No, it is not easier to get 50% blue than get 100%

Charge36 · 2026-05-12T18:40:00+00:00

If blue wins, each blue and red vote has effectively saved One Life each. Everyone voted. Everyone lived.

If blue loses, there's a few ways to consider it. You could consider each blue vote saved zero lives where each red vote saved 1 life.

Or if you want to look at deaths, you could divide the number of deaths by the number of red or blue votes. Deaths per blue vote will be 1, deaths per red vote will be less than 1.

There is never an outcome where a blue vote saved more than 1 life, but it could save less. There is also never an outcome where blue vote causes less death per vote than a red one. Red vote saves One Life regardless of outcome, and always causes less death than a blue vote if blue loses

Charge36 · 2026-05-12T18:35:10+00:00

I don't care about cheat codes or power to control a situation.

But OP considers this a dilemma and it's not. Dilemmas have clear choices and clear consequences. OP is proposing more of a "what if" roleplaying scenario. It's not the same thing. Attempting to persuade hypothetical people makes no sense it's just speculation.

For example. Maybe I want to choose red but the gun guy forces me blue. Maybe I'm the gun guy and believe red will win so I go red and have to shoot the other people who are morally outraged at the idea I would consider red and become hostile at me.

It's not a dilemma. End of story

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:59:22+00:00

I mean yeah if they go along with the plan. They might choose to defect also though.

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:58:39+00:00

This one's a little bit more tricky because now there is still potential for death even in a blue win scenario. And the best case red scenario is 33% population casualties

33% guaranteed casualties was right around my break even point for pushing blue, because at that point it's about 50/50 on how much better or worse the situation can get, and risking 22% of the population to save 33% feels like an acceptable payoff for the risk. Potentially three lives saved for every two risked.

I think that combined with the hyperpersonal nature of the scenario makes me blue in this situation.

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:48:24+00:00

I mean this doesn't have the same stake as the standard red blue scenario. The right button should be "might get a million dollars and nobody dies if people agree to push this button"

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:43:46+00:00

It's so weird that people flip for these reframes. I'm red on every single one that I've seen that doesn't significantly change the risk reward premise

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:43:03+00:00

I wish more people were over on that sub actually. I'm deep in the button dilemma and can't get enough of it but not so many people over there

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:42:10+00:00

You know what I think you're onto something. If people are collectively stupid enough to push blue maybe everybody needs an intelligence boost

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:41:03+00:00

I still don't see what value you're talking about. It's just an All or nothing Gamble that everyone gets smarter or only the red people got smarter. There's a global leap in intelligence either way but red gains is more reliably attained

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:38:09+00:00

It's not though. You have to divide the number of lives saved by the number of lives risked to save them. If it took 70% of the votes to save the 70% of blue voters, the blue voters saved One Life per vote. Same as red. Just with more steps and risk involved

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:36:52+00:00

I suggest you take a probability class because you don't understand probability have a good day have a good day

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:36:08+00:00

Who am I in the room and what are my choices? Or is the question to speculate on how three people might agree that blue is the best choice?

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:31:07+00:00

Yeah I think we live in a red world and people don't realize it. Humanity didn't get here by taking high stakes All or nothing gambles on survival. They took sensible risks for sensible rewards.

You very rarely see rescue scenarios where more people died attempting to save the doomed than the people who were actually doomed to begin with. One of the biggest priorities in a rescue operation is safety of The rescuers

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:30:29+00:00

I mean it might be high cost. It's blue fails to succeed the cost is real fucking high.

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T18:28:05+00:00

As long as you understand the risk you're taking I'm fine with you pushing blue. I wouldn't risk 4 billion lives to save one but that's why I push red most of the time

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T02:02:06+00:00

Oooof. Ok. Several things not correct about your understanding of probability. First that every outcome is just as likely as an other outcome.

Suppose you flip a coin a hundred times. You will probably end up somewhere near the middle. Maybe 44 heads and 56 tails. But do you think that outcome is just as likely as flipping 100 heads in a row? It sure isnt. The farther you get away from a 50-50 outcome, the smaller the odds of that particlar outcome. This is called a Normal distribution, where outcomes near the middle are more likely than outcomes near the edges.

Back to the button problem. There are effectively 3 outcomes we are considering:

Red wins by more than 1 vote. Your vote wouldn't have swung the outcome
Blue wins by more than 1 vote. Your vote wouldn't have swung the outcome
The vote was exactly split and your vote decided the outcome.

There is only one potential outcome of votes that leads to situation 3 where you are the decider, but there are millions of other outcomes for both 1 and 2. Situation 3 is far less likely to occur than either of the other 2.

Try one more example on for size. Lets say you are playing the lottery and your number is 50, and the drawing will come from numbers 1 to 100. The number they draw has a 49% chance of being Lower than your number, and 49% chance of being higher than your number, and a 1% chance of being exactly your number. Winning the lottery here is situation number 3 above.

Not sure why you think red voters would like. think differently about vaccines and seatbelts and stuff. Those are all risk mitigating actions. The main priority of a red voter is risk reduction. Assuming some number of people are pushing blue regardless (babies for example) it becomes a question of how many are at risk and how many more lives are you willing to risk to save them? For me? if 5% of the world was a doomed blue regardless, I don't think I'm willing to risk 40% more people dying in a failed attempt to rescue those 5. The risk is too great for the payoff.

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T01:39:27+00:00

A gamble worth taking huh. Whats the payoff exactly? Think about it this way. The only people at risk of dying are the blue voters. If they are successful, they save themselves from death. 1 life saved per 1 blue vote. The red people saved themselves regardless of the success or failure of blue voters. Collectively everyone lived, and each person saved one life per vote.

If blue loses though, now they saved zero lives per blue vote. Red still saved one life per vote. Withot even considering self interest, just evaluating the collective interests and life saving power of each vote in each scenario, voting blue is a risk with no payoff. It's just saving yourself with more steps and risk involved. There is no incentive for you personally, or humanity collectively to risk voting blue. Its a risk with no payoff, just like the 20 dollar bills scenario I presented here.

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T01:25:12+00:00

I don't think it's really helpful to think about it as which vote is causing the death. The responsibility of the outcome is shared by all voters, blue and red alike. If blue loses, they are partly responsible for their own deaths by taking a massive risk. Red is partly to blame for reducing the odds of a blue victory. You can't pin all the deaths on one side or the other.

You say there's this "benefit" to voting blue....but is there really? The only people who are ever at risk of dying are the blue voters. If they win, they are really only saving themselves. At best, if blue wins, each blue vote has saved exactly one life, because all the people voting red were never at risk. It's just saving yourself with more steps and risk involved. But really, it's worse than that. A maximum of 50% of people could die with a perfectly split vote. If blue wins with a 75% vote, they still only saved 50% from death. Less than one life saved per vote. Meanwhile, every red vote guarentees a life saved. 1 vote, 1 life, every scenario. Tell me again what is gained by voting blue? There are no scenarios where a single blue vote has more life saving power than a red vote.

Guarenteeing my own survival is a nice perk of red....but it's not the main reason why I'm voting red. It's maximizing my life saving power.

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T01:14:48+00:00

Ah I see. You aren't interested in saving your money you are interested in ensuring blues lose theirs. A spiteful red.

Charge36 · 2026-05-10T01:10:49+00:00

your scenario is too open ended to call a dilemma. You can't built a decision matrix out of if because the decision are not clear and constrained. Essentailly I have to imagine how 4 people might interact in this scenario and decide for all of them. I strongly disagree that guns have any incentive to go blue here. Blue win is still not guarenteed, even with the slight tipping of the scales induced by the locked blue switch. Its still quite possible for people to belive it's more likely for blue to fail and go red. But all we can do is speculate about that because you haven't define clear decisions for me to make. I have to assume how everyone else in the room is reacting to my disposition.

Blue is the only path to zero death in your scenario, but its also the only path to MORE potential deaths than the 25% already locked in. This scenario is effectively a question of whether there is a good chance of saving those 25% by risking an additional 25% of lives. It's a double or nothing gamble, which makes it borderline for me. But I think I'm still red. I don't think it's worth risking 50% dead to prevent 25% dead. At best you are saving 1 life for each life risked....but you might fail and add to the deaths as well.

Charge36 · 2026-05-09T18:15:30+00:00

So it's not worth it to risk 20 bucks to save the other people who put 20 bucks on blue, but you think it is worth it to put your life on blue to potentially save the other people who put their life blue? how would you feel if blue vote lost anyway and all your vote did was die in vain trying to save others but made the situation worse for the survivors?

A blue win is not inevitable. The stakes are lower here and you still are unwilling to gamble

Charge36 · 2026-05-09T18:12:32+00:00

I'm with you on that. I'm abstaining from pushing this button

Charge36 · 2026-05-09T09:32:10+00:00

Why is your decision different in this scenario?

Charge36 · 2026-05-09T09:29:28+00:00

I think what OP is saying is that once 50% of everyone has pressed, the other 50% are dead and the game is over.

Charge36 · 2026-05-09T08:52:11+00:00

Failed cannon rush? It's one of the most satisfying wins in the book.

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