Red Button, Blue Button

You find yourself teleported in a room. There are two tables, one with a red button and one with a blue button. Above the red button is a sign that says, in whatever language you are most fluent in, MURDER BUTTON. The same for the blue button, except that sign says SUICIDE BUTTON.

 

In whatever language you are most fluent in, a sign between the buttons reads the following:

 

Hello! I am a Djinn who has teleported you into this dream world. Don't worry, time outside has been stopped. All other able-minded adults in the entire world aged 18 and up have also been teleported into this dream world at this time.

 

If 50% or more of participants press the red button, all participants who press the blue button will be killed. So, if you press the red button, you are guaranteed to survive, but you might be guilty of murdering however many people press blue.

 

If 50% or more of participants press the blue button, all participants will live. You are guaranteed to be blameless of participating in anyone's death, but you might die.

 

Which button will you press? 

 

For those who are thinking of pressing red, please consider: It's statistically guaranteed that at least a small number of people will choose blue. So if red wins, you will be guilty of killing these people.

 

When pressing the red button, you might disagree that this is the MURDER BUTTON. After all, those who choose blue are willing to die; they are killing themselves. The rational choice is to guarantee your survival, and if everyone chooses red, everyone survives. Who cares if a few irrational people die? If irrational people take themselves out of the gene pool, isn't that a win for humanity? "I'm not killing anyone by pressing red; the Djinn is the real killer here! I didn't choose to be here. I'm just guaranteeing my survival, which is the rational thing to do, and everyone else has just as easy access to their own survival as I do, so it's their own fault for choosing to risk their lives for no reason." So, you might figure that pressing the red button does not constitute murder, or even homicide.

 

For those who are thinking of pressing blue, please consider: You may trust your own culture to choose blue with you. But how confident are you that most humans in the world will choose blue? Won't most people follow the above logic about self-preservation and rationality? Maybe only a small percentage will press blue, and your vote never would have made a difference, and you will have died for nothing.

 

When pressing the blue button, you might disagree that this is the SUICIDE BUTTON. After all, if only 50% or more choose blue, everyone survives; no suicide here. Most importantly, you know that some people will press blue to ensure their own blamelessness, guaranteeing some blue votes. You are risking your life to save these people by pressing blue. Isn't that the noble thing to do? Who could live with themselves knowing that they helped cause the deaths of those noble enough to press blue? If red barely wins, nearly half of everyone will die. Are you willing to risk this?

 

I will give all of you one hour to decide which button you will press. At the end of the hour all of your fates will be decided. During this hour, if you press one button, you can press the other button to change your vote. If neither button is depressed within the hour, you die, and no vote will be cast on your behalf. Any deaths will be instant and painless.

 

***

 

It's interesting to see this thought experiment articulated in different ways, and to see on Twitter how different articulations can yield different results. With this articulation, I'd press blue, but not necessarily because I am a "good person", whatever that means, but because doing the blameless thing makes me happy. Participating in the deaths of blue voters would make me lose self-respect, and while red voters would call this irrational, because you shouldn't feel bad for those who take unnecessary risks, their arguments are weak enough that I don't see my mind changing soon. For example, voting blue is a necessary risk if feeling blameless is very important to you. Arguably, voting red is the unnecessary risk – of becoming an accomplice to mass murder.

 

Additionally, voting red incentivizes you to take on a callous attitude towards dead blue voters to cope with your choice, exposing either your own moral insecurity or indifference. I prefer to avoid that.

 

One final note: Some folks want to apply expected value calculations to show that pressing red is the correct choice. But if these calculations fail to incorporate the value of being happy with oneself, the cost of self-hatred, and the cost of lives lost, then they are incomplete.