The position I most strongly endorse today (like all days) is radical skepticism about one’s own beliefs.
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Some other arguments: 1. By voting at all, you implicitly endorse a system you may not want to endorse. 2. If you’re not informed enough, you’re likely to inadvertently vote for a bad outcome. 3. (a selfish reason) It’s not worth the time and effort.
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2. and 3. seem like variations of “I just don’t care that much”, and I agree that’s a valid, and arguing that someone should care when they don’t is a waste of time. It must be nice to have a position in a society so favored that you don’t have to care about political outcomes.
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A counterpoint on 2: there are sometimes (in CA at least) ballot propositions on needlessly arcane policy points, where it’s unreasonable to expect voters to be informed as to the likely outcome of passing the law or not. Not voting on that specific issue makes sense to me.
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I disagree that it’s still voting for evil. If you are faced with a choice of voting to kill 500 people or kill 1000 people, voting to kill 500, given the alternative, is essentially the same as voting to save 500. Evil is not an absolute, there are always gradations.
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not everything in life is a trolley problem. in fact, nothing real is a trolley problem.
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A more real example: even if you dislike two candidates, they are almost never horrible in exactly the same ways, and those ways do not usually matter to the same degree. The choice represents two different outcomes, and treating them as equivalent is just a mental simplification
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maybe you've misunderstood me. a lesser evil is certainly not equivalent to a greater evil. one is more evil, and/or differently evil (in worse ways), than the other. voting for the lesser evil might be justifiable pragmatically but it is not voting your conscience.
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this is all besides the point. the reason to not vote for a person who you do not believe represents your interests is because they do not represent your interests. period. allowing yourself to be used as a pawn because you think there is, abstractly, some ideological win? wtf
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It’s not about an ideological win, or making yourself feel good for voting for someone you like. Voting is about producing outcomes, and even if your choice is to select the least bad outcome, it’s still a moral choice to make. And then vote for someone else next time.
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the next time will not include any better candidates if you keep voting for bad ones. it's iterated prisoners dilemma. if you never defect, then it never gets any better. tit-for-tat strategy is required to enforce, eventually, mutual cooperation.
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It won’t get any better if you don’t vote, either. Mutual disgust is indistinguishable from apathy, and decisions are made by those that show up. Don’t like the options? Support other candidates, donate to those you believe in, or run for office yourself.
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this is a joke but also legitimate social criticismhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk …
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