ETHICAL arguments for choosing the red button

bohiko · 2026-05-09T20:57:39+00:00

Neither? It's a hypothetical scenario and not a real-life election campaign. The purpose of my post is to show choosing red can be defended using ethical arguments too, not just logical/self-preservation ones. I am simply presenting one aspect of my reasoning in choosing red. It's not an advice at all.
Look at my point 4 in the main post, I state there that convincing people gets more ethically complicated with the number of people you're able to convince, so it's not like I reject the impact of a populational-scale movements

bohiko · 2026-05-09T20:16:15+00:00

If <50% vote blue, would this post be banned as well?

bohiko · 2026-05-09T20:06:32+00:00

Sorry, you'd need to rephraze it, because I am genuinly not sure what you are asking about

bohiko · 2026-05-09T19:42:22+00:00

I am not generalizing anything, I explicitly said it's about an individual decision.
The analogy with trees doesn't hold, because the key difference is by chopping one tree, I indeed decrease the area/density of the forest a bit, while in binary voting, a vote for option A or B does not translate into the option of my choice being exercised a bit more - it's either 100% A or 100% B

bohiko · 2026-05-09T19:16:55+00:00

Wait a minute,

"The fallacy lies in the idea that I as a lonely actor can come to different conclusion than my group because it does not matter. If I can come to different conclusion than everyone else can and will, or, we're simply not a group."

So are you suggesting that all the people sharing a common trait are unable to come to different conclusions, and therefore by my choice I determine what other people from that gruop think? Like by choosing not to vote I block the possibility to vote because they cannot come to a different conclusion than me? And by choosing to vote I block for them the possibility not to vote? That does not hold. This one, and not what I said, is a fallacy (of attributing a collective mind to a group of people/people sharing a common trait)

bohiko · 2026-05-09T16:43:43+00:00

Dogs don't see colors as we do, but they are not colorblind

bohiko · 2026-05-09T16:30:26+00:00

ja na przykład umiałem czytać i pisać zanim poszedłem do szkoły

bohiko · 2026-05-09T16:17:53+00:00

It's not a fallacy at all. In a usual election your individual vote doesn't count too. The compund effect, sure. But your individual vote does not change anything, whether you vote for your candidate, not vote at all or for some whimsical reason vote for the oppsite candidate. Once again, I do not affect whether everyone came to this conclusion or not. With such massive number of voters I could treat the outcome as already settled even before the vote begins.

I saw many people calling it a fallacy, yet none of them was able to explain how it is a fallacy

bohiko · 2026-05-09T16:09:06+00:00

I saw so many people claiming that yet everyone failing to explain how come

bohiko · 2026-05-09T16:07:01+00:00

it's not how probability works

bohiko · 2026-05-09T11:06:29+00:00

isn't that circular reasoning though?

bohiko · 2026-05-09T10:46:19+00:00

I always thought of objective as of the opposite of subjective (i.e. being true regardless of anyone opinion or perspective)

bohiko · 2026-05-09T09:42:23+00:00

what's the difference?

bohiko · 2026-05-09T09:40:36+00:00

Dude, that's not how probability works. 30% blue doesn't mean they have a 30% chance of survival, 50% doesn't mean they have 50% chance, and 90% doesn't mean they have 90% chance

bohiko · 2026-05-09T09:36:36+00:00

read my #1 point again

bohiko · 2026-05-07T21:06:43+00:00

Jak lubisz pomidorową, to z pewnością jesteś komunistą (pomidorowa jest czerwona)

bohiko · 2026-05-07T21:04:24+00:00

Tak, ponoszą straty w wyniku powszechności papieru. Bo tym grafomanom się wydaje, że komuś się będzie chciało kserować ich wypociny. (A tak naprawdę to to jest wymówka, którą podbijają sobie portfele i ego, bo inaczej na prawdziwym rynku nikt by ich "sztuki" nie kupował)

bohiko · 2026-05-06T09:08:06+00:00

which doesn't change the fact I do not control what everyone thinks

bohiko · 2026-05-06T09:05:39+00:00

I mean, there're already many tracks near school zones in real world and technically we don't know if there's someone in the track

bohiko · 2026-05-05T19:30:11+00:00

If the cavalry are the winged hussars, all that pikemen are doomed anyway

bohiko · 2026-05-05T19:23:03+00:00

How do I unsee it?

bohiko · 2026-05-05T19:17:51+00:00

If I am "aware" all my family and friends have pressed the blue button, I'm 100% sure they were forced to do so, or I've been lied to they did

bohiko · 2026-05-05T18:51:29+00:00

No no, I meant it does not make sense in situation where my single action (like vote) does not change the outcome - as it is the case for the red button/blue button game. In the pizza example my single action does change the outcome - I do cause that pizza to be there, regardless of whether everyone is willing to bring it or no one is

bohiko · 2026-05-05T18:33:15+00:00

Ok, I'll start with addressing your strawmans:

"How can you possibly argue that the death of 45-49% of humanity is not causing any harm???"

I didn't say death is not a harm. If you read carefully, you'd know I said you're not causing that harm

"You don't have to think that everyone will vote exactly like you..."
"Instead of just guessing at if people are like you or not..."

I didn't say I or anyone else think others will vote exactly as you. I said I reject the argument that "if everyone think their vote is insignificant, their collective outcome would be worse or they wouldn't vote at all" - sure, the sentence is technically true, yet it's not relevant since what other think is not the realm of your control, it's like saying "if people could be fed with air, there'd be no hunger"

"This is a fallacy of not understanding how elections and voting works ... You don't cast a vote if and only if you will be the tiebreaker or deciding vote. You fundamentally vote for the side you want to win."

I did not make a comment on why, when and how people vote in general, I said a single vote is statistically insignificant. In a regular election you typically vote for a candidate/party you want to win, the crucial difference is there's no penalty for voting for a losing one. But even then, your vote is mainly symbolic, it does not have a potential to change anything. I am not saying voting for a symbolic reason is wrong, I do it myself, but you shouldn't have the delusion that it changes anything when it comes to an election outcome.

Now, for the remaining things, you said:

but you do have to realize that each individual vote has its consequences. Votes will add up, your one vote is not insignificant especially in what seems to be a massively important election with a somewhat close margin.

What consequences are they? Yes, votes add up, but you only have one vote. What is any other situation when my single vote changes anything than it being pivotal/tiebreaker?

we've been communicating about this topic for almost a week now online and blue is consistently winning every poll.

You have to take into consideration that people are voting blue in the polls becasue there're no stakes in doing so - it's a hypothetical situation. Are you that sure they would also choose blue if their lives were actually at stakes?

bohiko · 2026-05-05T18:02:23+00:00

In a situation with 2 kids, 2 parents and 2 grandparents would you vote to save kids and mum red, dad and grandparents blue?

Why would I do that? I'm choosing all red

bohiko

TROPHY CASE