The Treat Button
Okay, I know some of us are sick of Button Problems, so I thought it might be fun to put a different spin on the discourse. Instead of "which button would you press and why is everyone who disagrees with you evil/stupid," I'm curious how people think the following change to the original problem might change the outcome.
We restate the original problem almost identically, as follows:
>Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of the people press the blue button, everyone survives, and everyone who presses blue gets a crisp $5 bill and a packet of M&Ms. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?
Do you think this new version of the problem, which includes a paltry but nonzero reward for pressing blue, increases, decreases, or has no significant effect on the proportion who press blue?
I think this modification is interesting because it barely changes the stakes or potential outcomes, but attacks both the arguments for red and for blue.
In the case of red, the game theory argument is undermined. Now that there is a reward for blue, it totally changes the payoff matrix: a blue wave is now the game-theory-optimal equilibrium. Each rational self-interested actor, anticipating other agents to be similarly self-interested, will depend on them to press blue. And if you believe red would win because you're a cynic, you might be similarly cynical enough to suppose that most people would endanger themselves for a cheap reward.
In the case of blue, adding a crappy reward for risking your life might cause you to hesitate, feeling that you're being tricked. It also makes pressing blue *feel* less altruistic; your noble choice to risk your life for others is cheapened by the effort to purchase it with a little treat and some chump change. There's plenty of real examples of situations where adding an extrinsic reward for an intrinsically motivated action makes people discouraged, rather than encouraged.
What do you think? How does adding a little treat change the problem? Do you think it would change the crowd's answer? Would it change yours?