You are one of 99 prisoners, each in a solitary prison cell in a dungeon. You've been here for weeks and are starving. Tomorrow you'll be released, but if you don't eat anything, you'll be dead before morning. The guard comes down with a box of 99 sandwiches. He offers them, one by one. You can take it and eat it, or you can refuse. Leftover sandwiches will be thrown away. But, if there are at least 50 sandwiches left in the box, then before throwing them out, the guard will go back to each prisoner who refused and offer, "there are a lot left here, you sure you don't want one?"

When the guard comes by the first time, do you take your sandwich or refuse it?

How about the second time?

* You can't talk to the other prisoners and you don't know what they decided.

* You can't see how many sandwiches are in the box

* Every prisoner is in the same situation as you. Starving, released tomorrow, dead by morning.

* Everyone is aware of the process, and knows from the beginning that there are enough for everyone and no one will get extra

* No splitting or donating sandwiches

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?

I think this is kind of a bistable perception phenomenon like "the dress" or laurel/yanny. People latch onto a frame of "this is the default button that does nothing and the other is the death button". When first presented with the problem, blue seemed overwhelmingly obvious and I had no doubt it would win if this situation actually happened. I thought "Why would anyone press a button that might kill millions to billions when you could just... not do that?".

However, after seeing that about 40% of people would vote for red, and assuming that real life or death stakes will skew the result more towards red, I feel that the risk of red winning is *very high*, so now I have to admit I would definitely vote for red.

This doesn't mean I actually started to "see it the red way" ("red button does nothing" / "blue button is suicide"), it's just that the red victory started to look probable so I adapted. As far as how I logically analyze the problem, I largely have abandoned the framing of both sides, and try to view it as impartially as possible. Neither side can avoid responsibility. There is no "do nothing button" and there is no "death button". Red is safer for yourself, but potentially harms others if your vote is pivotal. Blue voluntarily places yourself at risk, but potentially saves others if your vote is pivotal. (And yes, the scenario where your vote is pivotal actually matters, because the low likelihood and massive impact largely cancel out.)

However I also have to admit that despite voting red out of fear, my surface-level intuition still favors blue, and I'm still surprised a lot of people defaulted to red (I'm actually quite bummed about it).

Ok so this is my first ever reddit post, and the reason why I’m even posting this is because i have a strong opinion on this. Although, I don’t want to come off as condescending or try to sound morally or intellectually superior, as I am open for criticism for my views and debate. But If I had to choose a button, it would be Red. And I think if everyone had the option to pick red, they should. Which by the way I don’t know if that’s common sense, but yeah.

Ok so to make things short, when people are faced with this kind of situation, humans are inherently selfish. They’re gonna choose to prioritize the lives of themselves and their close ones by picking the red button. This selfishness will be explicitly shown when putting people in a situation like this button thing. Because of this, I can almost guarantee that the red button will always be the majority, is this were to happen.

Therefore, since the red button is always going to be the majority, people advocating for blue saying they can save everyone and trying to get people to follow this movement will overall be worse for society and get even more people killed as this number will definitely still be below 50% of the population.

TLDR: There’s no way in which the blue button will ever have a chance to get to over 50% if this situation ever came into real life, and people advocating for the blue button and telling people it’s easier to get to 50% than 100% aren’t the brightest and are just going to get more people killed in the process.

Edit: Take what I said about humans being inherently selfish with a grain of salt I didn’t mean it completely like that. Just what i put more thought into is my argument about that in mu opinion i believe that the majority would be red.

Imagine everyone else has to follow the normal rules, but you personally get to vote last and see the current results before voting. Now imagine how you would vote and whether that vote would matter in all scenarios.

A. If red has already won, you would pick red.

B. If blue has already won, your vote is irrelevant and everyone survives regardless.

C. ONLY if the vote is literally tied when you, the last voter presses a button, after BILLIONS OF VOTES could your blue vote matter.

My opinion is simply saying A is so much more likely than C that it isn’t worth the risk. Blue voters aren’t realizing the infinitely low chance they are risking their lives over.

The probability of my red vote being a positive is higher than it being a negative. The probability of my blue vote being a negative is higher than it being a positive.

Red vs Blue button solved 100% logically (which this isn't the real world scenario anymore because people already know of the dilemma)

Red is always the correct option if you are thinking logically, because the probability of your vote changing the result is so unbelievably low that picking blue is basically just a ethical choice. If your vote doesn't make a difference, then choosing red has 0 drawback compared to picking blue. Blue becomes a completely emotional response or a savior complex (also your vote is PRIVATE so even if blue wins there are 0 repercussions for pressing red)

Unless you're one of those people that wouldn't live in a world were red won or want to end it all there is 0 reason to pick blue, because the chance that your vote is the deciding one is around the same chance you draw a royal flush, so basically impossible

Now the actually interesting part

Red vs Blue but the internet version this time

Because we already know of the problem, we can actually try to influence the choice that other people will make

Here you have 2 hypothetical paths(Not pressing a button is objectively worse than pressing blue or red, you have to be mentally insane to consciously make that choice)

First is convince people to choose blue and try to avoid any deaths possible

Second is persuade for red and accept that some people will die (even though no one has to if we work together and pick blue)

This leaves us in a conundrum where the logical choice is still red, but the correct side to support is blue, because it's the only side that can avoid any casualties shall this happen in real life. By outwardly supporting red you are creating a snowball effect and a self fulfilling prophesy that could inevitably lead a great amount to their demise. There's too many diehard blue pressers, babies and others to support red and think that at the VERY least 15-20% of the population will instantly die (Imo its closer to 30-35%). i think this duality is the root of the discussion

Easiest way to avoid deaths is giving social punishment to anybody that doesn't pick blue, guarantees that blue will reach over 50%, but that's going into morals and matters that I don't feel educated enough to address

Tl;dr: Pick red but support blue

P.S: If the entire world did this problem for the first time again but irl I don't think that blue would win

Both sides present ideal scenarios where absolutely everyone lives. For the red button, this scenario is absolutely everyone pushing the red button. For blue, its if more than half push the blue button.

The fact that the debate exists at all proves that not everyone will push red. People who are selfless, people who "didn't read the question properly", empathetic children. Do they all deserve to die just because they're "not as logical?" The red buttons ideal scenario is impossible.

The blue buttons ideal scenario only involves at least half the people pushing the blue button. Keep in mind, most polls show the majority pushing blue. But even putting that aside, what's more likely: 100% of people pressing red or AT LEAST 51% pushing blue?

Blue's ideal scenario is infinitely more likely to happen then reds ideal scenario. So along with being the more selfless choice, its the more logical one too.

I've tried a lot of reformulations to get people to begin to see why blue, for me, isn't just the compassionate choice but also an incredibly obvious, logical, and safe one.

Consider this: the buttons are very simply labeled

GET $50

versus

GET $0. ALSO, IF MOST PRESS THIS, EVERYONE WHO GOT $50 DIES.

Time and again, red-pressers turn down the $50 because "the risk is too high". But... the very presence of such a solid nudge toward blue means the risk melts away to practically zero! If you're still scared to press blue now, you should be scared to leave the house. You're just not thinking straight about how other humans work and what to expect when all the voting has happened and the dust has cleared. It'll be well over 7 billion people $50 richer and you looking like a chump. The price point at which you'd switch to blue shouldn't even be that (though I can see your point of view if it were a mere dollar, say), and certainly it shouldn't take the tens of thousands I've seen most red-pressers claim would be needed.

How about these as the buttons that all of humankind are shown:

DRINK A GLASS OF WATER

versus

DRINK A THIMBLE OF URINE. ALSO, IF MOST PRESS THIS, EVERYONE WHO DRANK THE WATER DIES.

This one... actually seems to be clearer to red-pressers, and I'm not entirely sure why, but it's probably either making a mental distinction between opportunity cost and explicit cost or a mental distinction between monetary and other costs, and somehow, that causes the click "Oh, a majority doing this is highly unlikely". If it still doesn't make sense ("I value my life, see!"), mentally increase the amount of urine until it does, or change it to feces, or imagine that pressing red costs one finger, two, etc. A world of over 4 billion people all having sliced off a finger and eaten a turd and volunteered for a terrible haircut for no real reason starts to look astronomically unlikely.

In any case, it's kind of amazing to me how many self-declared rationalists completely fail to think straight on this. Even a version of the problem where pressing blue gets you a penny, and it's just you and 10 other rational people, all of whom discuss it beforehand, should easily, easily be a win for unanimous blue, because whatever game theory supposedly told you before (it told you to coordinate around "nobody dies", but whatever), it now tells you to take the free money. And yet.

I think there’s a rational case for pressing either button, but one thing I keep noticing from red button arguments is that they implicitly assume that most rational people will obviously press red.

The logic usually goes:

- pressing red guarantees your own survival

- if everyone presses red, everyone survives

- therefore red is the rational choice

Individually that logic is perfectly understandable but here’s the issue: when have you ever seen an actual red vs blue poll end up anywhere close to 100% red?

Never. At least I haven't.

Blue is almost always a substantial percentage of the vote, sometimes it’s even the majority. Those polls are the closest empirical evidence we have for how real humans actually respond to this dilemma, so I think there’s a disconnect here between the theoretical model and observed behavior.

Just to clarify: I’m not saying the game theory reasoning is wrong. There clearly is a valid self preservation argument for red, my point is that many red arguments quietly rely on assumptions like:

- near perfect convergence toward red

- identical reasoning across billions of people

- people prioritizing individual certainty above all else

But again, we have empirical evidence of how actual humans do not behave uniformly. And before someone says “people would answer differently if the stakes were real”; sure, probably. But that cuts both ways. You can’t just assume that real stakes magically produce universal agreement. The existence of a large blue minority in basically every version of this poll already shows that different people evaluate the dilemma fundamentally differently. So the issue isn’t whether red is rational, rather whether it makes sense to model humanity as if everyone will arrive at the exact same conclusion under uncertainty, when empirically, they clearly don’t.