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

[sphenisc]

... Also as usual I failed to take advantage of any of the forum features meant to avoid that type of confusion...

Ah, not willing to press a button to avoid other people suffering...got it.

 

[Lithrael]

Because, shorn of the fancy framing, that's what it is.

The poll you're responding to in your head says, there is one button. If more than 50% of people press it, everyone who pressed it will live. If fewer than 50% of people press it, everyone who pressed it will die. If you don't participate at all, you will live.

That's choosing to do a) nothing or choosing to b) take a risk for no good reason. That's 'red is the default position.'

The closest you can get to that from the original poll is to see it as choosing to a) gain a guarantee of personal safety, with the tradeoff of making your vote count against the survival of any blues, or choosing to b) take a risk for no good reason.

Many people see the original poll as a) choosing personal safety or b) choosing a collective safety that will backfire on you if (and only if) you turn out to be in the minority.

I've already said in the thread that I think that a question about a safe default that people must opt out of gives us a very different scenario than the button poll.

I have already said in the thread that I can far more easily picture all of humanity choosing to continue to not do a thing they were already not doing vs doing a new thing they weren't doing before, than I can picture all of humanity presented with two buttons, all choosing to press the button that means that (instead of thinking about pressing either that button or the other button, which will lead to at least some pressing the other button).

The logic is the same, yes. But it is not the same functionality if you don't have to press a button than if you do. One is genuinely passive (if you do nothing, then this) and the other is active (you must do something; this or that - even if you choose to push a button that means 'do nothing' you are still taking an action, the action of pressing the button). And yes, psychologically they are different, and we know how this affects the way populations make choices.

For a fun exercise, why not picture blue as the default?

There is one button. Everyone who presses it will live. If more than 50% of people press it, everyone who didn't press it will die.

How do you like them apples?

(I mean honestly, picturing either red-as-default or blue-as-default, I would be stumping for 'nobody should participate.' Everyone having the default option of ignoring the whole thing makes a massive, massive difference in the way I interact with the question.)

 

[Thermal]

The poll you're responding to in your head says, there is one button. If more than 50% of people press it, everyone who pressed it will live. If fewer than 50% of people press it, everyone who pressed it will die. If you don't participate at all, you will live.

That's choosing to do a) nothing or choosing to b) take a risk for no good reason. That's 'red is the default position.'

The closest you can get to that from the original poll is to see it as choosing to a) gain a guarantee of personal safety, with the tradeoff of making your vote count against the survival of any blues, or choosing to b) take a risk for no good reason.

Many people see the original poll as a) choosing personal safety or b) choosing a collective safety that will backfire on you if (and only if) you turn out to be in the minority.

I've already said in the thread that I think that a question about a safe default that people must opt out of gives us a very different scenario than the button poll.



For a fun exercise, why not picture blue as the default?

There is one button. Everyone who presses it will live. If more than 50% of people press it, everyone who didn't press it will die.

How do you like them apples?

EC the OP is right- the framing on this problem is what makes it so interesting. You can end up with completely different approaches depending on how you frame the dilemma.

At first glance, it seems like Blue is the obvious choice. I mean, hard to fault "Everyone Survives" as a choice.

Then you apply game theory to it, and Red comes out the winner... in theory. Red is failsafe individually, and if everyone chooses the failsafe, everyone is fine, and who would risk their lives when there is a perfectly safe alternative?

So what a skeptic should do (IMO) is to weigh out the possible and the likely outcomes of the vote, and evaluate which framing more accurately describes the situation. I think Blue kicks wholesale ass on the practical resolution front.

 

[Rolfe]

Ah, as usual I took too long typing and now there are a whole flotilla of sneaky posts that snuck in after I started, between the post I was replying to and the post I posted. Also as usual I failed to take advantage of any of the forum features meant to avoid that type of confusion. But since you haven't complained about people calling you out for the terrible crime of not wanting to set yourself on fire for no good reason, I assume the confusion wasn't too deep.

You can't turn off the feature that notifies you that additional posts have been posted since you started typing.

 

[Rolfe]

Prior version here.
Everyone on earth who is capable of reading and thinking about the choice must push either a red button or a blue button.

If you don't participate at all, you will live.

There is explicitly no allowance for refusing to participate.

 

[Rolfe]

EC the OP is right- the framing on this problem is what makes it so interesting. You can end up with completely different approaches depending on how you frame the dilemma.

At first glance, it seems like Blue is the obvious choice. I mean, hard to fault "Everyone Survives" as a choice.

Then you apply game theory to it, and Red comes out the winner... in theory. Red is failsafe individually, and if everyone chooses the failsafe, everyone is fine, and who would risk their lives when there is a perfectly safe alternative?

So what a skeptic should do (IMO) is to weigh out the possible and the likely outcomes of the vote, and evaluate which framing more accurately describes the situation. I think Blue kicks wholesale ass on the practical resolution front.

What intrigues me here is that the blue pushers seem prepared to reconsider if you present them with a framing that seems quite likely to produce a red majority. The virtue-signalling doesn't seem to survive an apparent real risk.

 

[bruto]

EC the OP is right- the framing on this problem is what makes it so interesting. You can end up with completely different approaches depending on how you frame the dilemma.

At first glance, it seems like Blue is the obvious choice. I mean, hard to fault "Everyone Survives" as a choice.

Then you apply game theory to it, and Red comes out the winner... in theory. Red is failsafe individually, and if everyone chooses the failsafe, everyone is fine, and who would risk their lives when there is a perfectly safe alternative?

So what a skeptic should do (IMO) is to weigh out the possible and the likely outcomes of the vote, and evaluate which framing more accurately describes the situation.
I think Blue kicks wholesale ass on the practical resolution front.

Alas, with the world as it is today, I am not so sanguine about this last bit, but when the reds line us up against the wall, we can all join hands and sing Kumbaya or something.

 

[Lithrael]

You can't turn off the feature that notifies you that additional posts have been posted since you started typing.

Indeed, that notification is one of the forum features I failed to take advantage of. As in I got the notification and neither checked what else was said while I was faffing about with my post nor added anything to clarify who I was responding to. I figured it wouldn't be too hard for people in the thread to suss out who I was addressing.

In fact I'm about to ignore that notification again right now!

 

[Rolfe]

Alas, with the world as it is today, I am not so sanguine about this last bit, but when the reds line us up against the wall, we can all join hands and sing Kumbaya or something.

If the "safe virtue signallers" are right then great. But they may not be. That's the dilemma, one which your one vote among 8.3 billion others is very unlikely to influence.

 

[Lithrael]

What intrigues me here is that the blue pushers seem prepared to reconsider if you present them with a framing that seems quite likely to produce a red majority. The virtue-signalling doesn't seem to survive an apparent real risk.

Hmm. I don't think that's actually true. I think blue pushers are prepared to reconsider if you present them with a scenario that seems quite likely to produce a red landslide, with no more than a handful of blue pushers.

If it seems like practically nobody will choose blue, then it's sensible to choose red, and yes, I'll choose red. If it seems like practically everybody will choose blue, I'll choose blue. If it seems like it's going to be close, I will choose blue (to try to help tip the balance.)

 

[Thermal]

What intrigues me here is that the blue pushers seem prepared to reconsider if you present them with a framing that seems quite likely to produce a red majority. The virtue-signalling doesn't seem to survive an apparent real risk.

Why should it? That's the hallmark of someone thinking through the practicalities, and not just a restricted abstract.

Most Blue pushers here, btw, seem pretty unreserved in their choice under most circumstances. If we hypothesize something outlandish, like somehow knowing red would win by an insurmountable landslide (forbidden knowledge under the premise), then the Blue push would indeed be suicidal and we would alter to how we would deal with post-vote damage control and doing what we could for the survivors. Uglier scenario, but hardly a vascillation. The objective is always minimal harm and maximal benefit. That may change the way we vote, but it's always the same goal.

 

[Lithrael]

Your position has from the beginning hinged on the idea that red is the passive default rather than something those polled must choose. That does not actually map onto the red or blue choice presented in the hypothetical we are discussing.

Because, shorn of the fancy framing, that's what it is.

(...) there is one button. If more than 50% of people press it, everyone who pressed it will live. If fewer than 50% of people press it, everyone who pressed it will die. If you don't participate at all, you will live.

That's choosing to do a) nothing or choosing to b) take a risk for no good reason. That's 'red is the default position.'

There is explicitly no allowance for refusing to participate.

then there is no default position.

 

[Thermal]

then there is no default position.

That was my earlier objection to trying to paint Red as a passive vote. The premise requires a choice, one that results in deaths (globally unavoidable) and one that doesn't. There is no innocent inaction option.

 

[Rolfe]

That's what I mean by framing. The default position, the null response, is being presented as if it's an active choice.

 

[Rolfe]

Hmm. I don't think that's actually true. I think blue pushers are prepared to reconsider if you present them with a scenario that seems quite likely to produce a red landslide, with no more than a handful of blue pushers.

If it seems like practically nobody will choose blue, then it's sensible to choose red, and yes, I'll choose red. If it seems like practically everybody will choose blue, I'll choose blue. If it seems like it's going to be close, I will choose blue (to try to help tip the balance.)

People's tolerance for the likelihood of a red majority varies. That would be an interesting topic to explore. However, I think pretty much all the blue pushers do have some notional baseline of blue votes below which they won't join the suicide squad. For you it's "a handful".

 

[Darat]

Hmm. I don't think that's actually true. I think blue pushers are prepared to reconsider if you present them with a scenario that seems quite likely to produce a red landslide, with no more than a handful of blue pushers.

If it seems like practically nobody will choose blue, then it's sensible to choose red, and yes, I'll choose red. If it seems like practically everybody will choose blue, I'll choose blue. If it seems like it's going to be close, I will choose blue (to try to help tip the balance.)

Not for me, it always has to be blue, I know I simply could not live with myself if I voted red and thus killed blue pushers.

 

[Lithrael]

That's what I mean by framing. The default position, the null response, is being presented as if it's an active choice.

Okay, you're gonna have to hold my hand through this one. HOW, in what sense, is it not an active choice? I literally wrote down the actual null version and you said no it's not that.

A slide-switch with red on the left and blue on the right, set to red, and a slide-switch right in the middle, which you must push one way or the other, are not just reframings of the same dilemma; they are in fact not the same dilemma. One actually has a default setting and the other does not.

 

[Rolfe]

The red button option is extraneous. The active choice is to risk your life. Red button is simply "not playing that game".

 

[Thermal]

That's what I mean by framing. The default position, the null response, is being presented as if it's an active choice.

Yes, Blue was indeed presented that way.

What's that? You forgot that the Reframe-O-Matic works in different ways?

 

[bruto]

What intrigues me here is that the blue pushers seem prepared to reconsider if you present them with a framing that seems quite likely to produce a red majority. The virtue-signalling doesn't seem to survive an apparent real risk.

I think that depends on the degree of risk,which is one reason the test is a poor one. I think a lot of people who would like to think themselves blue pushers are in the end fence sitters if not downright hypocrites, for whom the accusation of virtue signalling might apply. But many who actually believe what they say and accept a considerable degree of risk might well consider that in a world with no afterlife or reset, if you are sure of the result, the virtue of going down with the ship, while it might still serve as a noble example for the survivors, might be taking altruism further than necessary. Where you set the tipping point of that risk, and how you go about assessing it, make a big difference, I think, in how loudly you should yell "virtue signaller."

This is a very complex and nuanced issue hiding in an artificially simplistic choice, though I think the simplicity is dependent a bit on when you decide to push a button, and how. For those who choose red from the start, it is pretty simple. You're opting for certain survival, and let the rest of the world decide for the rest of the world. From the individual standpoint you win either way. If you say from the start "of course I'd push the red button," you are taking a simple individualistic choice.

For those who initially choose blue, it's relatively simple too. You're opting for a degree of risk because the cost of losing is unacceptably high, and likely are hoping if not trusting that enough others will see it that way too. But the considered choice to push blue has other aspects as well. It relies on one's opinion of the rest of mankind, on one's own moral code, and in some degree on the cost/benefit question of living in a post-red world. But if you say from the start "of course I'd push the blue button" and mean it, you are making a simple social choice.

I can't absolutely guarantee strength of character in real life situations, but in this exercise, that last bit goes a good way toward putting me in the same camp as Darat and Thermal. There will always be a few of us at the wall, middle fingers raised.