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PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   848 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 1, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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The obvious reason to choose red is that many of your closest friends, family, people you love will choose red, and do you really want to be a survivor in a world populated entirely by people who choose blue?

If everyone commits to pressing red, everyone lives. If you leave it to "push blue?" then there's a good chance people die. If you want to maximise your own chances of survival, push red.

do you really want to be a survivor in a world populated entirely by people who choose blue?

There is no world populated entirely by people who chose blue.

Obviously this is a coordination problem that presupposes that everyone is presented with the problem and must choose instantly without speaking to everyone they know and love (otherwise we could obviously all agree, as the human race, to choose red, and all definitely live).

It only works if you don’t know what your parents, children, spouse and friends have picked or will pick.

It's more that I was trying to point out that if you are a blue, then yeah you'll think reds are bad, just because they're red. But if you're a red, then you'll think blues are bad, for the same reason: just because they're blues. You need more of a convincing reason than "ugh, those people, do you really want to be in the same hemisphere as those stinky losers?"

If the majority of the population are going to be blue, maybe I would prefer to be dead!

If everyone commits to pressing red, everyone lives.

This is outside the bounds of the thought experiment (children, mentally infirm, etc.) and so irrelevant.

Does it specifically say children, the infirm, etc. are included? It just says "everyone who pushes this colour, this thing; everyone who pushes that colour, that thing". You can just as easily argue that children and the enfeebled are not going to be permitted to push buttons and so they don't come in to the experiment.

Indeed, if only the button pushers die, then everyone who doesn't push a button probably lives anyway, so red or blue doesn't apply to them.

Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?

Here is the prompt again, emphasis mine.

Not accusing you of this but a whole lot of people are somehow reading it as 'mentally-competent adults' which is not what it says.

Right, it does say "everyone in the world" which presumably includes children. I think the problem is we instinctively go "well clearly not babies, babies can't press buttons" etc. and that leads to the "does this really mean children, how old is the child" and so on.

I feel like this line of thought has to be post-facto rationalization that people are doing to justify their choice to themselves. Yes, obviously it's inhuman and cruel to force children, the mentally handicapped, etc to participate in a "game" with life-or-death stakes. It's also obviously inhuman and cruel to summon any significant fraction of the world's population to participate in a "game" with life-or-death stakes. There is no scenario in which this game is being run ethically.

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