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Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

capulate89 8y ago
And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.
- sudoscript 8y ago
  > What’s wrong with that argument? At an individual, probably nothing. But at a macro level, apathy is equivalent to a lack of legitimacy, which is a big problem. If the cancer of apathy spreads too far, the entire system comes crashing down. It’s like a party where your job is to bring one of the mixers. You don’t bring yours, nothing that terrible happens. No one brings any, and the party becomes a disaster.
  - alasdair_ 8y ago
    >a lack of legitimacy Well... yes. And I view this as a good thing. The current US voting system is broken and I am not sure it is fixable simply by voting more - that simply entrenches the current system. I prefer to use illegitimacy and disenfranchisement to spur useful change to the systems themselves. I want to see somethink like ranked choice with an instant runoff, the abolition of the electoral college and a simple one person, one vote choice for president, without dividing people into small groups first. Reforming the senate is likely also a good idea. Apathy and illegitimacy are the kindling needed to foster real change.
    - ruseOps 8y ago
      Reforming the senate, but not the house? Could you provide an example where you, personally, have used illegitimacy and disenfranchisement to spur useful change in a system? While discussing real change, it feels like we should be as exact as possible. Haphazardly enacted real change does not seem useful in the least.
  - jonbarker 8y ago
    I don't think he's arguing for apathy, can't think of a less apathetic individual if I tried. I think he's rightly pointing out that batch processing can be more efficient, and optimizing the schedule for such a process is something many people don't consider.
  - pyrale 8y ago
    Well, after years without electricity, you may start thinking that people not bringing mixers is a symptom rather than a problem.
- lou1306 8y ago
  > And what's wrong with that argument? It is like saying "I can lift at most 100 pounds; Bob can lift at most 50 pounds: therefore, there's nothing we can do to lift that 104-pound rock".
- chickenfries 8y ago
  Are you talking about Iraq? I’m pretty sure the problem there was war, not democracy.
- dhimes 8y ago
  With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
  - DSingularity 8y ago
    Actually this might be the best argument I've read against this line of reasoning. Thank you.
  - Vraxx 8y ago
    Not to mention with all of the recent events in the US related to voter suppression, my question to people who espouse the opinion of "my vote doesn't matter", my question is this. Then why are those in power actively seeking to undermine this ability that is "useless". If it truly was useless I doubt they'd be scared enough to act against it.
    - sDlEzAtyoNAz 8y ago
      One of those things deals with your own personal vote, which is not likely to change the outcome of the election, while the other deals with large numbers of votes, which could easily change the outcome of the election. No person trying to suppress votes cares if a single individual is barred from voting. They care that many people are barred from voting.
      - Vraxx 8y ago
        well what better way to make sure a large number of people don't vote than to let them convince themselves that voting doesn't matter. My point is that the net effect is the same for both things, one you don't vote because your vote was suppressed and the other is you not voting because you don't think it will matter. Obviously if it's worth paying money to try to make sure than many people can't vote then it's even better if some people don't vote for some personal reason because they don't even have to pay for that or potentially get caught doing shady shit. Disenfranchising yourself serves the same coalition that seeks to dismantle the system in return for more personal power.
jordanpg 8y ago
No, not what he says at all. He implies that everything you need to know to vote can fit on one side of an index card. The point is you don't need to follow the news to make informed voting decisions.
- chickenfries 8y ago
  If all you do is read voter guides then you have delegated your critical thinking to the organization that produces the guide. I would not call you a informed voter if all you do is read a voter guide every election.
  - vehementi 8y ago
    I would not call you an informed voter if all you do is spend 23 hours a day consuming the 0.0001% of the news that time affords you
    - chickenfries 8y ago
      I don’t know anyone who does that. they might be well informed, I would have to see what they were reading but yes I would agree that 23 hours a day of news is not helpful. This is absurd.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  He also suggests reading books instead of daily news! He says weekly or monthly reviews would be fine too. This whole thread is full of people thinking he’s suggesting you stay ignorant, when really he’s saying the culture of everyone must read the news is wrong, and we can get our information from better sources than the news.
  - chickenfries 8y ago
    I mean the title doesn’t help. You might even call it click bait. I think the “everyone should read the news” culture that Aaron describes is a straw man. Most people I know who read the news regularly know that it’s partially entertainment for them and that you can get your info from places other than the daily news. Only people like Donald Trump think that being informed means watching cable news all day. Maybe I just haven’t met any of these people who think that books are bad but daily news headlines are good.
syn0byte 8y ago
The big pink elephant; In a lot of cases this is a rational, factual argument with the current system (In the US.) Feel free to refute the argument's validity with empirical data. I would genuinely love to see it. I've seen apologetic researchers offer reasons for why their data isn't as damning as it seems, but never seen anything remotely close to proof of validity.
- chickenfries 8y ago
  This last presidential election was decided by several thousand votes in a few states. There were even closer local elections this year. One persons vote doesn’t ever decide things, but if you can’t see the absurdity of everyone taking that position, I don’t know what to say.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    Isn't it more absurd to say that "everyone" would take that position? Plus consider that if you increased the number of voters by the margin of victory, what are the odds that 100% of those new voters would vote alike and swing the election?
- norealidea 8y ago
  1) That's not how the burden of proof works. 2) This is not a factual or rational thought in the current system. every time the Libertarian or third party does well in an election(like in the last election of 2016), it shows those in power the ideals that are looked at when choosing a candidate. The problem does not inherently lie in the system, it lies in the people telling each other that voting third party is a waste. That train of thought is what is ruining this country(USA), because it's a slippery slope to complete apathy of the system.

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

sudoscript 8y ago
> What’s wrong with that argument? At an individual, probably nothing. But at a macro level, apathy is equivalent to a lack of legitimacy, which is a big problem. If the cancer of apathy spreads too far, the entire system comes crashing down. It’s like a party where your job is to bring one of the mixers. You don’t bring yours, nothing that terrible happens. No one brings any, and the party becomes a disaster.
- alasdair_ 8y ago
  >a lack of legitimacy Well... yes. And I view this as a good thing. The current US voting system is broken and I am not sure it is fixable simply by voting more - that simply entrenches the current system. I prefer to use illegitimacy and disenfranchisement to spur useful change to the systems themselves. I want to see somethink like ranked choice with an instant runoff, the abolition of the electoral college and a simple one person, one vote choice for president, without dividing people into small groups first. Reforming the senate is likely also a good idea. Apathy and illegitimacy are the kindling needed to foster real change.
  - ruseOps 8y ago
    Reforming the senate, but not the house? Could you provide an example where you, personally, have used illegitimacy and disenfranchisement to spur useful change in a system? While discussing real change, it feels like we should be as exact as possible. Haphazardly enacted real change does not seem useful in the least.
- jonbarker 8y ago
  I don't think he's arguing for apathy, can't think of a less apathetic individual if I tried. I think he's rightly pointing out that batch processing can be more efficient, and optimizing the schedule for such a process is something many people don't consider.
- pyrale 8y ago
  Well, after years without electricity, you may start thinking that people not bringing mixers is a symptom rather than a problem.
lou1306 8y ago
> And what's wrong with that argument? It is like saying "I can lift at most 100 pounds; Bob can lift at most 50 pounds: therefore, there's nothing we can do to lift that 104-pound rock".
chickenfries 8y ago
Are you talking about Iraq? I’m pretty sure the problem there was war, not democracy.
dhimes 8y ago
With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
- DSingularity 8y ago
  Actually this might be the best argument I've read against this line of reasoning. Thank you.
- Vraxx 8y ago
  Not to mention with all of the recent events in the US related to voter suppression, my question to people who espouse the opinion of "my vote doesn't matter", my question is this. Then why are those in power actively seeking to undermine this ability that is "useless". If it truly was useless I doubt they'd be scared enough to act against it.
  - sDlEzAtyoNAz 8y ago
    One of those things deals with your own personal vote, which is not likely to change the outcome of the election, while the other deals with large numbers of votes, which could easily change the outcome of the election. No person trying to suppress votes cares if a single individual is barred from voting. They care that many people are barred from voting.
    - Vraxx 8y ago
      well what better way to make sure a large number of people don't vote than to let them convince themselves that voting doesn't matter. My point is that the net effect is the same for both things, one you don't vote because your vote was suppressed and the other is you not voting because you don't think it will matter. Obviously if it's worth paying money to try to make sure than many people can't vote then it's even better if some people don't vote for some personal reason because they don't even have to pay for that or potentially get caught doing shady shit. Disenfranchising yourself serves the same coalition that seeks to dismantle the system in return for more personal power.

jordanpg 8y ago

No, not what he says at all. He implies that everything you need to know to vote can fit on one side of an index card. The point is you don't need to follow the news to make informed voting decisions.

chickenfries 8y ago
If all you do is read voter guides then you have delegated your critical thinking to the organization that produces the guide. I would not call you a informed voter if all you do is read a voter guide every election.
- vehementi 8y ago
  I would not call you an informed voter if all you do is spend 23 hours a day consuming the 0.0001% of the news that time affords you
  - chickenfries 8y ago
    I don’t know anyone who does that. they might be well informed, I would have to see what they were reading but yes I would agree that 23 hours a day of news is not helpful. This is absurd.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
He also suggests reading books instead of daily news! He says weekly or monthly reviews would be fine too. This whole thread is full of people thinking he’s suggesting you stay ignorant, when really he’s saying the culture of everyone must read the news is wrong, and we can get our information from better sources than the news.
- chickenfries 8y ago
  I mean the title doesn’t help. You might even call it click bait. I think the “everyone should read the news” culture that Aaron describes is a straw man. Most people I know who read the news regularly know that it’s partially entertainment for them and that you can get your info from places other than the daily news. Only people like Donald Trump think that being informed means watching cable news all day. Maybe I just haven’t met any of these people who think that books are bad but daily news headlines are good.

syn0byte 8y ago

The big pink elephant; In a lot of cases this is a rational, factual argument with the current system (In the US.) Feel free to refute the argument's validity with empirical data. I would genuinely love to see it. I've seen apologetic researchers offer reasons for why their data isn't as damning as it seems, but never seen anything remotely close to proof of validity.

chickenfries 8y ago
This last presidential election was decided by several thousand votes in a few states. There were even closer local elections this year. One persons vote doesn’t ever decide things, but if you can’t see the absurdity of everyone taking that position, I don’t know what to say.
- paulcole 8y ago
  Isn't it more absurd to say that "everyone" would take that position? Plus consider that if you increased the number of voters by the margin of victory, what are the odds that 100% of those new voters would vote alike and swing the election?
norealidea 8y ago
1) That's not how the burden of proof works. 2) This is not a factual or rational thought in the current system. every time the Libertarian or third party does well in an election(like in the last election of 2016), it shows those in power the ideals that are looked at when choosing a candidate. The problem does not inherently lie in the system, it lies in the people telling each other that voting third party is a waste. That train of thought is what is ruining this country(USA), because it's a slippery slope to complete apathy of the system.