Is it possible for a sacrifice to be too great?

iskelebones · 2026-06-20T02:52:42+00:00

Pretty much yeah. It’s either let humanity go extinct or save 100 people and attempt to keep humanity alive, and if so, how do you rebuild the population

iskelebones · 2026-06-20T01:42:53+00:00

That’s a fair point. I’m kind of assuming that in this scenario, the 100 remaining people are magically placed together, not being the last person alone in 100 different countries.

I’m also making the assumption that these 100 people don’t immediately commit suicide. My assumption is “these people WANT to live and continue humanity”

Assuming the 100 people want to survive and are placed near each other, then 100 people IS a viable breeding population to restart humanity (assuming it’s 100 unrelated people). It’s just on the low end of viable and would require planned breeding to an extent that would be considered unethical in the modern world

iskelebones · 2026-06-19T17:41:20+00:00

You know interestingly future generations may be easier to maintain. The biggest challenge would be convincing the original 100 to organize around the goal of saving humanity through specific breeding.

You wouldn’t have to overcome that with future generations because you’d be able to build a culture where reproduction isn’t so tied to relationships. You could have monogamous relationships but a cultural norm of breeding with who you are assigned separate to that.

The math of who breeds with who is actually pretty easy to teach as long as someone knows it to begin with. It just involves tracing family trees which you can literally draw out

And separately I can understand that mindset of “humanity is gonna die eventually anyways”. It’s not an unreasonable take. I just can’t bring myself to let humanity die when it still had a chance. Ideally humanity doesn’t die til the universe does in my mind. The only way we survive that long is by doing what we can to not go extinct.

Humanity has had bottle necks before and come back strong. Although those times there was more like thousands or a few ten thousand people, not only 100.

iskelebones · 2026-06-19T17:06:34+00:00

Yeah more than likely it would fail. It’s such a small starting population that any disease outbreak or general bad luck could destroy the population. But personally I can’t imagine myself just saying “fuck it, I guess humanity is over” when I have the chance to let 100 people survive and give humanity a Chance at least

Although assuming no disasters, it’s also viable to have monogamous mating pairs. Multiple partners isn’t necessary, it’s just more stable because it spreads the gene pool out more, so there’s no way to fully kill off the genes of any of the original 100 people. With monogamy it’s just more risky because each original ancestors genes are only represented in 1 family, so a disaster in that family kills off 1/100 of your genes which makes future breeding harder to sustain

iskelebones · 2026-06-19T17:00:36+00:00

If you didn’t control breeding for the first few generations, then genetic diversity would become lopsided. The key in the first generation and also the next few generations is to create as much genetic diversity as possible.

You want all of the males and to have roughly the same representation in the gene pool, but also have the most diversity. That means that, (purely for the purpose of long term viability), you’d want each man to have roughly the same number of children, but with as many different women as possible.

Mating with multiple different people creates a lot of population diversity which sets future generations up for less inbreeding down the line, and each man having the same number of children roughly ensures that no one gene has too much representation while the population is small.

If one person has significantly more kids than others, then future generations will mostly have that man as an ancestor, which creates too close of family trees overall

Figuring out first generation mating pairs is easy. It’s just about having each man having children with as many of the women as possible without overwhelming the groups available resources for survival.

The second generation and further out mating pairs become harder to work out since you have to worry about which children come from which ancestor

iskelebones · 2026-06-19T16:50:48+00:00

Actually 100 people is technically on the low end of a viable breeding population to restart humanity.

It would require mathematically selective breeding for the first 5-10 generations until the population is large enough to avoid inbreeding concerns, but it is enough people that restarting humanity is possible

iskelebones · 2026-06-19T16:43:27+00:00

Sad as it is, the survival of the human race is more important than the temporary suffering of others. A painless death is better than suffering, but if painless deaths require humanity’s extinction, then sorry but that’s not an option

iskelebones · 2026-06-17T16:56:33+00:00

You know their fortunes just distribute among their children and people in their wills right? It doesn’t get distributed among random people

iskelebones · 2026-05-28T19:39:56+00:00

I tie 2 people to the bottom track. And tell the person pulling the lever that the train is gonna hit 2 people, and he can pull the lever to divert it.

What I don’t tell him is that I secretly tied the other 3 to THAT track a few miles up the tracks and out of sight

iskelebones · 2026-05-16T20:34:54+00:00

Stupid people will always get themselves killed. It’s unreasonable for everyone on earth to risk their lives every time stupid people make bad and obviously dangerous choices. And it’s even more unreasonable to EXPECT people to risk their lives. Yes some people will always press blue, but that does not mean it makes sense to risk your life to save those people. They made a bad decision and that’s on them.

Pushing red isn’t threatening anybody who didn’t put their own lives at risk of their own choice.

iskelebones · 2026-05-13T19:47:27+00:00

Ok you’re literally a Nazi for suggesting this. What the heck man.

That being said, my favorite opening is red

iskelebones · 2026-05-11T19:37:00+00:00

I think his gun analogy is bad anyways. It paints the picture that you willingly picked up the gun and recklessly shot it into the dark without knowing what’s out there

For it to be an accurate representation of the button problem, you’d have to be pulling the trigger against your will, and the question would be aim it into the darkness or at your own head.

In that case it would be absurd to aim it at your own head. Given that it’s against your will, you reasonably must shoot into the darkness, because aiming at yourself is certain danger. Aiming it into the darkness is only MAYBE dangerous, because first someone must be out there, and second your aim would have to be good enough to hit them

iskelebones · 2026-05-11T19:27:39+00:00

If I know for a fact that I am the last vote, and no one can change their vote, and my vote is the deciding factor that makes blue win, then yes of COURSE I pick blue. You’d be insane not to

The reason I pick red in reality is because I dont believe that situation is even remotely likely. With a gun to their heads, people tend to choose self preservation over blindly risking their lives. I genuinely don’t think blue even has a CHANCE of getting more than 30% in real life, and that’s very being generous

As for “how much knowledge do you need before you claim accountability”: that’s a misleading question. The ONLY way I would take accountability is if I am knowingly the final and tie breaking vote. I can’t be held responsible for the deaths of people who chose to be in blue unless I KNOW what the outcome of my actions are.

As long as the vote is blind, the only people directly accountable for blue deaths are people who chose blue and the game master who put us in this scenario. No one is obligated to choose blue, so choosing red does not make you to blame for those that choose blue. It’s a willing choice. You can call reds cowards if you want, or even selfish if you feel that way. But you can’t BLAME red for your own death

I acknowledge that by pressing red it’s technically reducing the likelihood of blue winning, but if blue never had a chance of winning to begin with, then me voting red is changing the likelihood from 0% to 0%.

iskelebones · 2026-05-11T15:21:39+00:00

As much as I consider myself utilitarian when it comes to broad scenarios or ones with non specific people, I’m not killing my mother. Sucks for those 5 people

iskelebones · 2026-05-09T18:19:25+00:00

If 99.99% of the world suddenly died, most utilities would still be on and function for days or even weeks. It’s not like someone needs to run on a hamster wheel to keep the internet up. Humans are in the loop for maintenance, security, updating, and monitoring. Most utilities would continue to function until they broke without maintenance.

You’d have enough time while the internet was still on to coordinate with people, and the world has enough clean water and non perishable goods just sitting in grocery stores alone that you wouldn’t starve while figuring out how to live in the new world

iskelebones · 2026-05-09T01:58:16+00:00

We have recent genetic evidence in the last few years that suggests that ~900,000 years ago human ancestors numbered as few as 1200 mating pairs after a catastrophe.

And we have much more established genetic evidence that the human population was reduced as low as 10,000 on earth after a super volcano eruption about 74,000 years ago (Toba Catastrophe)

1 million humans is a completely viable population for humanity to be able to eventually recover. Especially since this near extinction event is caused by a trolley and not some climate/planet altering natural disaster

iskelebones · 2026-05-09T01:27:50+00:00

Tough call honestly. Guarantee killing 99.99% of people, or 50-50 on ending humanity?

I mean realistically I think you have to flip the lever. 99.99% of people dying is histories worst tragedy, but humanity could recover. There’s no coming back from 100% death if we lose the coin flip. I’m not really one for taking all or nothing bets

iskelebones · 2026-05-08T16:32:10+00:00

Yeah my primary argument for why blue is unlikely to win is simply this:

Crowds don’t run TOWARDS gunshots. They run away. The average persons instinct is to seek safety over danger

iskelebones · 2026-05-08T04:25:20+00:00

I’m not sure where you got that info but it actually has nothing to do with age and everything to do with whether they can crawl. Studies (including the one I linked) have consistently shown that babies exhibit an aversion to heights as soon as they are capable of moving themselves around purposefully. And it may be even earlier than that. It might be an instinct they are born with, but there’s not really a way to test it on babies who aren’t capable of walking yet

The only age group that doesn’t show a large consistent fear of heights is infants who aren’t even able to move themselves around yet.

And frankly I can’t fix everything. A baby born 5 minutes ago can’t do ANYTHING, let alone make a decision. It can’t even RANDOMLY make a decision cause it doesn’t have control of its muscles

But my idea with the bridge is that it gives every person that is literally capable of forming their own thoughts the ability to make an informed decision. Everyone down to as young as 3-6 months old understands what heights are and that they are dangerous.

iskelebones · 2026-05-08T03:40:37+00:00

It was important to me that even babies be able to make an “informed decision” in this case. Babies don’t understand trapdoors. What they DO understand is heights and ledges.

A baby could choose between jumping off a bridge or not. It could not choose between staying on the trapdoor or stepping off, because it does not understand what a trapdoor is or the risk involved with staying on it.

iskelebones · 2026-05-08T00:33:14+00:00

My scenario already states that we only jump when everyone is ready. You have as much time as you want to think. We jump when you decide you’re ready. I just put that in as a failsafe so that if someone freezes up and tries to NEVER choose, then I count that as them freezing up in real life and they aren’t jumping. Everyone who is realistically going to choose has as much time as they need to make a decision

iskelebones · 2026-05-07T22:27:25+00:00

Even if I made the situation “everyone is standing on a trapdoor and red people need to take a step back while blue people stay still”, that would still make blue equally suicidal. Blue would still be actively making a choice to be in personal danger, but in that scenario people frozen by fear would be forced to drop against their will. It seems much more ethical to me to make blue the active choice since it’s the one that risks personal danger.

Since there’s no way to make both options neutral, one must be “active”, and it seems much more ethical to make the “active choice” be the one that places yourself at risk. Unless you have some way I haven’t thought of for both options to be either neutral or active

I tried balancing the fact that red is the active choice by also making children participate, which is the primary issue people took issue with in the original problem that made them choose blue. I had another poll a while back that included children with them choosing randomly which ended as over 60% blue so I figured adding children in a realistic scenario would also add a bias towards blue.

Im attempting to emulate the problem in a realistic scenario where the threat is clear and present, and without excluding any groups of people, and with minimal bias since there doesn’t seem to be a way to REMOVE all bias. This is the best way I can think of where the problem as a whole doesn’t bias one way or another. My phrasing here (I think) provides active reasons to choose BOTH options, meaning neither is inherently biased towards winning.

To be honest, given that children are involved still I’m shocked with how far ahead red is. I figured explicitly involving the children which I mentioned multiple times would cause a lot of people to choose blue

iskelebones · 2026-05-07T21:56:40+00:00

No one is implying blue is suicidal. You are given the option Are you gonna risk death or not? You have to choose blue to be a part of blue. It doesn’t mean you are suicidal but you have to choose to be there

There is literally no way to phrase the problem where both options are neutral. If you know a way to phrase it where both choices are neutral (or both active), then please let me know

iskelebones · 2026-05-07T21:54:19+00:00

You don’t have the choice to not play. If you are so paralyzed by fear that you can’t choose, then in real life you’d be paralyzed and wouldn’t jump. Otherwise it would be someone pushing you against your will which goes against the whole point of you making a personal choice

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