Source
r/changemyview•
sobe86

I think that me voting in large eg. presidential/parliamentary elections is pointless CMV

First let me make something absolutely clear: this is not a stance on voting, or democracy in general, this is a stance on ME AS AN INDIVIDUAL voting. I am unequivocally NOT trying to stop others from voting, and I would feel bad if I did. I can and have campaigned for politicians to get elected, I feel I can maybe make a difference that way, but actually casting a vote? No.

This is for the following reason: The value of my one vote is zero. Either: the election will not be close, and my vote is like the difference between a 5.02544621% margin and a 5.02544622% margin: not even worth talking about. OR, the election does come down to a one vote margin (I am probably more likely to die walking to the voting booth), and even in this case - the decision will be taken out of my hands, as with the '00 election in Florida which was nowhere near as close as one vote.

Secondly, voting comes at some (even if small) personal cost, i.e. my time. Therefore, from an economical (or even game theoretical) point of view, voting is an irrational decision. The only reason to do it is to be seen doing it.

Arguments I've heard for voting that I find pretty weak:

  • Slippery slope arguments: 'maybe you are just one rain drop, but a billion raindrops can become a storm...'.

  • Similar: If people like you don't vote, then clearly people like you will not be represented in the election.

  • If you don't vote in an election then you have no right to complain when the government doesn't act the way you want.

  • It's your civic duty - 'your grandfather fought in the war so that you could vote...'

These are all irrational arguments if you accept my assumption that my vote has zero weight. Unless I'm actively trying to stop others from voting, then my one vote didn't make a difference. Yes, a million votes are a storm, but my vote had no influence on that, and it can't affect how others like me vote positively or negatively. If I am just voting out of 'civic duty', then my vote is just a gesture. I am happy to lie about whether or not I voted if it will make you feel better, but I like to think I act rationally, and for me, expending effort so that I can say I was part of an election is not a rational decision.

CMV reddit!

Posted Jul 25, 2013, 11:39 AM UTC · edited

31112
jafarialaddin•

Because of Kant’s categorical imperative:

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law”

If you believe that democracy is a good way to distribute power then you should participate in the democratic system.

You probably disagree with littering, but how big of difference does it really make if you throw a single piece of paper on the ground? None, the world is a big place and your single piece of litter can’t possibly make any difference.

But isn’t it pretty hypocritical of you to say that: yes, we definitely shouldn’t litter, I’ve seen societies where littering was allowed and those were pretty shitty societies where people generally had a bad time. And at the same time choose to litter because well your litter doesn’t make any difference anyway.

If you believe in something you can’t just hide behind an argument of insignificance to act contrary to that belief.

23
sobe86OP•

I find Kant's principle often very hard to apply in real life, and I think noone adheres to it absolutely. Is it OK for me to install adblock even if it would bring down the internet if everyone did it? I think that example is more comparable in scale to a vote in a presidential election (unlike a single piece of litter, which itself is noticable). I'd rather just lie about voting to others.

4
FumpleThumb•

I think u/jafarialaddin's example of littering is very similar to your AdBlock example, but since you don't I'll take it from there.

No, it's not morally OK for you to install AdBlock because, like you said, if everyone did it, the internet as we know it would cease to exist. Just because it's widely used and accepted on Reddit doesn't mean it's right. If you enjoy using services on the internet that rely on ads for funding like Gmail, Facebook, Reddit, etc., then you are essentially "biting off the hand that feeds you." The same goes for torrenting (but for the love of god let's not get into that).

By the same token, it's not morally OK to abstain from voting unless you truly desire/expect nothing from the government (which is practically impossible). I realize you said in your OP that you see this "raindrop" argument as weak, but that doesn't mean it's not true.

u/yiman also made an argument above that you cannot ignore. You contradict yourself by saying that your vote has almost no value and then later continue to say that it has no value. These are two extremely different circumstances and, as u/yiman's cancer example points out, if you truly cared about any issues in politics (as I'm sure you do) you would be eager to cast a vote to sway the outcome, regardless of how insignificant your vote may be.

10
sobe86OP•

I think this thread is definitely the one giving me the most pause. But I think I've figured why I'm not completely buying it.

Not voting is the absence of doing something that is (hypothetically) morally good. Now there are a lot of hypothetically good things I could do as well - become a doctor, give money to charity A, give money to charity B, become a social worker, go do relief work in country X,Y and Z. Now if you apply Kant to each of these individual things, it says you should do all of them, since if there were no doctors, society would as a whole be much worse. But this is of course crazy, no one person can give money to every charity, or follow every noble profession out there.

So how do we choose which ones to do and which ones not to do? I say, do some cost/benefit analysis. Is it worth me voting? I say, no.

1
johnpseudo•

I say, do some cost/benefit analysis. Is it worth me voting? I say, no.

I would point you to my argument which ends with the contention that, in the current environment of hyper-partisanship in Congress, a single vote will on average have a marginal impact ranging in the thousands of dollars. If you feel strongly about the differences between the two parties, I would guess you would see altering the allocation of thousands of dollars of federal taxation/spending as worth at least an hour of your time.

1
FumpleThumb•

There are two points I want to make to respond.

  1. Voting, unlike charity, is not just a moral good. It is required for our government to function as intended. Without voting the system is not only worse off, it could not function at. Without charity however the world is simply worse off.

  2. So now you might be thinking, "Well we can't function without doctors" or maybe "If everyone was doctor we would have no farmers, plumbers, etc". I think that kind of thinking is too specific for the categorical imperative, mentioned above.

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

This should be interpreted generally. Relating this to everyone becoming a doctor is akin to saying that not only should everyone vote, but everyone should vote a certain way. I think the correct conclusion to draw from the statement in this regard is that everyone should strive to work whether that be as a doctor, a lawyer, or otherwise.

1
jafarialaddin•

You’re misinterpreting the categorical imperative. Another way to say it is that you shouldn’t do something yourself that you would not be willing to allow everyone else to do as well. If you expect people to keep their promises then you are obligated to keep yours. And if you expect people to vote, as I’m sure you do, then you are obligated to vote as well.

If you choose charity A over charity B you must allow everyone else to make a choice, not necessarily the same choice but a choice. You can’t make exceptions for yourself. Fortunately, many people mean many different choices being made so we’re rarely end up in a society with no doctors.

1
sumuru•

Is it ethical for a person to choose to be anything other than a hunter-gatherer? Because that is the only "profession" that everyone can pick and still have the end result be a sustainable society.

1
potato118Δ•

No, it's not morally OK for you to install AdBlock because, like you said, if everyone did it, the internet as we know it would cease to exist.

You are assuming that radically changing the internet's advertising-driven revenue model would be a bad thing.

1
FumpleThumb•

Yes I am.

1
yiman2ƥ

But your assumption that your vote has zero weight is wrong. Because you pointed it out yourself that your vote has close to zero weight. You dismiss it as "not even worth talking about". But it is not zero weight. Zero weight would be that your vote won't actually count. So any of your conclusion based on the assumption that your vote is close to zero weight is also wrong.

If your argument is that the close to zero weight is not worth your time in your assessment of cost vs benefit analysis, then that would be a different discussion.

9
sobe86OP•

I think you're just arguing semantics.

5
yiman2ƥ

It is not semantics. Something having little value is not the same as something having no value.

If every time someone says the word "semantics", we are 0.000000001% closer to the cure for cancer. Would you say the word as frequently as you can, or do you dismiss it because it is "close to zero."

What I am trying to demonstrate is that you have mis-identify your own reason for not voting.

You think you don't want to vote because statistically your vote has almost no value.

But in reality, you believe that the things you are voting for has no value. Because if it was purely about the statistical mechanics, you would also not participant in the "cure for cancer' example above. But you would, because you care about cure for cancer.

In another word. If the next US presidential election is between Not curing cancer vs curing cancer. And for some hypothetical reason the republican is against curing cancer. Would you still not vote?

9
sobe86OP•

Ok, I guess that makes sense. I'll go back to something I said before: I think I am probably more likely to die walking to the voting booth, than casting a decisive (or even 'influential') vote. That was not a throwaway comment, I believe that is statistically accurate (especially based on where I live!). So from a cost/benifit point of view I should probably stay home unless I would die to change the outcome...

5
yiman2ƥ

Right. That is the bottom line, the current political climate is such BS that the "cost/benefit" analysis for voting is completely off.

I think the reason a lot of smart/reasonable people still vote is because they find the one thing they care about enough that swing their "cost/benefit" analysis.

So, to use your example. Someone like you would vote if you believe that making abortion 0.0000001% closer to being illegal is worth taking the risk of getting hit by a car on your way to the voting booth.

So if you are not passionate about the issue, then your cost/benefit analysis would be different.

You are not trying to cast the decisive vote. You are trying to get the issue you want changed 0.000000001% closer to changing.

4
novagenesis8ƥ

If every time someone says the word "semantics", we are 0.000000001% closer to the cure for cancer. Would you say the word as frequently as you can, or do you dismiss it because it is "close to zero."

This isn't as fair as "if every day a cancer patient said "semantics" , they had a 0.000000001% chance of being cured...".. The influence of one cancer patient saying "semantics" and the influence of 1 vote is actually less than the time spent.

However, I do not discourage you from voting. We need people to vote, just not me.

2
yiman2ƥ

And I agree that you shouldn't vote. But you should stop lying to yourself about why you are not voting. It is not because "statistically" your vote won't matter. It is because you don't care enough about an issue to do everything you can.

2
novagenesis8ƥ

I think the difference between "close to zero" and "zero" is immaterial here. If an individual voter wants to influence anything, the hour or so spent in the voting process is far better spent trying to convert other voters than voting yourself.

This is one of those things distantly related to the prisoner's dilemma. There really is no purpose to me voting, and almost any other constructive use of my time would be better (spend an hour holding a sign and waving instead)... but if everyone did that, everything would obviously fall apart and my vote would be worth it again.

2
yiman2ƥ

This is one of those things distantly related to the prisoner's dilemma. There really is no purpose to me voting, and almost any other constructive use of my time would be better (spend an hour holding a sign and waving instead)... but if everyone did that, everything would obviously fall apart and my vote would be worth it again.

All of your points point to the same thing. You don't have anything you believe is worth your time to vote.

If the next general election is about deciding whether to execute you or not. Would you still not vote? Or would you go wave a sign, convert voters, and then also vote at the last possible second?

You simply don't care about the outcome enough to do all that you can to influence the outcome.

1
novagenesis8ƥ

If the next general election is about deciding whether to execute you or not. Would you still not vote? Or would you go wave a sign, convert voters, and then also vote at the last possible second?

Now that you put it that way, I don't have an hour to waste a vote. I need to be pushing myself onto the press, converting every possible vote I can... There is no way my vote among a hundred of million will be the one to decide my fate... especially with the electoral college.

You simply don't care about the outcome enough to do all that you can to influence the outcome.

You are accusing me of this, and in several threads. I do not agree. Seen in here, I very much care about my life, and so would do a lot more than I normally do related to pushing my opnion... but I can't imagine stopping everything to go vote.

1
yiman2ƥ

Let me ask you this, would you vote if it takes only 10 seconds?

1
selflessGene1ƥ

I'm from Florida and did not vote in the 2000 election. I would have voted for Gore. If me and a couple hundred more people actually voted for Gore, he might have been President.

I had enough people in my phone to change the outcome of a presidential election.

6
genebeam11Δ•

You seem to take the stance that the only possible reason to vote is to possibly change the outcome of the election. Like you're playing a lottery in which you win the choice of candidate. Do you think this is why the millions of people who do vote, vote? Or why do you think they vote?

5
sobe86OP•

I think a lot of people vote because they think the incremental difference they are making is important. I think others vote because they find it fun, and they want to say that they were involved. I think people who are highly political sometimes vote or don't because they feel social pressure to do so. I feel like if these are the main reasons to vote, then it's a pretty frivolous thing to do really, and none of them compel me.

But aren't you supposed to be telling me why other people vote/ why I should?

3
karnim•

Asking you why you think other people vote just shortens the process. Now that we know why you think other people vote and that you don't think it's a valid reason, we can approach it via other means.

2
novagenesis8ƥ

That's not why they vote. I agree with a lot of your arguments, and your whole premise...

But they vote so they feel they "did their part". When I don't vote, people accuse me of not being a patriot and tell me that I have no right to complain.

My state voted Obama overwhelmingly, as I knew it would (and was my preference to Romney). The influence to me voting in the presidential election was less than the the odds of me winning powerball 100 times in a row... and yet people respect my opinion less for having not done so... which is why perhaps I should either vote, or start lying and say I did.

1
sobe86OP•

I would say start lying, who's the victim?

0
[deleted]•

Democracy is.

1
genebeam11Δ•

The issue is your method of deciding whether to vote, not the cost-benefit analysis that you put the focus on. People who vote, and who don't think they're wasting their time doing do, do not have any illusions that their vote will change the outcome. For one thing, this is revealed in the manner in which election turnout does not exponentially decrease as the population increases. And the cost of one's time is not driving the decision to vote or not for most people, as evidenced by the higher turnout rates about the wealthy as compared to the poor.

Instead, voting is a means of self-expression. A way to put a personal stake in the political process.

In Florida in 2012 there were Republican efforts to suppress black turnout with constrained early voting hours, tighter rules on how soon you have to turn in voter registration paperwork, and eliminating early voting on Sundays (black churches had a tradition of all going to vote after the sermon). These efforts had the unintended consequence of increasing black turnout. Why? Because the black communities were aware of what the state Republicans were trying to do and it pissed them off. Someone who was perhaps a soft Obama supporter who was not going to vote out of apathy is transformed into someone who feels compelled to vote as a "Fuck You" to those who try to make it more difficult.

That is the distilled essence of why people vote. It's a concentrated form of the spirit of just expressing yourself, even if you don't tell anyone else you voted. You might ask yourself, if politicians purposefully tried to make it harder for you to vote, even though you initially had no intention of voting, would it increase your desire to vote? If so, I don't think the mathematical likelihood that you could change the outcome is what's really driving your decision not to vote.

But if it's really the case that you decide not to vote because you are unlikely to alter the outcome, there's no intellectually coherent way to argue you should vote. You have essentially declared that the reasons other people vote don't apply to you, and that's that. The real issue, as I said at the beginning, is your method of deciding whether to vote: the cost/benefit analysis of your time expenditure compared to the likelihood of affecting the outcome. All I can do here is try to convince you that this is your arbitrarily chosen decision method. There's nothing special or predetermined about it. And many other people, thoroughly rationally, do not employ this cost-benefit analysis you apply to yourself.

1
johnpseudo•

For one, the impact of your vote is not purely in deciding who wins. Margins matter a great deal in elections- to determine the quality of future candidates, to encourage better turnout in the future, to scare elected candidates into changing their behavior (either increasing fear of losing the next general election or losing the next primary election), and to influence investment in future campaigns by outside forces.

So assuming that your vote has some non-zero value, let me ask- what weight do you think your vote should have? In a presidential campaign, it seems obvious enough that any one vote shouldn't have a 1/10 or 1/100 or even 1/1000 chance of deciding the election. We live in a large country after all, with over a hundred million voters. All that one should expect their vote to accomplish is to push the likely outcome of elections (both current and future) marginally in the direction of their preferred candidate. Their impact should be in proportion to their share of the population, in other words. And on that score, your vote is actually much more powerful than you rightfully deserve. Because so many people don't vote, your impact on the election is roughly twice as large as it would be otherwise!

And another thing to keep in mind is that, even if your influence over the outcome of the race has to be pooled with the influence of 100 million other people, the impact of these elections is very large! In federal elections, for example, the difference between a Republican- or Democrat-controlled Senate could mean the difference in hundreds of billions of dollars in funds for the poor, taxes on the rich, money spent on the military, etc. So even if your vote is diluted on the order of 100 million, that could still mean that spending one hour of your time has a marginal impact of thousands of dollars!

5
[deleted]•

It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. You want a democracy, but you want your vote to be decisive. That defeats the whole purpose of a democracy.

The purpose of a democracy is to keep power in the hands of the many rather than in one person, such as yourself. You seem to value a system where you have a greater relative power than other people. That's why you only value time spent voting when your vote is decisive.

You should vote because you value democracy, and because it reminds you that your desires are only one in a sea of millions.

However, I think a point can be made that our votes are rendered meaningless by the political/economic system that leads to our choices in candidates and their actions once in office. But if your complaint is that 1 vote is meaningless just because of how many voters there are, then I think my argument stands.

3
sobe86OP•

At no point in my argument did I talk about changing the value of my vote, nor did I even lament that I don't believe my vote has value. I am not complaining about the system, or the concept of voting, I'm just explaining why the concept of MY vote doesn't interest me.

3
[deleted]•

At no point in my argument did I talk about changing the value of my vote, nor did I even lament that I don't believe my vote has value.

You said EXACTLY that:

This is for the following reason: The value of my one vote is zero. Either: the election will not be close, and my vote is like the difference between a 5.02544621% margin and a 5.02544622% margin: not even worth talking about. OR, the election does come down to a one vote margin (I am probably more likely to die walking to the voting booth) ... These are all irrational arguments if you accept my assumption that my vote has zero weight. Unless I'm actively trying to stop others from voting, then my one vote didn't make a difference. Yes, a million votes are a storm, but my vote had no influence on that, and it can't affect how others like me vote positively or negatively. If I am just voting out of 'civic duty', then my vote is just a gesture.

Your chief complaint is that your vote doesn't make a difference. I directly addressed why that complaint implies that you wish your vote is valued higher relative to others.

3
sobe86OP•

Where do you see me complaining? I'm just saying that I don't vote for this reason.

3
amish4play•

But you would be more interested to vote if you thought your single vote could change the outcome of the election, right?

1
pixlepix1ƥ

I would PREFER it if people gave me a million dollars. Doesn't mean I think it's a good idea for that to happen.

1
thereal_me•

me, i , my

--> us, we, our

Whether you realize it or not, you are already part of something bigger.

This is your country too. You vote so that it never has to come down to a one-vote decision.

2
sobe86OP•

But I specifically said this was about the decision as an individual.

You vote so that it never has to come down to a one-vote decision.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying I should vote if it's a two-vote decision? I already discussed what happens if it's that close - the courts decide, not the votes, so why does that make a difference? And whether or not I vote will not affect whether it comes to that or not.

1
thereal_me•

if it's that close - the courts decide

When the proverbial swing vote doesn't exist, you vote to make sure it never comes that close.

One vote doesn't matter - but when you and tens of thousands of others believe that, yes it matters. So you do your part to make sure it never comes that close.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but I gotta question the validity of the statistically rare hypothetical situation upon which you've built your argument (close elections), and how isolated and focused a response you require as to be relevant to satisfy your request (convince me that an individual vote is worth something in a situation where an vote isn't worth anything). I'm sensing a subtext here not of "Why should i vote", but " Why should i care?", which is less a technical debate, and more of a philosophical conversation.

You vote because you care.

But if you need to have a more individualistic, selfish reasons to vote, here's why i vote:

I'm not a disenfranchised youngster anymore, i know i'm actually allowed to stand up for what i believe in and affect change. I care about who gets elected because the taxes, gas, groceries, medical bills i pay for in addition to a host of other things that affect me in my own home are politically influenced by the politicians (civil liberties, privacy issues, public services, etc). Not everyone pays attention to it, but all of these political decisions affect your lives in subtle ways. It's hard to notice until many changes have precipitated on top of one another and the country you live in isn't quite the same place it was 13 years ago.

It's about what you want. Swing votes be damned.

2
novagenesis8ƥ

Society works on trends, individuals do not change those trends by merely acting.

1
thereal_me•

i'm pretty sure that's how trends work, through individuals acting.

If even a fraction of the 40% of people who didn't vote acted, they very well could affect political trends.

1
novagenesis8ƥ

I completely agree. So is my time better spent voting, or trying to get others of the 40% to vote?

If I voted with all my heart, it would do nothing to that other 40%. The behavior of individuals and the behavior of society must be treated as different. I do not believe that it is my job to act how I want all of society to act. Whatever that axiom in another part of the thread to that effect, I do not agree.

1
sleepyj91010ƥ

Enough droplets do make a flood. Your assumption that your vote has zero weight is simply false, and since you can't be 100% certain of any outcome, to not vote is the same as to not care about the results.

It's not a slippery slope argument, it's a mathematical one. A prisoner's dilemma. Assuming your vote doesn't matter is how Bart lost the election for class president.

So I can't accept your assumption because it's blatantly false.

.00000001 is not equal to 0

Re: florida. Let's assume democracy works, and that counts are reliable. Injustice over recounts is another matter from your 0% assumption, so pick one or the other at least.

2
novagenesis8ƥ

.00000001 is not equal to 0

My vote last presidential election would have amounted to precisely 0 electroral votes. Not 0.00000001 electoral votes. Any individual who does not live in a swing state can verifiably say that unless many people in their state act in accordance to a non-typical behavior (mainly, all decided voting was worthless), their vote will have literally (not virtually) zero influence on the election.

3
shiav8ƥ

There are enough Latinos in Texas to make it permanently Democrat. Too bad texas isnt a swing state, so they dont bother voting.

1
sobe86OP•

As I said, I think that I am probably more likely to die walking to the voting booth than my vote being decisive, so from a pure cost/benifit point of view it doesn't seem to make any sense to.

2
avantvernacular•

If you can convince enough people that it is pointless, then your vote may be the one that decides the whole thing.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

The idea is to act such that if everyone acted that way, the world would function.

2
mrhymer1ƥ

Voting is the means by which we peacefully change power. It is an unprecedented advancement of civilization. Not voting is a vote to revert to a less civilized means of transferring power. It is a similar choice to the Amish choosing not to use electricity or the fundamentalist Muslims refusal to recognize the rights of women. It is a rejection of the progress of civilization. Not voting is an indication that you do not intend to make a peaceful transition of power work. That you are waiting for the previous method of changing power by blood and death.

1
EvilNalu15ƥ

This whole thing rests on one giant faulty premise - that a court will 'decide' the outcome if the vote tally is close. In Bush v. Gore, the court did not decide the outcome - it simply denied a recount. That meant that the original count of votes stood. If that count had been Bush winning by one vote, then that one vote would have been decisive. Even if a recount had been ordered, perhaps it would have found that one party won by a single vote. Thus, in either case, the votes would have mattered. It's not like the court just chooses one as a winner and the votes suddenly become irrelevant.

So, you have to engage in a cost/benefit analysis to determine whether voting is worth your time, you can't just say the benefit is 0 and leave it at that. Here are some things that may change the cost/benefit analysis:

  1. Depending on the area you live in, you may be able to register as an absentee voter. You can simply receive a ballot in the mail and vote in the comfort of your home on you own time. This significantly reduces the cost of voting.

  2. There are generally a number of elections you are eligible to vote for on a single ballot. Many of these are smaller and thus have a larger chance of being tied or decided by one vote. Here is a list of such elections. You can see that there have been at least 21 elections tied or decided by one vote. The odds of you influencing the result of a small election are much larger, and they often appear on the same ballot as the large elections, so the incremental cost of voting in the large election is nearly 0 if you are voting in the small election.

  3. There are benefits to voting other than simply changing the outcome of an election. There is a signalling effect whereby you indicate to observers of the election, including candidates and parties, which types of candidates people prefer. This can change their behavior in office or the types of candidates that run in the future. Of course, the effect of your one vote on this is small, but it exists.

  4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, many people believe that voting is important and is an important signal of whether a citizen is active and engaged in society. If you are in the US, whether or not you voted is generally a matter of public record. Furthermore, Many political candidacies have been hampered when reports of weak voting records emerge. If you have any desire to be involved in politics in the future it behooves you to establish a consistent voting record early.

1
truebluefunk•

Your actions impact the actions of others.

http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch2-b.html

Enjoy being a dead brain cell in the group mind that is our country.

1
sobe86OP•

So what's the difference between me voting and me lying to people and saying that I voted?

1
truebluefunk•

Hmm... to continue the analogy you would be a cancerous brain cell? But I think that's the point where the analogy breaks down...

The thing about feedback signals in complicated systems is that it is not always intuitive how a certain input will effect the output. Think about an autopilot on a plane that makes almost imperceptible adjustments to flaps and thrust in order to account for minor fluctuations that would otherwise build up and tear the plane apart. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroelastic_flutter#Flutter

Even if you lie and people think you voted, it will change the numbers for your state, county, district, town, what-have-you. And those things can have a feed-forward effect. Your town's voter numbers go down, it drops in importance relative to the rest of the county. The county's politics shift, which impacts the state . . . etc.

Not to mention the change in your own actions. Even if you have someone "in your head", voting is akin to a decision. It's final, irrevocable and definite. And that will likely impact the way you view and interact with the candidates, the issues, and other voters.

1
harry_heymann3ƥ

You are confusing a zero weight with a very small weight.

Would you give away a penny? That would make no difference right? OK, then how about 2 pennies...3...4...100...1,000...10,000? Eventually it all adds up right? A penny isn't worthless it just has a small value.

Your vote doesn't have zero weight.

Also you should read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

1
FuckClinch1ƥ

You giving all your money to charity from that high mountain of Kant-ian ethics?

And did you not read his post? He's saying that he will only ever be a penny, because him not voting, doesn't change all the other people voting.

Also OP already responded to your point

I think this thread is definitely the one giving me the most pause. But I think I've figured why I'm not completely buying it. Not voting is the absence of doing something that is (hypothetically) morally good. Now there are a lot of hypothetically good things I could do as well - become a doctor, give money to charity A, give money to charity B, become a social worker, go and do relief work in country X,Y and Z. Now if you apply Kant to each of these individual things, you MUST do all of them, since if there was one that no one was doing, society would as a whole be much worse. But this is of course crazy, no one person could give money to every charity, or follow every noble profession out there. So how do we choose? I say, do some cost/benefit analysis. Is it worth me voting? I say, no.

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aintnufincleverhere•

Actually, you are right. A single vote doesn't matter. I can't tell you why you should vote, I can only tell you why other people vote. People vote because there is utility in expressing yourself. If you want to learn more about it, read 'A Logic of Expressive Choice' by Alexander A. Schuessler.

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aintnufincleverhere•

here's the book: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6977.html

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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akiws2ƥ

Hi OP. I see I'm late to this discussion, but there was a similar thread on here a few weeks ago which brought up some points that are relevant to your position.

The value of my one vote is zero.

This can easily be proven to be false. The value of your one vote is the same as the value of everybody else's single vote. The sum of everybody's votes decides the election. If they were all valued at zero, the sum would also be zero and the election would be futile. Since this is not the case, the original assumption that the value of any given vote is zero, is false.

Usually when people talk about their vote being pointless, their underlying problem is coming to grips with the fact that the weight of their individual vote is diluted by an order of magnitude equal to the overwhelming number of voters (and there are a lot of people in this world, so it's a big problem). That often leads to the common (but incorrect) assertion that the only way a vote matters if it is the single deciding vote in an otherwise tied election.

Pretend that you're running against me in an election and you beat me by a tally of 55,000 - 45,000. Let's also pretend that your assertion about only the deciding vote mattering is correct. Whose vote actually mattered in this election? The last 9,999 people who voted for you were not necessary for you to win, so I would argue that they did not matter. The 45,000 who voted for me had no effect on the outcome of the election, so they did not matter either. Did the 45,001 who voted for you all split the responsibility of winning? Or did the first 45,000 not matter and did the 45,001st voter on your side cast the only vote that made a difference? None of these answers are without serious logical flaws because they're all based on a false assumption - that only a deciding vote matters.

Here's a simpler example. You and I each get 1 day to make as many free-throws as possible and whoever makes more, wins a bunch of money. However, we don't know how well the other person did until our own turn is complete. What's the strategy for winning? It's to make as many shots as possible. At every point during that day, you're going to be trying to sink as many shots as you can because every extra shot you make puts you in a better place to win this contest. When the contest is over, you could look back in hindsight and say "Oh, I won by a score of 2400-2300, so 99 of my shots were unnecessary," but you'd be wrong. They were very necessary because they put you in a better chance to win than if you had missed them. You have a better chance of winning with 2400 shots than with 2300.

Looking back at election results is no different. You can look at results after the fact and say well my guy won by 10,000 votes so I didn't need to vote (or I'm glad I didn't vote), but that is mathematically flawed. On the day of the election, you don't have the benefit of hindsight. Your candidate has X votes without you, and X+1 votes with you. He will have a better chance of winning with X+1 votes, 100% of the time.

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stumblebreak1ƥ

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_close_election_results

Voting is more then just who becomes president. While your vote is small in the presidential election it's much more powerful on a local level. The school is trying to get a mileage passed? That's going to effect your taxes for the next 20 years. State legislative races can be very close as well. You think some people in Texas are wishing they had different state representative right about now? And if your argument is you vote on those but not the bigger ones then your basically saying the 5 seconds it takes to bubble in your choice isn't worth your time. In which case, damn you must be important.

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sumuru•

While I don't disagree about your reasoning regarding the direct effect of your individual vote, the act of voting may have the effect of influencing other people in your family, circle of friends, and your community to vote as well, thus resulting in a cumulative effect that may indeed end up having an effect, after all - if not immediately, then somewhere down the line. Especially if this decision carries over into a habit of also voting in smaller, local elections.

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FuckClinch1ƥ

He literally said in the OP that he doesn't mind lying to people about voting

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sumuru•

Which likely has more of an effect than the act of (not) voting itself, but doesn't mean that being seen to vote won't make an additional difference.

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FuckClinch1ƥ

But to everyone else except himself, it's the exact same as if he'd voted, no?

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NameAlreadyTaken22ƥ

Think of it like a lottery. You don't have a 100% chance to change your own lifestyle. You have a 0.00001% chance to change the entire country. Statistically, there is a 1 in a million chance that any relatively close election will be split by 1 vote, and that vote would have been yours if you voted,

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ablank1313•

How is there "statistically" a one in a million chance that any close election will be decided by one vote? I have never heard of any election being decided by one vote. Furthermore even if the presidential election in the US was decided by one vote, it wouldn't even matter because of the electoral college. This type of thing is so hard to put a probability on because it is too heavily dependent on what eveyone else in your state/other states do.

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NameAlreadyTaken22ƥ

You've never heard of it because it's incredibly unlikely, so it may never have happened in the few thousand major elections of history. There's always some kind of a tipping point between recounting and not recounting. Maybe it's not exactly at 500,000-500,000 votes, but let's say there has to be a <1,000 vote error for a recount - then your vote could be the 1,000th that prevents it.

There have been several US presidential elections decided by one state, so all it takes is an extremely close race in that state for one person's vote to matter (think Florida, 2000 - Bush won, but if a couple hundred people more voted, it could have been Gore.)

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