Button Poll #2: Only those with normal cognitive capacity are given buttons.

[Reformed Offlian]

Not a single red button pusher thinks this.

The person I was responding to stated that blue voters were too dumb to live and had no one but themselves to blame. No one has pointed out the daylight between such sentiments and thinking that blue voters deserve to die.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Not content, but if huge numbers of people made such a crashingly unwise decision, well, sometimes one just has to let them do it.

True. For me, in *this* scenario of no babies... I think people should be accountable for the consequences of their own actions. I think it's profoundly unjust to expect everyone else to shelter one from one's own choices, especially when the risks are obvious and well known.

If blues desire to save others from the consequences of their choices, fine. What's not fine is demonizing red for not doing the same.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If EVERYONE presses either blue OR red, nobody dies.

That's what Lith said. I had to re-read it, but Lith does specifically say that both would be labeled the same.

 

[theprestige]

Maybe the sexes are differently biased. Maybe women are wired to prioritize survival over principle. Maybe men are wired to prioritize principle over mere survival.

 

[Emily's Cat]

My bad, misunderstood you.

In that context, I was saying that Blue voters don't give a thought to other people having to "save them". And they don't. It's not a factor in the button push.

But you're doing it to save others, aren't you? You see that there's a risk that you could die, and that you can only avoid death if enough other people also risk death... but you still choose to take the risk. Because you're confident that enough other people will take the risk hand-in-hand with you. You're implicitly relying on other people to save you from the consequences of your own choice.

More than that, you're actively trying to bully and denigrate people who don't risk themselves to help save you form the risk that you voluntarily took.

I'm perfectly happy to let you push blue. I think it's a suboptimal choice, and I'd much prefer that nobody took unecessary risks. But if you wish to, that's fine, noble even.

I'm not, however, going to let you be a bully and vilify me or other reds for not taking that same risk.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Maybe the sexes are differently biased. Maybe women are wired to prioritize survival over principle. Maybe men are wired to prioritize principle over mere survival.

I don't know that I'd word it that way... but it's fairly well established that females are more risk-averse than males.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Right. The Blue voters will insure you do not prevail.

Reds prevail no matter what. We're also perfectly content if Blues all live as well.

 

[Emily's Cat]

At a minimum, you are saying that you are okay with them dying as long as you can blame the victims for their fate, that it is an acceptable outcome for people who choose blue.

Nobody is blaming blues though. On the other hand... I don't really think that the person who jumps off a clif without a parachute knowing full well that they're likely to die can reasonably be called a "victim".

I really do believe that in most cases, people should be accountable for the consequences of their own choices. If they're misinformed, or if they're not capable of making the decision, or if they're unaware that the consequence is a possibility, then they may be victims. But when they're fully informed, and they're cognitively capable, and they're well aware of the risks... then I don't believe anyone else should be held responsible for the fate that those individuals have chosen for themselves.

 

[Emily's Cat]

100% Red is not attainable in a global vote. 51% Blue is. That's why Blue is the better choice for the desirable outcome.

If this were purely a math exercise, you would be right. Your probability calculation is accurate. But your value at risk calculation is missing entirely.

I'll say it once more since you seem unable to accept it: I'm quite happy that blue got more than 50%. I don't think poorly of blues for choosing blue, I respect the choice.

Why are you unable to extend that same courtesy?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Is there anything counterfactual, then, with labelling them both 'if everyone pushes THIS button and not the other one, nobody dies?'

It's not counterfactual, it's merely incomplete.

 

[theprestige]

I don't know that I'd word it that way... but it's fairly well established that females are more risk-averse than males.

And maybe that's the evolutionary advantage that has catapulted H. Sapiens to the top of the food chain.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It's a logic puzzle, not a real world scenario. We don't have to explicitly rule out children, those demented or seriously ill or other fringe cases.

The logic puzzle presented explicitly rules out children, those demented and severely ill and other fringe cases.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If more than 50% push blue, or 100% push red, everybody survives. Yay! I do not find that unacceptable. I find the risk that the blues don't make 50% unacceptable for me. That is why I push red. The blues are obviously willing to take that risk. They are entitled to do that. They should not whine if they don't get the numbers, the risk was laid out clearly before they pushed.

Well said.

 

[Rolfe]

Reds prevail no matter what. We're also perfectly content if Blues all live as well.

It's just weird the way he imagines that we want to "win" somehow, that we want there to be more reds than blues, and that we're all absolutely slavering for as many blue deaths as mathematically possible.

We hope nobody will vote blue. We'll be really really happy if nobody votes blue. Equally, we'll be equally happy if over 50% vote blue. All the same to us. Both outcomes are excellent. However, we strongly suspect that when the chips are down, not enough people will vote blue to get over the 50% line. And that being so, we're not inclined to vote to put ourselves in the "dead" category. It will be sad if some people vote blue, but in the end that was their choice, in full cognisance of the possible outcome.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Another question: What happens if exactly 50% vote blue. That possibility isn't covered in the OP.

Exactly 50% leads to blues dying . It is covered in the OP, given that it's framed as "greater than 50%" being required for survival.

 

[Emily's Cat]

They should absolutely complain; it is ridiculous and evil to force people to make such a choice.

If you wish to blame the presumed button gods and consider them evil, I'm right there with you.

And it is also completely appropriate to deplore that, faced with that choice, so many people opted to make pressing the blue button a capital offence simply to save their own skins.

Red pushers didn't make the blue button a capital offense. The evil button gods did. Red pushers just declined to take an avoidable risk.

Red voters, similarly, should not "whine" when people call them out as selfish, callous, cowardly, and even evil for making such a choice. Nor should they "whine" when the less immediate consequences of their decision come home to roost, such as there being no rescue workers left in the world when their town floods, or having their kids die because they voted blue.

I think it's entirely unacceptable to blame others for the consequences of your own choices, especially when those choices worked out for you. You gambled and won... and you're calling the people who did NOT gamble "selfish, callous, cowardly, and evil".

 

[Emily's Cat]

If you vote red, you vote to make pressing blue a capital offense. That only happens if enough people vote red.

You pushed the suicide button. You only manage to not die if enough people try to commit suicide with you.

It's kind of funny. Blues point out that Red results in deaths unless 100% push Red, which is true. But then they also want to harass and denigrate and be ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ because Blue also didn't get 100%.

 

[Rolfe]

And maybe that's the evolutionary advantage that has catapulted H. Sapiens to the top of the food chain.

No, it really isn't. Lots more advantages outweigh that one. Although I concede that it's important. Society can spare males much more than it can spare females. In really bad times it's having enough females that makes the difference between the population recovering and not.

Society also has need of males mad enough to be ready and willing to risk a horrible death to defend the community. This cohort is provided by the young intake, who have an invincibility complex and a belief that they will never die. The ones who survive become the crafty, experienced leaders and the fathers of the next generation.

It makes much better sense for the females to prioritise their own safety and the safety of their children (born or not yet conceived). But at the very last, you bet they'll risk everything. That has been proven time and time again.

But lots of animal communities have similar arrangements. It's not our secret weapon.

 

[Emily's Cat]

"Capital Offense" connotes an action that you can be killed for committing. In this case, pressing a blue button.

"Hey, you can be killed by the button gods if you push blue."

"Oh gee, I better push blue then!"

Or, you know, just don't do the thing that could get you killed?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I still genuinely wonder what the voting spread would be if you had only one button. Instructions are, everyone (adult of normal cognitive capacity) has the choice to press this button or not. If you choose not to, nothing will happen to you. For those who choose to press it, you will die unless over 50% of those who have been offered this choice also choose to press it.

Framing is everything, and I strongly suspect you'd get very few takers for this framing, even though it's the same as the OP.

We;ve already seen that framing makes a massive difference. Aside from Lithrael saying they'd stand there and stare wide-eyed at the green aliens... nobody else answers an alternately framed but structurally equivalent question.