So, recently (Not really, I live under a rock), there was an internet thought experiment. If, before you, there was two buttons. One button, a red button, would do nothing and allow you to continue living normaly. And another button, a blue button, would kill you unless 50% or more of everyone who pressed the button also pressed the button, in which case you'd be fine.
Now, like most thought experiments, this mildly spiralled into a wildly confusing situation. Some people argued that pressing the red button was the obvious and clear solution to all of the problems. No one dies that way of course. The other group argued that pressing the red button would be selfish as if everyone just pressed the blue button instead would survive instead of someone dying.
And uh... Wow, that's a interesting response. I mean, wow. I love how people respond to thought experiments because it's really where you can see how different people treat morality or ethical situations.
Like, let's take this as an example. In our above focus the people arguing that you should press the blue button argue that self-presavation should be secondary to helping people.
Meanwhile, the red button people were aruging that if everyone choose the red button no one dies anyways. So for the greater good everyone should just choose the red button.
In my personal opinion, no answer her is perfect. Regardless of your favourite or personal choice, these thought experiments still run into rather odd situations. Namely, there is too many factors to take into consideration with who is taking this experiment. For example, people are inherently interested in self-presavation. It's the entire point of how human work. So, to an extent a non-zero amount of people will take the "selfish" idea. The challenge is, how many of those people is that? Any amount over fifty percent would absolutely put the blue button folks at risk.
A better experiment example is the Prisoners Dilema.
The experiment involves two prisoners. Both are held in seperate cells. The Warden goes seperately to both of them and explains that if one person rats out on their partner they would be given a plea deal and be allowed to leave, or if their partner rats on them they'd be charged with the full crime. Now, here's the thing, if both prisoners try to rat on their partner, they both get the full charge. But if both stay quiet they only get a minor charge instead.
In this situation, inaction could be as dangerous as action, so you have to counter the posibility of your partner trying to back-stab you, your own morality system and the option of your lack of communication causing problems.
Of course the clearer answer would be to just default to staying quiet as a smart partner would also stick to quiet. Besides, snitches get stiches. You know? It works best. But of course, because it's a toss up on whether your partner is aware of the overpoweredness of just staying quiet and well... it is likely that ratting on your partner if they choose to stay quiet would be a better but more selfish idea.
Which while this doesn't have the live and death aspect of the blue and red button one but it does have the idea of selfish actions being profitable while the buttons make it so that you gain nothing for choosing the red button and mostly risk for choosing the blue button.
I don't know, I really like the idea of seeing how wildly differently people answer and rationalise thought experiments. It's fasinating and I would like to find more of these situations with it. I love to hear other peoples part.