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

[Thermal]

What required blue percentage is your personal threshold? If it takes 60% blue to avoid death? 70%? 90%?

Emily's Cat, this is why I love you. You're asked me the same question before, multiple tomes, got detailed answers, then you vanish for weeks and return repeating the same goddamned question. You're a living Groundhog Day.

 

[Thermal]

No, I reject your mischaracterization.

You'd have to. You need to sleep at night.

There is a risk which has a 50% chance of making you dead.

There is not. By all accounts, the odds are not fiddy fiddy. Blue wins in every poll, everywhere, every time. In no way can the odds be calculated to an even coin flip.

So which is it? Is the third grade math way above your head, or are you being willfully dishonest, or are you globally indifferent to (or contemptuous of) the truth?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Interestingly, the closer the vote gets, the more impactful a Blue Vote becomes: if Red wins narrowly or by a decent margin makes much less of a difference compared to Blue winning by the tiniest of margins - or not.

It's not a good Setup when so much depends on whether the voting is instantaneous everywhere, secret or not etc.

 

[Darat]

If blue requires 95%?

Obviously if you want to change the hypothetical I might change my mind. But given the hypothetical we have when I read the first version it was instantly obvious, at least to me, that the red option was the choice to ensure a pusher survived. But when I then considered which button I would press I was shocked when I realised I would pick blue.

 

[Rolfe]

And our name is Legion.

Do you actually know the context of that phrase?

 

[Thermal]

Do you actually know the context of that phrase?

...like pretty much any other American over the age of 8, yes, I do. We going somewhere interesting with this?

 

[Rolfe]

Just wondered.

ETA, to save time: The "somewhere" I was going was observing that you have literally identified the blue-pushers as demons participating in demonic possession.

 

[Thermal]

Ah. You wanted to take the time to demonstrate to the forum that you still don't understand that phrases evolve, often beyond their original context. Super. Demonstration complete?

Eta: and if saving time is your interest, then the next time someone asks if you are going somewhere interesting with your thiughts, just say 'no'.

 

[Rolfe]

Ah, the old "I declare that words mean what I say, therefore I win" gambit.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

There was nothing to win or lose.

 

[Rolfe]

In terms of Thermal's denial that he (probably inadvertently, through ignorance) characterised blue-pushers as demons, there was.

 

[Thermal]

The English language is sooooo challenging, isn't it, Rolfe?

 

[ahhell]

So, I'm late to the game on this but does normal cognitive ability also exclude geniuses, I mean it should right, just folks within a standard deviation of the mean?

 

[bruto]

Kind of a silly diversion (and yes, I also do remember who was originally legion), but my presumption was that, in accordance with the current political climate, the characterization would be how the red pushers see us, and how the official histories will read after the mass graves are backfilled.

 

[Thermal]

Didn't expect this one to become topical, but my preferred means of expression is right in line with the juxtaposition of a well known (if dark) phrase applied to the more mundane. When my truck recently snapped its serpentine belt at about 45mph, I said something like "Houston, we have a problem". I suppose Rolfe would have gotten upset and schoolmarmy and said in my ignorance of the phrase origin, I cast myself as an Apollo astronaut crew who was in a life threatening catastrophe while approaching orbit with the moon and having a multimillion dollar lunar landing aborted. Cuz that's a normal way to interpret things.

 

[Darat]

Didn't expect this one to become topical, but my preferred means of expression is right in line with the juxtaposition of a well known (if dark) phrase applied to the more mundane. When my truck recently snapped its serpentine, I said something like "Houston, we have a problem". I suppose Rolfe would have gotten upset and schoolmarmy and said in my ignorance of the phrase origin, I cast myself as an Appolo astronaut.

Well according to the Book of Enoch demons are the disembodied spirits of the Nephelium, and they should know a partial genocide if anyone does!

 

[Thermal]

So, I'm late to the game on this but does normal cognitive ability also exclude geniuses, I mean it should right, just folks within a standard deviation of the mean?

I pointed out early on that 'normal cognitive ability' didn't really mean anything (and never got any direct clarification), but the OP morphed the meaning over a sequence of posts to seem ti mean 'those who come to the same conclusion as I did', and apparently thinks that those who come to a different conclusion are simple farmers... people of the land... the common clay of the New West.. you know... morons.

*cue Rolfe snidely commenting that this casts Blue Voters as characters in a massively satirical Mel Brooks movie*

 

[Lithrael]

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.

Press the damned button then. Why would you choose not to press the button?

Because if nobody presses it; if nobody participates: then nobody dies. Therefore, to me, the default position (not pressing it) is also the default of safety not just for you but for everyone; unless and until 50%+ people press the red button, everyone is safe. Half of everyone would have to go and press the button in order for ANYONE to die. WHY would anyone press the button at all? Just to add to the chances of killing anyone who didn't press it?

 

[Thermal]

WHY would anyone press the [Red] button at all? Just to add to the chances of killing anyone who didn't press it?

That's the thing. After thinking it all the way through, and having the choice of Everybody Survives right there in front of you, it's just ghoulish to refuse that clearly better option.

Unless you think people generally are more than 50% ghoulish, of course. That's where I bog down. We wouldn't have survived as a species if we were that self-absorbed.

 

[Thermal]

Interestingly, the closer the vote gets, the more impactful a Blue Vote becomes: if Red wins narrowly or by a decent margin makes much less of a difference compared to Blue winning by the tiniest of margins - or not.

Sooooort of? Both buttons achieve their first and maximum impact when either tops 50%, Blue maintains its impact afterwords but the effect of Red diminishes... till its only killing a few people?

It's not a good Setup when so much depends on whether the voting is instantaneous everywhere, secret or not etc.

Thats why the question of "at what percentage do you change your vote?" is meaningless. The broad 50% makes it a reasonably easy general choice. Whittling closer to the line requires more information to make a realistic decision. It still boils down to "what is best for us?" versus "what is best for me?"