I made a simulation game with Claude that lets you simulate the red or blue button scenario. Complete with stats showing various measures of vote effectiveness. There are even a couple special outcomes if you cast the deciding vote....but even with 1000 simulated votes it is exceptionally rare.
Let me know you think and happy pressing
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/3c9d5e8c-f399-4292-9690-f8f5f09c01eb
Everyone in the world has a 20 dollar bill. Everyone must choose to put their bill in either the red box, or the blue box. After everyone chooses, if the blue box has more bills than the red box, everyone gets their 20 dollars back. If the red box has more bills than the blue box, the blue box is set on fire and everyone who chose red gets their 20 dollars back.
What box are you picking?
The Red button Blue button question is missing a fundamental feature of dilemmas: Stakes. Before anyone has pressed a button…there are no stakes. No one’s lives are on the line. Everyone can choose to save themselves with no consequences. Stakes only exist if suicidal neanderthal blue button pushers decide to create them by risking their own life hoping others will save them. Truly an asshole move to put yourself in harms way then insist other people are selfish for being unwilling to save you from your own decision.
The question becomes much more interesting if stakes are built into the initial decision, so I present a modified version of the Red/Blue dilemma that actually has something at stake:
X number of people in a population are condemned to die. The condemned people are randomly determined after everyone in the population has pressed either a red or blue button. Pushing the red button excludes you from the random pool of condemned people and guarantees your survival. If the majority of people press Blue, the condemned people will be spared. If the majority of people press Red, the condemned people die along with anyone who voted Blue. What is your minimum X that will make you vote Blue?
Note that I was intentionally vague with the defined population. I think the question has different answers whether you are considering a global population vs a smaller population like a country, or city. Please indicate the population you are considering for your X.