Alright so hear me out… LOTS of people have been posting variations to the question that rephrase it to demonstrate the way they see it right?
We got people phrasing it as “The red button does nothing, the blue button kills you unless 50% of people also press it.”
and people phrasing it as “The blue button does nothing, the red button kills everyone who didn’t press it if more than 50% of people press it.”
We’ve even got versions that rephrase it to add a passive option, like the one where the blues are stepping in front of a trolley that will only stop if 50% of people do it too, and the one where reds are stepping off of a switch that will send a trolley through if more than 50% of people leave.
They’re all correct ways to phrase the choices… But it’s all just ways to rephrase the question to make each viewpoint more clear and doesn’t change the ‘logical’ choice right?… No!
Here’s my claim:
If everyone on earth was abducted and given these rephrased premises, the number of people who pick red or blue would change depending on which biased wording they’re given.
“Great, I just got through to some idiots and showed them how silly it was to pick what they would have picked. The right answer didn’t change, just the number of people who picked it.”
… Incorrect!
If I gave everyone the question that makes it sound like blue is the evil choice, then I can reasonably assume that more people will pick red. Therefore there’s a lower chance that blue will reach 50% and i’d just be throwing my life away for no reason to try, so it’s both logical and more moral to minimize the death by picking red to save myself.
If I gave everyone the version that frames red as selfish and evil, then more people will pick blue because they want to do the right thing or realize that others will be picking blue now. Suddenly it’s a lot more plausible to expect blue to reach 50%, and it’s no longer illogical to hope to save everyone by picking blue.
The logical and moral choice can change depending on the phrasing of the question!
Of course there’s still the possibility that you believe that no matter the phrasing blue won’t ever get close to 50%. Or you could believe that regardless of what the blues do you’d rather just stay out of it and guarantee your survival, those are also reasonable stances. But all in all I believe that this isn’t a moral or logical question, it’s a prediction question, and when you present it differently, the prediction changes.
edit: spelling