| Game theory: Everyone is a perfectly rational, conscious, adult actor who can fully understand the question and reason out the optimal solution | Reality: People may misinterpret, skim, or not fully understand the question (irrational actors) | |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | Everyone would conclude that everyone pressing red would mean no one dies while also not threatening death for the individual. In which case choosing blue would amount to suicide. | Irrational actors may choose blue due to a lack of understanding or reasoning through the question. To have a chance of saving this initial group of irrational actors, some rational actors find it ethical to choose blue. |
| Red | Just survival; you are not responsible for the deaths of those who chose blue (who basically chose to die) | Your actions could lead to the deaths of irrational actors who chose blue, as well as those who wished to save irrational actors |
| Best choice | Red | If someone’s assessment of the situation is a prediction like 75% red, 25% blue, then advocating for blue would mean needlessly letting more people die. Advocating for red would reduce casualties. So red would be best. If assessment of the situation is more decisive, predicting around 50/50, then advocating for and choosing blue would mean trying to save everyone. So blue would be best. If assessment of the situation is a blue majority, then you can press red to ensure your own survival just in case you’re wrong, but you’re kind of a dickhead. |
If the hypothetical includes babies, elderly folks, mentally disabled people, and colorblind people, then the amount of irrational actors increases dramatically. The results may be around 50/50 for these groups, not affecting the overall ratio. But the moral motivation to save irrational actors increases and becomes far more obvious. Blue would then be a more obviously moral choice and its chances of winning increase. Note that the original twitter poll states that everyone on earth is included, so this is probably the case for that instance.
Online polls are often decisive or favor blue, so it seems like you should press blue. But obviously if this scenario happened in reality, the results would be different from online polls. You could argue that a red majority would arise due to a more real fear of mortality, the prevalence of individualist cultures, “human nature”, or a lot of other arguments.
Personally, I think blue is best since we can’t get any data on how this would really happen; the online polls are the best we have to work with. And the red majority arguments are unconvincing to me.
Sidenote on disingenuous framing
| Favoring red | Favoring blue |
|---|---|
| There is a wood chipper that kills you if you jump in, but if 50% of humanity jumps in then it jams and nobody dies. Do you jump in? | There is a wood chipper that requires 50% of humanity to operate. If it is in operation, it sucks everyone, aside from operators, into it and kills them. Do you operate it? |
| This frames red as a default inactive position, and blue as an active choice. | This frames blue as a default inactive position, and red as an active choice. |
Either button can be seen as the “do nothing” button by assigning all outcomes to the other. Those who favor red can frame the question such that blue pushers are just risking their lives for no reason, and those who favor blue can frame the question such that red pushers are risking others’ lives for no reason. But in the original hypothetical, both buttons work under the same magical force that is carrying out the killing. It is an active choice in both cases, one that impacts all of humanity. You either jump into the wood chipper or operate it, there is no way to avoid responsibility. The outcome depends on the actions of both groups of button pushers, and they are equally responsible.