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).
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).