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The smart person goes for the scooter. From an individual standpoint you stand to gain the most from the scooter since your vote is just a drop in a bucket. Thi

The smart person goes for the scooter. From an individual standpoint you stand to gain the most from the scooter since your vote is just a drop in a bucket. This is the most rational choice. Collectively, everyone acting rationally produces unintended results. It's a weird phenomenon logically described here as the tragedy of the commons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons. Even if you try to do something counter-intuitive, whatever choice you make as an individual is still inconsequential in terms of voting. For example let's say it's time to vote. I live in california and I'm a democrat, the voting is probably gonna go blue anyway regardless of whether or not I vote. So why not choose the scooter? Let's say I end up choosing the scooter. Then, when the results come out, I realize not enough democrats voted because they all went for the scooter. Thus the state actually ended up being red. So I decide to take a hypothetical time machine back into time to change my decision. Now I choose to vote Blue instead of get a free scooter. Well guess what? the outcome is still the same; the rest of california still makes the same decision regardless of whether or not I vote. The difference is, in one scenario I have a scooter, in the other scenario I don't have a scooter... every other factor in both outcomes remains the same. Whatever choice I make from an individual standpoint the Logical choice is ALWAYS the free scooter. In the end to make a better world there needs to be a sort of collective idiocracy, which is kind of what's going on in this thread right now: (You all think you guys are so smart because you didn't go for the scooter). How about this: free scooter for anyone who votes democrat! That makes more sense (if you're democrat).

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
A decent modern voting system would probably tilt the balance back towards sanity though. Knowledge of how politics actually works seems to be one of these areas of intentional ignorance. A popular alternative comedian in the UK tried to argue (correctly) that voting was pointless under our gerrymandered, first-past-the-post, two party system and was broadly ridiculed by the establishment media. He didn't really argue that well for it, but he's a comedian, the fact that they couldn't really present a valid counterpoint as professional political pundits was depressing.
pyre 11y ago
What you are describing is closer to the prisoner's dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  In 1968, ecologist Garrett Hardin explored this social dilemma in his article "The Tragedy of the Commons", published in the journal Science. The "prisoner's dilemma" is a quantitative/mathematically rigorous description of the same concept that came out later in 1992. I would go with "Tragedy of the commons" over the game theory title since it came out earlier and is a much more readable article for the average layman! Also, "Tragedy of the commons" sounds more appropriate. Here's a link to the original article: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  The whole class of those problems is discussed well in "Meditations on Moloch"[0]. [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
panglott 11y ago
Votes have a small but real value, and this can easily be seen from the fact that corrupt politicians will pay actual money for them. Politicians will pay $10-20 per vote in actual money. That's not huge, but it's not nothing, and it is worth more than a scooter if you do it regularly. http://panglott.blogspot.com/2012/11/votes-are-worth-something.html http://panglott.blogspot.com/2012/11/votes-are-worth-somethi...
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  They will pay $10-20 in actual money if and only if they can buy in bulk. Some things are worthless if bought in small quantities.
  - panglott 11y ago
    The way this kind of voter fraud typically works is that there is a permanent local political organization that organizes the vote-buying and hands out the cash. This is of course illegal, and retail vote-buying has to be laundered through local corruption. Political parties are bizarre, organizationally speaking.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

A decent modern voting system would probably tilt the balance back towards sanity though. Knowledge of how politics actually works seems to be one of these areas of intentional ignorance. A popular alternative comedian in the UK tried to argue (correctly) that voting was pointless under our gerrymandered, first-past-the-post, two party system and was broadly ridiculed by the establishment media. He didn't really argue that well for it, but he's a comedian, the fact that they couldn't really present a valid counterpoint as professional political pundits was depressing.

pyre 11y ago

What you are describing is closer to the prisoner's dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

crimsonalucard 11y ago
In 1968, ecologist Garrett Hardin explored this social dilemma in his article "The Tragedy of the Commons", published in the journal Science. The "prisoner's dilemma" is a quantitative/mathematically rigorous description of the same concept that came out later in 1992. I would go with "Tragedy of the commons" over the game theory title since it came out earlier and is a much more readable article for the average layman! Also, "Tragedy of the commons" sounds more appropriate. Here's a link to the original article: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
TeMPOraL 11y ago
The whole class of those problems is discussed well in "Meditations on Moloch"[0]. [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

panglott 11y ago

Votes have a small but real value, and this can easily be seen from the fact that corrupt politicians will pay actual money for them. Politicians will pay $10-20 per vote in actual money. That's not huge, but it's not nothing, and it is worth more than a scooter if you do it regularly. http://panglott.blogspot.com/2012/11/votes-are-worth-something.html http://panglott.blogspot.com/2012/11/votes-are-worth-somethi...

TeMPOraL 11y ago
They will pay $10-20 in actual money if and only if they can buy in bulk. Some things are worthless if bought in small quantities.
- panglott 11y ago
  The way this kind of voter fraud typically works is that there is a permanent local political organization that organizes the vote-buying and hands out the cash. This is of course illegal, and retail vote-buying has to be laundered through local corruption. Political parties are bizarre, organizationally speaking.