@AudacityOfHoops @QiaochuYuan Yes, that's correct. There's a small margin around 50% (varies based on the population size) where blue is still optimal, and obviously anything over 50%.
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truefire
388 posts
truefire
@truefire87
Game Designer and/or Programmer. Currently working on @RivalsOfAether.
Entrou em Temmuz 2023
63 Seguindo25 Seguidores
@truefire87 @QiaochuYuan Those expected survivor number are only accurate if you assume other players pick blue and red at equal rates, though, right? Or am I misunderstanding the point?
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i completely missed this discourse the first time so lemme try. i pressed blue without thinking about it, my gut reaction was "blue is prosocial and red is antisocial," on reflection this still seems right to me
galaxy-brain game theory arguments in favor of red are completely missing the point. as others have pointed out, empirically blue wins, and this is a test of theory of mind more than anything else. the actual outcome is determined by what everyone else who is not you actually does, not by what game theory says they should do
a certain kind of nerd thinks game theory is just the "correct" framework for reasoning about this type of situation and that is absolutely not true either and can be questioned on intellectual grounds and not just vibes. among other things game theory assumes every participant is perfectly selfish and perfectly """rational""" (and that this is common knowledge among the participants). this is just totally false as a description of the actual world! multiple parents pointed out that parents have to remember that this test includes their children. and obviously the vast majority of people have never even heard of game theory but they do know what selfishness and selflessness are
funnily enough there's LW stuff around exotic decision theories that's actually relevant here. one of them i would describe roughly as "when you make a decision you are choosing to live in a world where people like you make decisions like that" and i'd rather choose to live in a world where people like me are prosocial
"blue is prosocial and red is antisocial" is also a self-fulfilling prophecy, the more people who believe it the more true it becomes. so believing it is partly a bet on how much other people believe it, partly an act of hyperstition to make it true. few
Tim Urban@waitbutwhy
Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?
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@bitcloud @hyperliberalism "Communism" is when people care about other people, don't you know.
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The "private vote" is doing all the heavy lifting here.
In reality there's no private vote. There are a series of decisions within a cultural framework, and those decisions don't occur instantly, but occur within a dynamic, reactive system.
If you return this back to a complex system you get high trust/low trust behaviours emerging exactly as they do in reality.
Low trust, red button societies collapse.
High trust, blue button societies thrive.
Tim Urban@waitbutwhy
Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?
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@ZPostFacto @eurocompel (*under the assumption that any individual life holds equal value)
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@eurocompel A more reasonable and intelligent response than some of the "EV(red) > EV(blue)" 🧐 BSnkthers are saying
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Imo, most of Team Blue totally understands Red's arguments, but they disagree with the framing or assumptions.
otoh, most Red-pushers I've interacted cannot really articulate what the Blue position is. So they knock down a straw man.
The replies to this post will prove it.
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EV(blue) > EV(red), right?
I ran the numbers and that's what I plainly see (somewhat trivially) but a lot of self-proclaimed "very smart" people seem to think EV(red) is higher. Am I stupid or are there a huge number of people just lying about easily checkable math? Feel like I'm losing my mind.
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I like to think that I would press blue when the moment comes. I like to think that others would too. Maybe even some of the angry reds, when it comes down to it, would find greater humanity.
That said, who can say if I really have the heart. I've never been in a situation like that. I've only ever tested myself with lower stakes.
But this is an is/ought problem.
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@truefire87 @choffstein @FlowTraderTM The difference is that I also see it as a moral failure, it is indeed shameful. And still.
The OP of the original poll had a very interesting follow up that illustrates this absolutely perfectly: x.com/waitbutwhy/sta…
Tim Urban@waitbutwhy
Suddenly standing alone in the room, I begin by imagining humanity banding together and blue winning in a landslide, and I feel a rush of pride. Red is the genocide button. Blue is the “save humanity from this nightmare” button. I know what kind of person I am. As my hand hovers over the blue button, I can’t help but imagine a gun pointing at my head with a bullet in one of the chambers. I feel a surge of fear shoot through my body. Then I think about all the other people staring at the blue button and thinking the same thing. Surely some of those who initially decided to press blue will succumb to the fear. It starts to feel like a gun with two loaded chambers. A stronger pulse of terror. The more I think about it, the more I worry about other people thinking about it. My heart races. Then I look at the red button—a gun with no bullets in it. A glorious feeling of relief washes over me. Will I hate myself forever if blue wins because enough others were better and braver than me? But don’t I owe it to my family to protect myself? One vote won’t change anything anyway, right? It’s all irrelevant because the mammal I live in has already made up its mind. I wince and press red.
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Red looks selfish until you realize: if everyone presses red, everyone lives.
The "cooperative" answer requires coordination and trust.
The "selfish" answer just requires everyone making the same selfish choice.
Tim Urban@waitbutwhy
Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?
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@hitpeacebeuponu @0xCOSM0 You're right, every person is not going to simply pick red.
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most people would try to justify picking red.
and you honestly cannot blame them, they aren't necessarily evil, just because they want to guarantee their survival.
this is just sad for people picking blue, cause they are thinking for the collective survival of everyone
betting with their life that complete strangers are good people
Tim Urban@waitbutwhy
Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?
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@hitpeacebeuponu @0xCOSM0 I need you to understand that if every person picked blue everyone would survive
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@0xCOSM0 I need you to understand that if every person picked red everyone would survive
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(Your post cut off at the end but I get the idea)
I find this to be an admissible perspective, compared to the average red advocate. But I do still consider it a moral failure. We should all strive to be blue pressers. A society can only thrive when the proportion of blue pressers is high enough. It's a bit of a commentary on the compounding destructive force of selfishness (as are most similar game theory problems).
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@truefire87 @choffstein @FlowTraderTM Yes I understand I did use the exact same points before myself too. But I trust our flight or fight instinct and will to live more to overpower any sense of morality, in enough people, that it would push blue voters below 50%. And since I see the blue button as the suicide button
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@AlexAegis @choffstein @FlowTraderTM *blue is correct both morally AND logically if you value human lives in general.
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Red is "correct" in the strictly selfish sense, yes. But that's banally obvious.
If we value lives equally blue is strictly the correct option. (It's even the correct option if we place a higher but not categorically weight on our own life, up to a certain weight threshold depending on the sample size)
It's upsetting "obviously I should save myself over the rest of the world" is taken as as a given when people define what's "correct".
It is correct both morally AND logically if you value human lives in general.
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@smolgob @BobVegana_ @choffstein @FlowTraderTM Ah but you've forgot the most important person (the only one who actually matters, by his own rationale) - him!
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@BobVegana_ @choffstein @FlowTraderTM if red wins he kills one kid for sure if blue wins everyone lives
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@AlexAegis @choffstein @FlowTraderTM I keep seeing red framed as "the correct answer that some people will just not get" but that's simply factually wrong. In any "pure logic" scenario blue is strictly better than red.
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@choffstein @FlowTraderTM You are gambling on a solution that requires 100% of people to act selfishly.
The message is clear. You believe in selfishness. You believe most people are selfish and you believe the appropriate response is to be selfish. And you even
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@FlowTraderTM Your solution requires 50% of the population acting selflessly. I'm too jaded to gamble on that.
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@Jclearfield2 @MrBeast Ok, I'm convinced. Put someone in a Call of Duty tournament with 5 bucks on the line and they will kill the other players (in the video game) just to get the money.
What do people do with real stakes on the line beyond virtue signaling for the internet?
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Ok, I'm convinced. I want someone like @MrBeast to do this experiment in one of his competitions for like 5 million bucks. If you hit red you stay in, if you hit blue you only stay if half the people also pick blue. What do people do with real stakes on the line beyond virtue signaling for the internet?
Covfefe Anon@CovfefeAnon
This twitter classic "red button / blue button" [everyone who picks blue dies unless more than 50% do; everyone who picks red lives] question is cursed but we've learned a lot about people since it went around on the timeline the last time First to get this out of the way - there is zero actual reason to push blue - none - there is no "payoff to cooperation" being modeled since the payoff on offer - not dying - is the same for both choices. The only rational reason to pick blue is that you *hope* less than 50% of people pick blue so you can end your life and escape the person who is putting you in contrived hypotheticals for his own amusement With that out of the way - what we've learned in the 2 years since this hit the timeline the first time is that many, many people are simply next token predictors and when they see this example they say they will pick the "cooperative" choice (which isn't actually that!) We have also learned that when confronted with the stupidity of this position, they will simply costlessly double down and "argue" about it forever rather than admit error Really, the question is extremely revealing
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Others' Picks | Pick Red | Pick Blue
Red + Red | 3 Live | 2 Live
Red + Blue | 2 Live | 3 Live
Blue + Red | 2 Live | 3 Live
Blue + Blue | 3 Live | 3 Live
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Expected Value | 2.5 Live | 2.75 Live
I see a lot of people saying "Game theoretically red comes out on top", and this is plainly false.
If you are selfish, picking red is obviously optimal, as it provides 100% of your value (your own life) every time. You don't need game theory to figure that out.
If you are fair (value every life equally, including your own) or altruistic (value every OTHER life) blue is optimal. I would assume anyone trying to make the game theoretical argument would consider themselves in the fair bucket.
The actual right option is based on what the distribution of other people who pick red or blue. Given that the test is uncoordinated, we are assuming the distribution is roughly 50% (which is both the game-theoretically objective thing to do, and borne out in the data). The 3-person case above scales up to any number of people (with an increasingly smaller margin). You can run the math if you want.
Tim Urban@waitbutwhy
Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?
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something interesting i havent seen discussed so much is that pressing red is at least naively moral in the Kantian sense
"press red" is a universalizable policy with a good outcome
in the original poll, i took the red pill, fully expecting to see like 98% red (and 2% lizards)
Tim Urban@waitbutwhy
Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?
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@BeMyAnHero @lcelceBaby @ItsRobbAllen @The_Memeries @Devon_Eriksen_ there is no downside to everyone choosing blue either though?
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@lcelceBaby @truefire87 @ItsRobbAllen @The_Memeries @Devon_Eriksen_ Smart enough to see that there is no downside to everyone choosing red, and that it is in our own self-interest to do so.
It is a shame that we don't teach logic in schools anymore.
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New Trolley problem has arrived, only it's dumber.
Pres Red - 100% chance of living.
Blue - Non-zero chance of dying.
It has nothing to do with empathy for others unless you're stuck on suicidal empathy, which is YOUR fault, not mine.
There is ZERO logical reason for ANYONE to press blue. NONE.
vittorio@IterIntellectus
why would anyone even press blue?!?
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@ItsRobbAllen @The_Memeries @Devon_Eriksen_ This is kind ironic given that red is literally "if everyone would just" and blue is actually "if >50% would just"
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@The_Memeries Blue Button-ers kind of reminds me of @Devon_Eriksen_ 's "If everyone would just..." tweet.
"If everyone would just press blue....we could all survive AND virtue signal at the same time!" which is responded with "At no point in history has everyone just...."
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