But that's not the question. The whole point is that it's about the whole world - not a set of rational actors.

I realize my initial analysis is kind of wrong - everyone picking blue would also ensure everyone survives.

So I think the color doesn't really matter if everyone is rational. So long as they are consistent.

Blue is more tasteful here then. With the added bonus that if enough people do pick it, it's a win.

What is interesting is if you believe most people are not rational and will pick red, but at least one person will pick blue.

Do you choose certain death?

For me, who has dependents, it would rest on what I think they would choose.

A very interesting problem....

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

#310

Post by denkmoon »

shiandow wrote: post #34
rayiner wrote: post #4

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.

What makes this framing especially interesting is that it suddenly makes perfect sense to just lay down the gun. Until you remember the millions of children in the exact same scenario.

I hope most children know that they shouldn't shoot themselves in the head.
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