I suspect the self-selection of participants outweighs all other parts of the calculation. The choices are actually red, blue, or no response (with an undefined outcome, but I’d expect that the vast majority of humans on earth chose it, or had it chosen for them because they didn’t even see the poll). Followed by the confounder that the setup is a lie—it’s FAR more likely that the pollster is faffing about and nobody will be killed as a result of any outcome. I don’t think there’s anything to learn from this setup—some participants may make the calculation, but the vast majority will ignore it, or choose for signaling or amusement value.
If you did this with forced participation, and actual belief that it worked as claimed, the vast majority of humans would choose red. In fact, why would anyone choose blue? 100% red means everyone lives, and it doesn’t require any trust or coordination to achieve.
If you change it so there are hostages (people who don’t get to choose, but will die if the blue threshold isn’t met), then it becomes interesting. But still not that interesting—coordination and trust become the primary questions, and your setup doesn’t mention anything about what mechanisms are available or what population is voting. Basically, the “depending on your beliefs about how the rest of the population will vote” dominates, and you don’t provide any evidence to update those beliefs upon.
100% red means everyone lives, and it doesn’t require any trust or coordination to achieve.
--Yes this.
If you change it so there are hostages (people who don’t get to choose, but will die if the blue threshold isn’t met), then it becomes interesting.
-- That was actually a strongfemaleprotagonist storyline, cleaving along a difference between superheroic morality and civilian morality, then examined further as the teacher was interrogated later on.
True, but kind of misleading. Neither 50.1% blue nor 100% red are achievable (in my estimation, in any sizable population of real humans), but missing that goal by a bit is a LOT better for red than for blue.
100% red means everyone lives, and it doesn’t require any trust or coordination to achieve.
I don’t think there are any even halfway plausible models under which >95% of humanity chooses red without prior coordination, and pretty unlikely even with prior coordination. Aiming for a majority red scenario is choosing to kill at least 400 million people, and possibly billions. You are correct that it doesn’t require trust, but it absolutely requires extreme levels of coordination. For example, note that more than 10% of the population is less than 10 years old, some have impaired colour vision, and even competent adults with no other impairments make mistakes in highly stressful situations.
I think the setup is so far away from plausible that we’ll never know how many people would choose blue and die. I agree that there’s probably going to be a lizardman-constant amount of blues, but I don’t think there’s any path to a blue-majority without a fair bit of campaigning and coordination (which would be better spent getting more reds), and even then it’s not guaranteed, so my expectation is that a blue win is just a phantom option—there’s no actual future universe that contains that outcome.
which, of course means that maximizing red is not “choosing to kill at least 400 million people, and possibly billions”, it’s minimizing the kill that whoever set up this evil scheme is responsible for.
This is basically my position as well. Without (very) strong evidence that a majority would pick blue, red is the obvious choice. I would choose red in the “real” version and red in the “fake” version as well.
If there was a “practice” version so people could indicate their intentions that would be later followed by a real version, then I would pick red in the practice version and would switch to blue in the real version if blue got at least around 2⁄3 in the practice version.
There are a lot of potential coordination mechanisms that could convince me to go blue. In the case as given, where there is no such ability, I think red is the choice which maximizes total utility (by keeping more people alive than a doomed pretense that blue can win).
no response (with an undefined outcome, but I’d expect that the vast majority of humans on earth chose it, or had it chosen for them because they didn’t even see the poll)
These artificial thought experiments usually require assuming that’s not on the table. Otherwise, yes, please don’t ingest either of the Alien Death Pills.
I suspect the self-selection of participants outweighs all other parts of the calculation. The choices are actually red, blue, or no response (with an undefined outcome, but I’d expect that the vast majority of humans on earth chose it, or had it chosen for them because they didn’t even see the poll). Followed by the confounder that the setup is a lie—it’s FAR more likely that the pollster is faffing about and nobody will be killed as a result of any outcome. I don’t think there’s anything to learn from this setup—some participants may make the calculation, but the vast majority will ignore it, or choose for signaling or amusement value.
If you did this with forced participation, and actual belief that it worked as claimed, the vast majority of humans would choose red. In fact, why would anyone choose blue? 100% red means everyone lives, and it doesn’t require any trust or coordination to achieve.
If you change it so there are hostages (people who don’t get to choose, but will die if the blue threshold isn’t met), then it becomes interesting. But still not that interesting—coordination and trust become the primary questions, and your setup doesn’t mention anything about what mechanisms are available or what population is voting. Basically, the “depending on your beliefs about how the rest of the population will vote” dominates, and you don’t provide any evidence to update those beliefs upon.
100% red means everyone lives, and it doesn’t require any trust or coordination to achieve.
--Yes this.
If you change it so there are hostages (people who don’t get to choose, but will die if the blue threshold isn’t met), then it becomes interesting.
-- That was actually a strongfemaleprotagonist storyline, cleaving along a difference between superheroic morality and civilian morality, then examined further as the teacher was interrogated later on.
If your true goal is “everyone lives”, then 50% blue cutoff is waaay more achievable than 100% red one.
True, but kind of misleading. Neither 50.1% blue nor 100% red are achievable (in my estimation, in any sizable population of real humans), but missing that goal by a bit is a LOT better for red than for blue.
I don’t think there are any even halfway plausible models under which >95% of humanity chooses red without prior coordination, and pretty unlikely even with prior coordination. Aiming for a majority red scenario is choosing to kill at least 400 million people, and possibly billions. You are correct that it doesn’t require trust, but it absolutely requires extreme levels of coordination. For example, note that more than 10% of the population is less than 10 years old, some have impaired colour vision, and even competent adults with no other impairments make mistakes in highly stressful situations.
I think the setup is so far away from plausible that we’ll never know how many people would choose blue and die. I agree that there’s probably going to be a lizardman-constant amount of blues, but I don’t think there’s any path to a blue-majority without a fair bit of campaigning and coordination (which would be better spent getting more reds), and even then it’s not guaranteed, so my expectation is that a blue win is just a phantom option—there’s no actual future universe that contains that outcome.
which, of course means that maximizing red is not “choosing to kill at least 400 million people, and possibly billions”, it’s minimizing the kill that whoever set up this evil scheme is responsible for.
This is basically my position as well. Without (very) strong evidence that a majority would pick blue, red is the obvious choice. I would choose red in the “real” version and red in the “fake” version as well. If there was a “practice” version so people could indicate their intentions that would be later followed by a real version, then I would pick red in the practice version and would switch to blue in the real version if blue got at least around 2⁄3 in the practice version.
In the fake version conducted as a twitter poll, 70% picked blue.
There are a lot of potential coordination mechanisms that could convince me to go blue. In the case as given, where there is no such ability, I think red is the choice which maximizes total utility (by keeping more people alive than a doomed pretense that blue can win).
These artificial thought experiments usually require assuming that’s not on the table. Otherwise, yes, please don’t ingest either of the Alien Death Pills.