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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   30160 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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this poll makes it obvious that the Blue-pressers are willing to risk their own wellbeing for people that are too stupid to just push the correct button

Like said below, it becomes a different thing if you imagine that everyone in some community has to make the choice, including small kids.

Would I trust my 3-year-old and 11-month-old kids to understand the subtle logic of the "everyone picks red" option, or just pick the pill that looks more like candy?

Ironically I think a kid at a certain age might cut right through the question without even blinking.

Imagine if the question were phrased thusly: "If you pick red you don't get spanked. People who picked blue get spanked, unless greater than 50% of people pick blue then NOBODY gets spanked"

Would most kids have to hear anything other than "If you pick red you don't get spanked" to immediately pick red?

Why wouldn't a red pill look like candy? Again, if you're giving a choice to an eleven month old, it's stupid.

The original poll was a simple choice in an online thought experiment that didn't say one thing about "the people in this experiment don't have the brains to come in out of the rain, so you must save them from themselves by your choice". The blue choosers then started introducing all kinds of qualifications to justify their superior virtue. Now we're down to "if an eleven month old infant in real life was given the choice of a candy or a poison pill". Come on, just tell us reds we're all devils and be done with it.

Come on, just tell us reds we're all devils and be done with it.

what's the point in this baiting?

Why wouldn't a red pill look like candy?

Did I say it wouldn't? Both might look like candy. 50/50 choice doesn't sound like good odds when talking about my child's life, though.

Come on, just tell us reds we're all devils and be done with it.

I said nothing of this sort, and find it very odd that red-pressers get pre-emptively angry over the mildest of challenges or questions around this thought experiment, considering that most of red-presser rhetoric revolves around how it's immediately and axiomatically obvious that blue-pressers are all either morons or lying virtue-signallers.

Both might look like candy. 50/50 choice doesn't sound like good odds when talking about my child's life, though.

So how does your picking blue save the kid? "Look, Junior, Mommy is picking blue so you know that one is safe". Oops, no, that's not how it works, it's "You picked the poison blue so now Mommy has to pick that one, too, and hope that enough other people pick it so we don't die".

The blue choosers then started introducing all kinds of qualifications to justify their superior virtue.

Come on, just tell us reds we're all devils and be done with it.

Nuh-uh! You're the virtue signaler! I'm rubber you're glue!

all kinds of qualifications

Is it so hard to imagine that some will misclick? There are no added qualifications. The brute reality of the poll will guarantee some choose blue by accident.

Misclicking does not send them into a blender, or the hangman's noose, or however they are theoretically supposed to go "poof!" into thin air in the thought experiment. The blue moralists, though, are acting as though "but they will DIE if they misclick, we must save them!"

No, all that happens is that they misclicked. Oops-a-daisy, but it's not like they spilled spaghetti sauce on their white shirt.

As with everything, kids are different and require a different kind of political thinking compared to adults.

Maybe I'm the complete moron, because I didn't even think about children. As someone notes below, toying with variables to make the situation more or less obvious and more or less iterative would change it in important ways.

The literal phrasing of the poll would probably exclude children, since it only talks about those voting in the poll, and presumably there wouldn't be too many 3-year-olds using Twitter (expect when someone accidentally posts awfoijgjdoindfnaofnbmadf,öd,dföl,bfbdfb,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,)

Then again, if we go by the results of the actual poll, it would have comfortably over 60% voting blue, so voting blue would be safe anyhow.

Yeah, there would probably be at least one 3-year-old though. There's only one way to guarantee everyone remains safe.

No there isn’t a way of you (the sole voter for your choice) guaranteeing everyone lives. If you vote blue you may die. If you vote red someone else may die. The only way to make sure is if enough people vote the same way but once you can allow for cooperation you tell everyone “if we all vote red no one does so just vote red.”

No there isn’t a way of you (the sole voter for your choice) guaranteeing everyone lives.

I hate this kind of turnabout. I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about us, considering there's at least one 3 year old who makes the "wrong" choice. There's only one way to protect them.

Yes, technically speaking, without cooperation there's no way to guarantee anything. So obviously what I meant was that given a 3 year old who picks blue there's only one way to save everyone.

And I hate your kind of turnabout. You introduced the knowledge and ability to influence others into the scenario in order to “get” to your preferred outcome. If we can do that, then we can very easily influence the 3 year old to take the red candy. I have kids. It isn’t hard to convince the kid to take the red pill in this example. In fact, I think you’d be really irresponsible to get the kid to take the blue pill hoping you could get enough other people to pick blue. I know I would do everything in my power to get my kids to take red even if it meant going from sufficient blue to insufficient blue because I would not risk my kids dying.

It isn’t hard to convince the kid to take the red pill in this example.

Just tell them blue is spicy. Works on my kids.

You introduced the knowledge and ability to influence others into the scenario in order to “get” to your preferred outcome.

Huh?

The scenario provided was you can choose blue or red.

You then said “well the only way to guarantee a good outcome is by choosing blue.”

I pointed out that isn’t true. You then said well conditional on everyone knowing that a kid took the blue pill and cooperation then the only way to guarantee a good outcome is blue.

But that changes they hypo.

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Yeah, there would probably be at least one 3-year-old though.

Participating in an online poll for a rationalist thought experiment? Man, three year olds these days are way more sophisticated than my time!

Bro come on. All it takes is one person to leave Twitter open, or a chance series of clicks on a computer/tablet/phone. Not that crazy.

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