Post #1711372

2026-04-27 03:55 UTC

A Twitterer tweets a challenging game-theory question: Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press? The Twitter poll came out 58% blue and right-wing folks are screeching. Here is a bad take. The orange site has a thread where people are rephrasing the prompt in order to make it sound way worse, like giving everybody a gun and then magically making the guns not discharge. I find it remarkable that not a single dipshit has correctly analyzed the problem. Suppose you are one of Arrow’s dictators: your vote tips the scales regardless of which way you go. So, everybody else already voted and they are precisely 50% blue. Either you can vote blue and save everybody or vote red and kill 50% of voters. From that perspective, the pro-red folks are homicidally selfish. Bonus sneer: since HN couldn’t rephrase the problem without magic, let me have a chance. Consider: everybody has some seed food and some rainwater in a barrel. If 50% of people elect to plant their seeds and pool their rainwater in a reservoir then everybody survives; otherwise, only those who selfishly eat their own seed and drink their rainwater will survive. This is a basic referendum on whether we can work together to reduce economic costs and the supposedly-economically-minded conservatives are demonstrating that they would rather be hateful than thrifty.

Replies (9)

@zogwarg@awful.systems 2026-04-27 07:30

There are some amazing justifications from many amongst the red-pushing side: “But if everyone presses red, nobody dies!” (As if that would every happen. Funnily enough strong overlap with the group that claims that “< 90 IQ can’t reason about hypotheticals”, although that is also just twitter.) “People who press blue are just blackmailing us!” (I think this accounts for a large portion, ie: not liking to depend on others). “The number of people choosing blue can’t be that high! (It would be lower in a true-stakes scenario!)” [Many others, but these are those that come to mind.] It’s a bit baffling how many strongly they refuse the “blue-selection” as possibly moral/rational. Even so far as calling people pressing blue evil or subhuman, simply baffling.

Open ##1715564
@mawhrin@awful.systems 2026-04-27 11:00

a very neat test to find people who are perfectly fine with the general idea of genocide.

Open ##1724346
@BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 2026-04-27 14:06

Picking red guarantees your survival by endangering everyone else, making it morally fucked, but risk-free. Picking blue puts your life at risk, but saves everyone’s ass if it pays off, making it the more moral option overall. Picking blue also requires you to put some trust in your fellow man, so I’d have probably picked red if I didn’t know how the Twitter poll came out. Someone else on the orange site claimed the experiment would end with only red-pushers left if it went for multiple rounds. Adding my two cents, the outcome would depend on how the first round goes - if red wins round 1, voting blue looks like suicide, shifting the calculus in red’s favour, and if blue wins round 1, you have reason to trust everyone will continue voting blue, making it a lot less risky and shifting the moral calculus in blue’s favour.

Open ##1724919
@aio@awful.systems 2026-04-27 20:21

I don’t understand the relevance of Arrow’s theorem. Why is your phrasing the correct way of analyzing the situation?

Open ##1726012
@YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 2026-04-27 21:44

This feels like another case where the specific context matters more than whatever supposed principal the thought experiment is supposed to illuminate. The example that came to my mind when I tried to think about how to justify “voting red” was about running into a burning building. Sure, if some large fragment of people did so then their combined numbers would presumably let them get everyone out. But on the other hand, throwing yourself in is a wholly unnecessary risk, and the only people in need of rescuing are the people who ran in trying to do the right thing without thinking. Noble, but stupid and creates that much more risk for the firefighters who now have to not only stop the fire from spreading but also figure out how to rescue the failed good samaritans. But then what really makes the difference between the examples is purely in the details not included, which is the kind of null case. Nobody has to go into a burning building that isn’t already in there when it catches fire. The danger of harm is entirely optional and voluntary. But you can’t just choose to not eat; the danger in your framing is omnipresent threat of starvation, and the question is whether to prioritize individual or collective well-being.

Open ##1727901
@Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 2026-04-28 05:57

I love the way people who go “yeah but IN REAL LIFE with real stakes you would totally chose the red button” are entirely missing the point of thought experiments, why the fuck would you comply with such a fucked up scenario in real life lmao you worm

Open ##1737388
@gerikson@awful.systems 2026-04-28 11:42

I kinda wanna see LW tackle this

Open ##1743462
@Architeuthis@awful.systems 2026-04-28 12:57

If this isn’t pure engagement bait, what’s the real world situation this is supposed to map to? Pressing red means you always live, and if everyone pushes red everyone lives so… I mean if blue is supposed to be a proxy for altruism, that usually doesn’t come with a certain death conditional.

Open ##1754809
@TrashGoblin@awful.systems 2026-04-29 13:21

A Twitterer tweets a challenging game-theory question: The incentive structure makes it not a challenging game theory question - the game-theoretically optimal solution is both very obvious and obviously morally depraved (selecting red). It’s actually a Voight-Kampff test.

Open ##1774002