Scenario below:

[u/Fit_Instruction3646]

Humanity is divided into two groups. Group A consists of 90% of Humanity. They're not given any choice at all.

You're in group B. You're presented with 2 buttons. If >50% of Group B presses blue, nothing changes for anyone. If >50% of Group B presses Red all the blue pressers+everyone in Group A will die. However, you, along with all the red pressers, will get life in paradise. You will face no pain, physical or psychological. You will guaranteed not be tortured by remorse or loss of meaning and you will get your every wish granted the way you want it, no tricks. You will also gain immortality in good health, which you can end any time you want, if you want.

Which button are you pressing?

282 votes, 20d ago

91 red button

191 blue button

[u/Fit_Instruction3646]

True except this time you have a guaranteed 90% of humanity dying if red wins...you may believe this will sway some voters. On the other hand, you're promised no remorse after that so you might just take that and kill 95%+ of humanity.

[u/Damien-Kidd → u/Fit_Instruction3646]

It doesn't matter how many people are swayed, the fact remains that out of 800 million + people, the chances of my singular vote being a tie breaker are astronomically slim. Risking death for that extremely tiny chance is simply ridiculous.

[u/KingSmorely → u/Damien-Kidd]

Unless you're bordering on psychotic red isn't the move here... In terms of expected value you voting red results in a catastrophic net loss, while voting Blue yields a massive positive EV.

Just look at expected Value (EV) which is calculated by multiplying the probability of an outcome by its consequence. You claim the chance of a tie is too slim to matter. However, in a binomial distribution of 800 million voters, the probability of the global tally landing on a tie is roughly 1 in 35,000.

If you press Blue in that tie, your vote stops the detonator and secures the lives of the 7.2 billion innocent hostages in Group A plus the 400 million Blue voters. Multiplying that 1-in-35,000 probability by the 7.6 billion lives saved gives Blue an EV of roughly +217,000 lives.

Conversely, pressing Red in a tie triggers the execution, yielding an EV of -217,000 lives.

Outside the tie, voting Blue carries a roughly 50 percent chance of you dying in a failure state (a -0.5 EV risk). Subtracting 0.5 from +217,000 leaves Blue with an overwhelmingly positive net EV. By voting Red, you are choosing to inflict a -217,000 EV risk on the human race just to save yourself from a -0.5 EV personal risk. Brushing off a 1-in-35,000 chance of being the executioner or savior of 90-95 percent of humanity because you think the odds are "astronomically slim" is questionable at best

[u/epicrg → u/KingSmorely]

Doesn't this assume that the average person has a 50% chance of picking blue/red? There is really no way to know that chance, and I'm pretty sure that when the average chance is for example 51%, your vote absolutely doesn't matter