Here's my problem with the red and blue button debate (aside from it being vague enough to cause this much debate)
For a nice round number, lets assume we have 8 billion people. Let us be very "generous" and assume that a quarter of those people are without agency (2 billion people) and about half of them (1 billion) "press" or "get" blue (the babies, the coma patients...etc.). I think it's fair to assume a 50/50 chance for that.
Now most people I think in the discussions agree that pressing blue is the more nice/moral/right thing to do (at least the polls and arguments I've seen show that), but everyone seems to forget one important thing:
It's been discussed endlessly by these relatively small groups of redditors and other internet forums and there's still no agreement about it with all these debates... But if this button pressing would occur in the real world, people would have zero previous discussions about it, the only thing they would ever hear about the problem would be the exact words of the problem. No other rules, no other assumptions, variations, no reasonings why they should press one or the other button. No one telling them the implications of pressing this one or that one. Do you really think 3 billion people would understand and come to the conclusion that blue needs to be pressed for the best outcome AND would bet their life on enough people not just understanding that blue "needs" to pressed but actually risk their lives by pressing it?
Maybe that makes me a cynic, but I do have a good reason for being unhopeful on this one. I regard myself kind of average in the attributes that probably matter in a decision like this, maybe a little bit above average. I do read a lot, I try to be a loving, kind, helpful person, I had good education, I consume mostly science, art and philosophy content online...etc. And when I fist saw this problem, it didn't even ocur to me the problem says "everyone", I just overlooked the implication of babies...etc. so I was just completely surprised with the blue option. I did actually think "why would anyone choose that?" and "Only people who would like to die would choose that". These were my first thoughts. And then I was told about the implications of "everyone", and it was an "oh, you got me" moment. Now maybe if I took more time to think about it, it could have occured to me, but do you see how easy it can be to just not even realise you are doing something wrong by pressing the red one? And that's just the ignorance part. The much bigger part is, that it's even easier to just say you would push blue, but do you guys actually believe that you would do it, and believe everyone else that says so would do it too?