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I specifically only talked about first-past-the-post votes, like the US presidential election. The decisions a president makes after gaining office are not the

by mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I specifically only talked about first-past-the-post votes, like the US presidential election. The decisions a president makes after gaining office are not the result of (nor even very influenced by) any type of popular poll about courses of action. I really can’t make sense out of your last comment. You don’t influence specific policy decisions by getting out and voting. You only influence them by predicting which candidate, after being elected, will then actually perform the policy actions you want. If you value an accurate mapping between votes and correctly predicting outcomes, then when your personal knowledge of candidates is weak, abstaining is a way to allow more expert voters to improve the signal-to-noise ratio relative to ignorant voters. But you specifically said, > “Abstaining from voting is never a reasonable choice unless you want elected officials who don’t give a damn about you” and this can only make sense if instead of valuing votes as accurate predictions (wherein you might best obtain a politician who cares about you by abstaining from injecting your noisy vote into the election) you choose to value votes as a means of unqualified personal expression.

mikeash 8y ago
Politicians’ views aren’t immutable. They decide on policy by figuring out what will best help them, and their party, win elections. I’m not talking about a single race. I’m talking about the whole system. Over time, politicians’ views are shaped by the voters. If you show up to vote, you’ll be part of that process. If you don’t, you won’t, and you shouldn’t then be surprised when none of the people running for office share your views.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  > “Over time, politicians’ views are shaped by the voters. If you show up to vote, you’ll be part of that process. If you don’t, you won’t, and you shouldn’t then be surprised when none of the people running for office share your views.” This just simply is not true. If you are ignorant about facts pertaining to issues, then to the extent that your vote influences future policy shifts, it would do so in the wrong direction, or at least add noise to the process that knowledgeable people have to overcome. An ignorant voter could for example directly and unwittingly vote against their own views if they aren’t informed about the relationship between their preferred outcomes, policies that could potentially achieve those outcomes, and politicians’ likelihood of adopting particular positions, being lobbied by corporate interests, etc. For most politicians and most issues, most everyday people absolutely have zero knowledge about these situations that would imply their preferences deserve to be factored into the decision (from a statistical optimization point of view). > “If you show up to vote, you’ll be part of that process.” Yes, but you could be playing a harmful part of that process. Showing up to vote is not unequivocally always helpful. If you vote based on ignorance, even totally separate from meta debates about how to choose the right morals or norms subjectively, you could cause harm. “Being part of the process” could mean you are effectively noise-jamming democracy because your uninformed opinion about the best course of action shouldn’t be listened to. > “If you don’t, you won’t,” This is just wrong. You can “play a part” by abstaining from voting. In fact it can be a critical part if you know you are personally uninformed about the technical specifics of an issue or don’t know a candidate’s history of being a corporate shill, or you base your vote on a single issue that turns out not to be very urgent for society, etc. Not voting when you don’t have special knowledge of the best policy or best candidate can be an incredibly important way to meaningfully participate in government, and may often be much more socially responsible than voting from a position of ignorance. Despite all this, I still concede that if a person doesn’t care about “using their vote to do good” and chooses instead to care about “having their voice heard” and arguing (however ignorantly) in favor of their preferences, then they could justifiably reach the conclusions you give in your comments. Just not if their goal is to optimize the chance of the best policy outcome according to their views weighted by their expertise in the topic. In that case, abstaining from the vote can often be the optimal choice, even in terms of trying to get policy reformed in the direction you prefer.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    You seem to be completely focused on the choice of who to vote for. I am not addressing that part of it in any way. You’re just talking past me constantly, while throwing out mild insults. It’s pointless.
    - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
      The whole tree of comments is about the example of a presidential election. Do you have examples of different types of elections that you think your advice applies to? In US political elections at the state and federal level, I can’t think of any. Even ballot initiatives require the voter to genuinely be informed about the possible outcomes and how the existing legislature would behave or respond in response. It would never be as simple as “I believe in policy X so therefore I should vote for it.” Do you know if policy X can hurt people if you end up being wrong about it? If the relevant legislative body can just draft a loophole to get around the ballot initiative anyway, etc? If not, your best bet often might be to abstain and allow more expert voters to decide if policy X actually is effective or not, not just whether someone happens to like it despite being generally uninformed about it. People try to map a complex bundle of issues, policies, morals, economics, etc., onto a discrete choice between specific candidates (either to elect them, or to predict their actions post-election). If we developed national policy through prediction markets or even change.org polls, then sure, you could add your highly specific opinion into the aggregate by participating in that poll. But that’s totally irrelevant to the whole tree of comments here. The trouble is that you started out by making a very extreme claim, which is that abstaining from a vote can never be an effective way to participate in an election. Now you’re trying to flip the scope of the comments or something, but still not offering any reasons why your original extreme claim about abstaining should be believed.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        If you don’t know who to vote for, you can abstain by not marking your ballot, or voting for a third party with no chance of winning. It’s still important to show up because the fact that you voted (or not) is public record. This is true for every single election. You are still talking about who to vote for, which as I just said isn’t even relevant to my comment. Before you reply again, please take a moment to re-read that. If you start taking about which way to vote then you’ve already lost the plot here. If you want to address my point then go for it, but don’t waste both of our time by writing yet another comment about how one should choose who or what to vote for.

mikeash 8y ago

Politicians’ views aren’t immutable. They decide on policy by figuring out what will best help them, and their party, win elections. I’m not talking about a single race. I’m talking about the whole system. Over time, politicians’ views are shaped by the voters. If you show up to vote, you’ll be part of that process. If you don’t, you won’t, and you shouldn’t then be surprised when none of the people running for office share your views.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
> “Over time, politicians’ views are shaped by the voters. If you show up to vote, you’ll be part of that process. If you don’t, you won’t, and you shouldn’t then be surprised when none of the people running for office share your views.” This just simply is not true. If you are ignorant about facts pertaining to issues, then to the extent that your vote influences future policy shifts, it would do so in the wrong direction, or at least add noise to the process that knowledgeable people have to overcome. An ignorant voter could for example directly and unwittingly vote against their own views if they aren’t informed about the relationship between their preferred outcomes, policies that could potentially achieve those outcomes, and politicians’ likelihood of adopting particular positions, being lobbied by corporate interests, etc. For most politicians and most issues, most everyday people absolutely have zero knowledge about these situations that would imply their preferences deserve to be factored into the decision (from a statistical optimization point of view). > “If you show up to vote, you’ll be part of that process.” Yes, but you could be playing a harmful part of that process. Showing up to vote is not unequivocally always helpful. If you vote based on ignorance, even totally separate from meta debates about how to choose the right morals or norms subjectively, you could cause harm. “Being part of the process” could mean you are effectively noise-jamming democracy because your uninformed opinion about the best course of action shouldn’t be listened to. > “If you don’t, you won’t,” This is just wrong. You can “play a part” by abstaining from voting. In fact it can be a critical part if you know you are personally uninformed about the technical specifics of an issue or don’t know a candidate’s history of being a corporate shill, or you base your vote on a single issue that turns out not to be very urgent for society, etc. Not voting when you don’t have special knowledge of the best policy or best candidate can be an incredibly important way to meaningfully participate in government, and may often be much more socially responsible than voting from a position of ignorance. Despite all this, I still concede that if a person doesn’t care about “using their vote to do good” and chooses instead to care about “having their voice heard” and arguing (however ignorantly) in favor of their preferences, then they could justifiably reach the conclusions you give in your comments. Just not if their goal is to optimize the chance of the best policy outcome according to their views weighted by their expertise in the topic. In that case, abstaining from the vote can often be the optimal choice, even in terms of trying to get policy reformed in the direction you prefer.
- mikeash 8y ago
  You seem to be completely focused on the choice of who to vote for. I am not addressing that part of it in any way. You’re just talking past me constantly, while throwing out mild insults. It’s pointless.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    The whole tree of comments is about the example of a presidential election. Do you have examples of different types of elections that you think your advice applies to? In US political elections at the state and federal level, I can’t think of any. Even ballot initiatives require the voter to genuinely be informed about the possible outcomes and how the existing legislature would behave or respond in response. It would never be as simple as “I believe in policy X so therefore I should vote for it.” Do you know if policy X can hurt people if you end up being wrong about it? If the relevant legislative body can just draft a loophole to get around the ballot initiative anyway, etc? If not, your best bet often might be to abstain and allow more expert voters to decide if policy X actually is effective or not, not just whether someone happens to like it despite being generally uninformed about it. People try to map a complex bundle of issues, policies, morals, economics, etc., onto a discrete choice between specific candidates (either to elect them, or to predict their actions post-election). If we developed national policy through prediction markets or even change.org polls, then sure, you could add your highly specific opinion into the aggregate by participating in that poll. But that’s totally irrelevant to the whole tree of comments here. The trouble is that you started out by making a very extreme claim, which is that abstaining from a vote can never be an effective way to participate in an election. Now you’re trying to flip the scope of the comments or something, but still not offering any reasons why your original extreme claim about abstaining should be believed.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      If you don’t know who to vote for, you can abstain by not marking your ballot, or voting for a third party with no chance of winning. It’s still important to show up because the fact that you voted (or not) is public record. This is true for every single election. You are still talking about who to vote for, which as I just said isn’t even relevant to my comment. Before you reply again, please take a moment to re-read that. If you start taking about which way to vote then you’ve already lost the plot here. If you want to address my point then go for it, but don’t waste both of our time by writing yet another comment about how one should choose who or what to vote for.