If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives. Red pressers always survive

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

A viral thought experiment asks everyone on Earth to press either a red button, which guarantees personal survival, or a blue button, where everyone survives only if more than 50% choose blue—otherwise all blue pressers die. Commenters argue over whether it is more rational or moral to pick red (certain self-preservation, but accepting the deaths of altruistic or mistaken blue pressers) or blue (risking one’s own life to try to save everyone, given humans’ imperfect rationality). The exchange branches into game theory, the role of framing, real-world analogies like protest under dictatorships or environmental action, and what choices reveal about trust, empathy, and attitudes toward collective responsibility.

Basic setup & immediate reactions

  • Scenario: Everyone must press red or blue. Red pressers always survive. If >50% press blue, everyone survives; otherwise blue pressers die.
  • Many argue it’s trivial: everyone “should” press red; then all live and no risk is taken.
  • Others say real humans aren’t fully rational, so some will press blue regardless (altruism, confusion, trolling, children, impaired people).

Rational self-interest vs altruism

  • Red advocates:
    • Red guarantees survival; blue adds risk with no extra payoff beyond what universal red already yields.
    • Pressing blue is framed as needless self-endangerment or “suicidal empathy.”
  • Blue advocates:
    • Expect a non-trivial blue minority; pressing red then knowingly contributes to their deaths.
    • Prefer to risk their own life rather than help create a world where self-sacrificing or cooperative people are wiped out.
    • Some explicitly say they would not want to live in a post-red world.

Game theory & collective action

  • Several compare it (often unfavorably) to the prisoner’s dilemma: here the “cooperative” choice (blue) has no better outcome than universal red, and is individually dominated.
  • Others note it’s more like a collective-action problem with a harsh threshold: every extra blue vote worsens outcomes until 50% is reached; then it suddenly becomes optimal.
  • Debate over Nash equilibrium: if everyone is rational and knows everyone else is rational, “all red” is the equilibrium; but many stress this ignores irrational agents and children.

Framing effects and variants

  • Alternate framings: magic guns that jam if >50% shoot; jumping off a cliff if enough others jump; overloaded ship; protest under dictatorship.
  • Many note that making “do nothing” the safe option (e.g., don’t pull the trigger) changes behavior drastically vs “must pick a button.”
  • Color choice and political connotations (red/blue parties) are seen as intentional and biasing.

Moral responsibility & blame

  • Fierce disagreement over whether red pressers are “murderers” or simply declining to join others’ risky gambles.
  • Some argue blue is akin to voluntary suicide; others say red is complicity in mass killing.
  • Inclusion of babies, cognitively impaired people, and animals is used both to justify blue (protect the vulnerable) and red (don’t increase their risk).

Critiques of the thought experiment

  • Some call it shallow “virtue signaling” bait or a “Shari’s Scissor” designed to polarize.
  • Others dislike that it ignores long-term systemic context, reduces ethics to one binary choice, or assumes away real-world social structures.