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Replying to
Why is this? The 2 questions to ask about an action like voting are on the face of it symmetric. A) "What's the best thing that could happen?" B) "What's the worst thing that could happen?" Isn't it just optimism to vote based on the first question rather than the second?
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NO because there is a hidden asymmetry (quite apart from the asymmetry caused by best cases being generally lower probability than worst cases). Your idea of the best thing probably happens to YOU. Your idea of the worst thing probably happens to SOMEBODY ELSE.
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The population directly affected by usually a tiny minority who, if they vote at all, can barely even act as a swing vote. This means if you vote for the "best thing" you are playing lottery for yourself, and externalizing potential losses.
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More likely, they are entirely disenfranchised people like children, immigrants, people who might be bombed into refugeedom by your air force and then turned away from your borders by secret police who look like you etc.
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Seriously, compare the worst problems and best prospects in your life from anything a politician could do, to those of the most vulnerable to the consequences of your decisions (which remember, are very, very macro: how to use pools of taxpayer money)
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Much of this applies to everybody in the US. If you genuinely weighed Hillary v. Trump this way and concluded (say) that an unchecked militarist neocon agenda that might be pursued by H was the greatest risk and that Trump was all harmless fascism-theater talk, I respect that.
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One reason I am so openly partisan these days is that I don't think Trump supporters actually process in this "least worst" way. Their profile (people who never left hometown, live in homogeneous neighborhoods, have contempt for college) does not inspire confidence.
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To realistically assess "the worst that could happen to the most vulnerable people who could be affected by your decision" you have to have curiosity about the world beyond your borders. Because your tax dollars can buy airplanes that can bomb any point on the planet.
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Replying to
Well put, but wouldn't it already be a big improvement in voting behavior (in general welfare terms) to get people to force-rank their own self-interested priorities? I guess this is the "What's the Matter with Kansas" argument...
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Replying to and
...but I think I'd worry that adding your altruism and minimax modules collapses into the kind of Peter Singer utilitarianism that most people will reject, and then they could just go back to voting on whatever gets them riled up and ignore the ranking part too
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