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

[The Great Zaganza]

now I remember what this is exactly like: the ignorant "Dark Forrest" concept as seen in The Three Body Problem.

There, too, mass genocide was explained as the only rational thing that of course everyone should do, because otherwise you will surely be eradicated by everyone else, because naturally they all think like you.

It also plays into the "everyone would agree with me if they just thought rationally" trope.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Hey that you don't like what is at the heart of the "question" isn't my fault. You can dress it up in any clothes you want, you can claim to be the greatest Vulcan ever or the most intelligent person ever or the second coming of the Pauline Jesus or the most compassionate person in the world to explain your choice, but only one choice chooses the potential to kill others.

You seem to think this class of dilemmas have a right or to remove them from further from being seen as a value based answer a correct answer (and that is the one you favour).

It's akin to the prisoners' dilemma's classic scenario, it attempts to hide many of the value assumptions behind a veneer of "rationality", the "only" variable is not how long each prisoner spends in jail.

These dilemmas can be useful to help us understand our and others behaviours, to challenge our often unstated assumptions about ourselves and each other and so on but there is never a right/correct or wrong/incorrect answer.

I agree that there's never a right or a wrong answer to these sorts of questions. On the other hand... you seem to very strongly think that there *IS* a right answer:

I think my formulation makes it crystal clear (slight change from previous posting of it) : you can pick up a red gun or a blue flower, if you pick up the red gun you must hunt down and kill anyone who picked up a blue flower unless more than 50% picked up a blue flower. That then makes what is happening very relatable and understandable, pick red if you want to kill people who think different to you, pick blue if you don't want to kill people who think different to you.

That's why I disagree with your framing - it very clearly declares a morally right answer.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What set of circumstances would lead any of you who chose blue to choose red instead?

Assuming that the core premise remains - that the red button has no risk of death to the person who pushes it, and that the blue button introduces risk to those who select it unless a participation threshold is met.

For me... 50/50 is too high a risk. I'm risk averse - I want everyone to live, but I'm not willing to risk my life or those of my loved ones to the whims of strangers. But that is highly premised on the assumption that everyone engaged in the scenario can understand the choices offered - thus the clarification here If babies are randomly smashing buttons without understanding the potential consequences, I'm absolutely pushing blue.

Similarly, the threshold makes a difference to me. If it only takes 10% to guarantee everyone lives, I'm blue all day. If it takes 90% to guarantee everyone lives, I'm not pushing blue even if half the babies die. I'd be sad about it, absolutely, but I'm still not willing to throw my life away for a threshold I think is unlikely to be met.

So to all of you: What would cause you to change your mind? Are there any circumstances in which blue-pushers do NOT think reds are murdering evil killers? Are there any circumstances in which red-pushers do NOT think blues are mindless virtue signalers?

 

[Darat]

I agree that there's never a right or a wrong answer to these sorts of questions. On the other hand... you seem to very strongly think that there *IS* a right answer:


That's why I disagree with your framing - it very clearly declares a morally right answer.

If you had read the post that you quoted you would have read that I clearly and explicitly posted that there are no right/correct answers.

 

[Thermal]

What set of circumstances would lead any of you who chose blue to choose red instead?

Assuming that the core premise remains - that the red button has no risk of death to the person who pushes it, and that the blue button introduces risk to those who select it unless a participation threshold is met.

For me... 50/50 is too high a risk. I'm risk averse - I want everyone to live, but I'm not willing to risk my life or those of my loved ones to the whims of strangers. But that is highly premised on the assumption that everyone engaged in the scenario can understand the choices offered - thus the clarification here If babies are randomly smashing buttons without understanding the potential consequences, I'm absolutely pushing blue.

Similarly, the threshold makes a difference to me. If it only takes 10% to guarantee everyone lives, I'm blue all day. If it takes 90% to guarantee everyone lives, I'm not pushing blue even if half the babies die. I'd be sad about it, absolutely, but I'm still not willing to throw my life away for a threshold I think is unlikely to be met.

So to all of you: What would cause you to change your mind? Are there any circumstances in which blue-pushers do NOT think reds are murdering evil killers? Are there any circumstances in which red-pushers do NOT think blues are mindless virtue signalers?

If you know that some people on the planet will push blue, and you push Red anyway, you are either wishing their deaths, or worse, not caring. There's really no way around that. It just doesn't matter that you think on a planet of 8 billion that everyone should think your way and it's their own damn fault if they don't. I am not pushing blue to endanger myself. I'm pushing blue because I know others will, so we rally the troops.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If you had read the post that you quoted you would have read that I clearly and explicitly posted that there are no right/correct answers.

I suspect we're talking past each other... but I'm really not clear how any part of this makes it explicit that there are no right answers:

I think my formulation makes it crystal clear (slight change from previous posting of it) : you can pick up a red gun or a blue flower, if you pick up the red gun you must hunt down and kill anyone who picked up a blue flower unless more than 50% picked up a blue flower. That then makes what is happening very relatable and understandable, pick red if you want to kill people who think different to you, pick blue if you don't want to kill people who think different to you.

I specifically agreed with you that there aren't right or wrong answers from your other quote. I also pointed out that you saying so doesn't jive particularly well with your prior post to which I'd objected. That being the one here.

 

[Myriad]

I think my formulation makes it crystal clear (slight change from previous posting of it) : you can pick up a red gun or a blue flower, if you pick up the red gun you must hunt down and kill anyone who picked up a blue flower unless more than 50% picked up a blue flower. That then makes what is happening very relatable and understandable, pick red if you want to kill people who think different to you, pick blue if you don't want to kill people who think different to you.

Your reformulation doesn't seem equivalent to the original scenario. What do you mean "must?" Does the gun puppeteer the person's body to hunt someone down, or implant an irresistible compulsion in their mind to do so? If so, there's no moral agency involved on the gun choosers beyond the choice itself. You've swapped in a specific mechanism for how the (supposedly) required deaths will be carried out, but one that adds horrific elements of involuntary personal involvement even though, as before, guilt for murder rests entirely on the mastermind. You could do that in all sorts of ways applied to either side, any of which might be a significant changes to the scenario even if who lives and who dies remains the same. For instance, if pressing blue also means you get a cookie... some people are impulsive and some people are starving, so don't pretend it's still an equivalent choice.

Or does "must" mean the person who takes the gun will be killed or face some other penalty if they fail to use the gun to kill a blue flower person? In that case an entirely new third possible option/outcome is introduced, which is to take the gun but refuse to hunt anyone, suffering the penalty instead. Also, if someone is a slow runner and a lousy shot in a region with lots of other gunners they should be able to choose the gun with relative moral impunity.

If you're using a definition of equivalence that disregards all factors except who ends up alive or dead at the end based on choice A or B, another equivalent scenario is this: everyone must pick up either a red flower or a blue grenade. If you pick up the grenade it attaches to you and will explode eventually unless at least half of everyone else also took the grenade. That makes it very relatable and understandable too.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If you know that some people on the planet will push blue, and you push Red anyway, you are either wishing their deaths, or worse, not caring.

May I assume that you send every single extra cent beyond the bare minimum to countries with starvation, deprivation, etc? And you volunteer every moment of your spare time to helping at homeless shelters, and putting yourself in harm's way to try to save jaywalkers who aren't paying attention to traffic?

By your logic, if you refrain from actively trying to save everyone all the time, you're wishing their deaths or not caring about them.

There's really no way around that. It just doesn't matter that you think on a planet of 8 billion that everyone should think your way and it's their own damn fault if they don't. I am not pushing blue to endanger myself. I'm pushing blue because I know others will, so we rally the troops.

It's not a matter of expecting other people to think my way. I don't think anyone who selects red has that view. On the other hand, it's literally impossible for you or anyone to persistently try to save everyone from themselves all the time.

On a planet of 8 billion, do you wish for the deaths of the 12 year old in Kyrgyzstan who just stuck a fork in an outlet two minutes ago, and you didn't take direct action to save them? More to the specific point - would you view yourself and everyone around you as a heartless killer because everyone didn't simultaneously stick a fork in their outlet so that we shorted out the globe to save them?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I will reiterate once again that people how push the blue button are noble, and are acting with good intent. The world needs people willing to take risks for others.

But pushing red doesn't make someone a killer or heartless, and they certainly don't desire the deaths of other people. The world also needs people who see the cliff and tell everyone "hey, don't walk off the cliff".

 

[Emily's Cat]

One of the things I've found most interesting with this entirely stupid thought exercise is the shallowness of theory of mind held by so many people.

The tendency of so many otherwise intelligent adults to view their own decisions as right and good, but the decisions of others as bad or evil is kind of astonishing and fairly depressing. That's why I put these in social issues instead of community. The inability to understand that someone else's decision can be different from your own, but also not be wrong, is something that's incredibly important to a functioning society. It's foundational to actual empathy.

 

[Darat]

Who can know how the mysterious power will make the must happen...

My rewording makes the choice to potentially be a killer explicit rather than implicit as it is in the original, nothing else is changed.

 

[Darat]

One of the things I've found most interesting with this entirely stupid thought exercise is the shallowness of theory of mind held by so many people.

The tendency of so many otherwise intelligent adults to view their own decisions as right and good, but the decisions of others as bad or evil is kind of astonishing and fairly depressing. That's why I put these in social issues instead of community. The inability to understand that someone else's decision can be different from your own, but also not be wrong, is something that's incredibly important to a functioning society. It's foundational to actual empathy.

The irony would burn apart from in the current world I constantly wear asbestos clothing.

 

[Darat]

May I assume that you send every single extra cent beyond the bare minimum to countries with starvation, deprivation, etc? ...snip..

But pushing red doesn't make someone a killer or heartless, and they certainly don't desire the deaths of other people. The world also needs people who see the cliff and tell everyone "hey, don't walk off the cliff".

Pushing the red button is a decision to potentially kill others that make different decisions to you, pushing the blue button doesn't. And there is nothing in this dilemma that would tell you whether someone would say "hey, don't walk off the cliff" or not.

 

[Thermal]

May I assume that you send every single extra cent beyond the bare minimum to countries with starvation, deprivation, etc? And you volunteer every moment of your spare time to helping at homeless shelters, and putting yourself in harm's way to try to save jaywalkers who aren't paying attention to traffic?

You may not assume so. Why do you ask, since it is not remotely related to what we are talking about?

As a reminder, the dilemma you yourself posed is that a button miraculously appears before you and you have a choice of one or the other. How you conduct yourself in your day to day living is irrelevant; it's a Moment of Truth scenario, one or the other, not a lifelong commitment and expense gig.

By your logic, if you refrain from actively trying to save everyone all the time, you're wishing their deaths or not caring about them.

Nope. It's not possible to save unseen others across the globe at all times. Your dilemma puts an immediacy in front of you, where you do actually have such a choice. There are no forks or trolleys or trains or 'telling people not to do that'. Just two buttons.

If you want to present an alternate scenario, you are free to do so, but you don't get to present this one then smoke-and-mirror your way into a different one where Reds are not really ghouls if you squint and tilt your head a little.

It's not a matter of expecting other people to think my way. I don't think anyone who selects red has that view.

Actually, agreed. Red Voters don't really believe that horse ◊◊◊◊ either. They are looking out for themselves and making excuses for it.

On the other hand, it's literally impossible for you or anyone to persistently try to save everyone from themselves all the time.

'All the time' is not on the table in this dilemma.

On a planet of 8 billion, do you wish for the deaths of the 12 year old in Kyrgyzstan who just stuck a fork in an outlet two minutes ago, and you didn't take direct action to save them?

Asked and answered, repeatedly. You also reframed your posit in this poll to include 'normal cognitive ability' or something. Someone of normal cognitive ability (whatever that means) will not perform a physical task they know to be deadly.

And again, you are wildly swinging your arms at the whole planet, saying 'you can't save every one of them', which is absolutely true. In the Button scenario, you actually can. Indeed, it's the whole point.

More to the specific point - would you view yourself and everyone around you as a heartless killer because everyone didn't simultaneously stick a fork in their outlet so that we shorted out the globe to save them?

Nope. I would view myself the same way I answered when you asked earlier- no one in any numbers would do that, and you can't help those few who would. They would be dead by their own hand ten minutes later doing something else, if they were that physically self destructive.

So if we take you seriously, you must believe that all of us Blue Button pushers... the majority on all the various polls, mind you... are already dead from hitting ourselves in the face with sledgehammers, what with these wanton self destructive behaviors you think we have?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I will reiterate once again that people how push the blue button are noble, and are acting with good intent. The world needs people willing to take risks for others.

In the Button thing, we don't consider it much of a risk. That's what the whole dilemma is really asking: What do you think about people generally? Are they selfish twats who make excuses, or do they generally looking out for each other? We are social animals. It's the latter.

But pushing red doesn't make someone a killer or heartless, and they certainly don't desire the deaths of other people.

Agreed. They are more selfish and/or cowards. Also profoundly stupid, if we take the Button results literally. What do you think would happen to most of the Red pushers if they prevailed and a sizable chunk of the word population got smoked? You think those selfish twats would suddenly pull together in the global societal collapse that followed? Most of the Red half-wits would be dead in a week. Their dying thoughts might be "ya know, those Blue pushers might have had a point- it seems that working together has benefits..."

The world also needs people who see the cliff and tell everyone "hey, don't walk off the cliff".

Do you recall that your dilemma negates talking to each other? So it's just you and a button, and you would push to help end the lives of people that wish for nothing but no deaths for any one.

You can point out that Red is failsafe, and by extension, people that call attention to the counterintuitively more prudent response are doing a good thing. Agreed. But that's not the dilemma YOU YOURSELF are posing, and set the terms of. We are thrown into it, no communication, and it's global, so you ain't talking to 8 billion people in advance anyway.

Blue Votes: need 51% of global population to have everyone not dead.
Red Votes: need 100% of global population to have everyone not dead.

Only one of these is realistically attainable. The other is willing to let others die.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

we are in the negotiation phase of finding a reason to be seen as a monster.

the ONLY set of circumstances, as always, is being willing to become a monster in order to safe more people at the cost of your soul.

If I knew that I had to survive, maybe because I am one of the very few who can safely operate a Nuclear Power Plant that would have a meltdown otherwise, then I might press Red in the hope that enough people press Blue to make it not matter.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Who can know how the mysterious power will make the must happen...

My rewording makes the choice to potentially be a killer explicit rather than implicit as it is in the original, nothing else is changed.

Can you explain how choosing not to put yourself in harm's way makes you a killer? And how excluding those who are unable to understand the choice makes it explicit?

I'm trying to gain an understanding of your perspective on this, so apologies for the scattershot questions here.

If you see an adult caught in a raging river, and you refrain from jumping in to try to save them, are you then a killer?
If it's a 90 year old pensioner on the bank who sees a 20 year old in the prime of life caught in the river, is that pensioner a killer if they don't jump in the river to try to save the young person?
What if the 90 year old pensioner directly witnessed the 20 year old voluntarily jump into the raging river for no reason... is that pensioner still a killer in your eyes?

 

[Emily's Cat]

The irony would burn apart from in the current world I constantly wear asbestos clothing.

Why do you think this is ironic? I do understand the perspective of most of the people who choose blue - I've directly commented on the understanding of their motivations and their intentions a few times. I don't think blue-button-choosers are stupid or evil or performative most of the time. I've pushed back and challenged the assumptions of red-button-choosers a few times already.

On the other hand, I really don't think most of the blues here understand the motivations and intentions of reds. For the most part, blues appear to be more invested in their choice and in their presumption of evil on the part of reds, so that's what I'm challenging most at the moment.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Pushing the red button is a decision to potentially kill others that make different decisions to you, pushing the blue button doesn't. And there is nothing in this dilemma that would tell you whether someone would say "hey, don't walk off the cliff" or not.

In what way is it a decision to ***KILL*** others? I think you're assuming a malicious motivation where none exists.

You and Michael Phelps are standing on the bank of a raging river during a storm. Phelps jumps into the river of their own volition, without coercion, and with no apparent reason.

If you refrain from jumping in the river with Phelps, do you consider yourself to be a killer?

 

[Thermal]

Can you explain how choosing not to put yourself in harm's way makes you a killer?

Because there are two choices:

-Red leads to the death of others unless 100% of the world's population also chooses red.

-Blue results in no deaths if 51% or more of the population also chooses blue.

-Red voters are voting for others to die. If that is because they only care about themselves (despite likely dying anyway in the chaos following), that's the whole point. They suck so bad that they will shoot themselves in the foot rather than think of others.

The whole point of this button question is "do you believe people will basically look out for each other?"

If you see an adult caught in a raging river, and you refrain from jumping in to try to save them, are you then a killer?

This doesn't work at all, because the odds of you dying in the raging river are astronomically high. The button pushers don't have to do anything physically exertive or take an actual risk- as we see in the polls, Blue voters' confidence in people is well founded.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Actually, agreed. Red Voters don't really believe that horse ◊◊◊◊ either. They are looking out for themselves and making excuses for it.

Why do you think this is a bad thing? Why do you seem to believe that a person refraining from taking unnecessary risks is bad?

Asked and answered, repeatedly. You also reframed your posit in this poll to include 'normal cognitive ability' or something. Someone of normal cognitive ability (whatever that means) will not perform a physical task they know to be deadly.

Alright... so why would anyone of normal cognitive ability push the blue button in the first place? What reason do you imagine exists where people with normal ability to actually understand the choice would voluntarily choose to risk death for themselves and others, when it is 100% in their agency to not risk death at all?

So if we take you seriously, you must believe that all of us Blue Button pushers... the majority on all the various polls, mind you... are already dead from hitting ourselves in the face with sledgehammers, what with these wanton self destructive behaviors you think we have?

Actually, not, I don't think all Blues are self destructive in all scenarios. In the original, I think that Blues tend to make the assumption that some portion of the people presented with the choice are unable to understand it - some will be babies who smash a button at random. With that assumption, I think it's very noble of Blues to risk themselves for others. I also think it's a quality that's necessary for a reasonable chunk of people to have in order for society to function.

But I also think it rests on an unstated assumption in the first scenario - that babies will hit buttons at random. That's a motivation I completely understand, and can get behind. I have less of an understanding of motivation when the babies are removed from the scenario completely and are guaranteed safe.

In the Button thing, we don't consider it much of a risk. That's what the whole dilemma is really asking: What do you think about people generally? Are they selfish twats who make excuses, or do they generally looking out for each other? We are social animals. It's the latter.

Agreed. They are more selfish and/or cowards. Also profoundly stupid, if we take the Button results literally. What do you think would happen to most of the Red pushers if they prevailed and a sizable chunk of the word population got smoked? You think those selfish twats would suddenly pull together in the global societal collapse that followed? Most of the Red half-wits would be dead in a week. Their dying thoughts might be "ya know, those Blue pushers might have had a point- it seems that working together has benefits..."

This is the assumption that I'm challenging. You are assuming that reds are evil, selfish, cowards and want blues to die. I think your assumption is wrong, as well as malicious.

At the heart of all of this is the question of why ANYONE AT ALL would voluntarily take risks that put themselves in danger when there is literally no need to do so - there are no babies randomly pushing buttons, everyone is capable of understanding the choices.

Do you recall that your dilemma negates talking to each other? So it's just you and a button, and you would push to help end the lives of people that wish for nothing but no deaths for any one.

You can point out that Red is failsafe, and by extension, people that call attention to the counterintuitively more prudent response are doing a good thing. Agreed. But that's not the dilemma YOU YOURSELF are posing, and set the terms of. We are thrown into it, no communication, and it's global, so you ain't talking to 8 billion people in advance anyway.

Blue Votes: need 51% of global population to have everyone not dead.
Red Votes: need 100% of global population to have everyone not dead.

Only one of these is realistically attainable. The other is willing to let others die.

In reality, though, you ARE willing to let others die. Every single day you let others die. All across the planet at every moment of every day, someone somewhere is doing something that is obviously dangerous, and which they could completely avoid. You don't seem to feel obligated to take direct action that risks yourself to save them.

Therefore, you are willing to let others die.

 

[Emily's Cat]

we are in the negotiation phase of finding a reason to be seen as a monster.

the ONLY set of circumstances, as always, is being willing to become a monster in order to safe more people at the cost of your soul.

If I knew that I had to survive, maybe because I am one of the very few who can safely operate a Nuclear Power Plant that would have a meltdown otherwise, then I might press Red in the hope that enough people press Blue to make it not matter.

How far does your principle extend?

There's a trolley coming down the hill. There's nothing in the way, nobody is tied to the tracks. There's a group of 1000 people standing on the platform and you're one of them. Everyone on the platform is an adult with normal cognitive ability.

If at least 501 people voluntarily jump onto the tracks, they'll be able to stop the trolley and nobody will get hurt. If 500 or fewer people voluntarily jump onto the tracks, the trolley won't be stopped, and everyone on the tracks will die.

Are you going to be the first to jump onto the tracks? Will you be the 200th? If you choose not to jump onto the tracks, do you consider yourself a monster?