The Red and Blue Problem

A content creator I like popped up in my feed a few weeks ago confused by the repeated outcome of a particular experiment. I have since done a little digging, found several versions of this question, and was initially also confused since at first glance it seems like a no-brainer.

The situation is this: You are presented with two buttons, one red, the other blue. Everyone in the country is expected to push a button. If a majority select the blue button, everybody lives. If a majority push the red button, they live, but anyone who pushed the blue button dies. 

Apparently a majority of people presented with this question push red.

I was shocked when I heard that. Then I looked up and remembered what country I live in.

Because before I even heard the end of the question, and got as far as "everybody lives" I made my choice. Of course it has to be blue. Why would anyone choose anything other?

But then I realized since the outcome depends on others, you are really being asked to make a choice based on the amount of trust you have in people you don't know. Those people are also banking on what they think you will do. The only way to guarantee you will live is to choose red. 

When I posed this question to my oldest daughter, she did the same thing I did. Before she even heard the second option, she was already declaring blue. "Everybody lives" was all she needed to know. She couldn't believe the majority of the time people would select any option that kills people.

When I pointed out that red was the only way to personally survive, she stuck with blue, because living with the knowledge that you participated in the deaths of others wasn't worth it.

I knew this was what she would say before I ever asked her the question. That's who she is.

Which is why I knew my only answer would ever be blue, because to choose otherwise I would be electing to kill my daughter. I'd rather be dead than do that.

 

I would say this analogy is too on the nose—seeing as we recently had an election where millions of people literally chose red over blue, not caring about the lives of others—but these are days without subtlety. I haven't seen any fiction or satire that could compete with our current reality of callousness and the absurd. We might have excused people in the past for not being informed enough to do anything about government sanctioned injustices, but not today.

There are no excuses now except for willful ignorance, indifference or sadism.

I have steered away from a lot of news primarily because I'm no help to anyone if my blood pressure rises to the point of having a stroke. But listening to the president somehow blame Ukraine for the war they have been fighting for three straight years put me into a state of rage. The audacity to blame them for being invaded is a new low amongst unfathomable lows, only to be topped by trying to extort resources from that country like we are some kind of mob boss. It's disgusting.

This is literally "Oceania had been always been at war with Eastasia" nonsense. 

Lives are being destroyed pointlessly, thoughtlessly, as damage is being done purely out of greed and an insatiable desire for power.

Nobody wants financial waste, but what are we saving money for exactly? I want my taxes to go to our general safety and for science and for education and for parks. There are plenty of programs and services that are of great importance to other people that don't apply to me directly, but I would never deny someone things they need. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is supposed to apply to all of us.

I'm not confused by the repeated results of the red and blue button problem, but it's incredibly disheartening, and says a great deal about our country and how myopic people become in their own fears.

If you would push the red button, I'm sorry you don't care if I die. If you pushed the red button this last election, you don't get to wash the red off your hands if that choice erases my kid and other people I care about. Even ones I don't know.