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Going with the spousal example, it's not equally optimal for both to choose red and both to choose blue. Both choosing blue is superior to both choosing red, because the very act of both choosing blue is indicative of stronger bonds and itself reenforces them.
Alternately, it's a competition in who can be the bigger martyr: "Darling, I chose blue because I want you to live, even if I know you would choose red and leave me to die, I love you that much".
Competing over who makes the bigger sacrifice and who is the more self-sacrificing and who is ahead in the list of favours done is not a strong and happy bond. I'd rather someone who said "I picked red because I trust you're not an idiot and would pick red, too".
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You're really reaching to add things to the situation that aren't present in the initial scenario
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Why? I expect my wife to choose red and I think she'd be very upset if I was dead. Is choosing blue supposed to be an act that indicates that I simply couldn't live without her or something? When it's only two people, it really does feel a lot like the blender version of things where I would say that we should just both skip the door leading to the blender and that it's pretty obvious.
In the purely altruistic 1v1 version of the game it's literally just about finding the Schelling point. Though, even then, if both players are rational, red is still the obvious Schelling point since the downside is less if the other person chooses differently. Red is strongly dominant if someone is agnostic about the other person's choice.
You can be rational and value someone else's life higher than your own.
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Not quite. It's not that the act of choosing blue signals a belief that the value of your life is zero without her. More like, the act of choosing blue indicates that you believe she might choose blue, either inherently or because she believes you might choose blue. If there's any risk at all that one person or the other would either choose blue or believe the other person would choose blue, that forces the other person to readjust their estimation of the other person's likelihood of choosing blue upwards, which forces the other person to readjust upwards, etc. Eventually that becomes a substantial risk, and if you place a nonzero value on the relationship and believe the other person places a nonzero value on the relationship, you choose blue in a leap of faith. Recognition of that uncertainty and the risk made in the leap of faith is what builds personal character and the relationship.
Said leap of faith being "I thought you'd choose blue because you're too stupid to work out why that is a bad idea, and you chose blue because you thought the same about me". Yeah, nice relationship where both parties only have contempt for the choices of the other!
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