Is democracy the natural state for people?
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:35, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

If history is any indicator then I would say no.

1)  Not entirely sure what is meant by "natural state," but I think Tlaloc's answer covers most of my thinking.

2)  I'd say it's more fear of instability and short-term thinking that's more responsible.  The US has (and does) support dictators usually because the government is more fearful of the uncertainty of who would get elected if there was democracy.  Of course, even if the US wants/wanted to get rid of a dictator in favor of democracy, it's often very expensive (in terms of blood, treasure, and political careers) to make the change, and it rarely seems to turn out the way we planned.  Put another way, it's more a "whats in it for us?" thinking amongst the US population and politicians that keeps dictators in power than racism.

In reply to Tycho (msg #3):

Your #2 isn't just the US.  Look at all the tyrants and dictators that get a pass on the world stage (UN, EU, etc.).  No one is helping Zimbabweans.  No one is helping the Sudanese.  No one called for Mubarak to step down until the people of Egypt themselves rose up for it.

The UN is deathly afraid of liberation forces and does its utmost to keep "stability".  Hell, the North Koreans can sink ships and bomb civilians and still only get a strongly worded letter.

Yeah, definitely agree with you there.  Though, I'd say the US's apathy is more important that that of others, if simply because we're the superpower.


Not entirely sure if I'd agree with that.  For the permanent members of the security that's probably true, though, and I guess that's largely all that matters.


Well, that probably has more to do with what they could do (and seem to be willing to do) to Seoul, than due to apathy from the rest of the world.  MAD can work just as effectively for dictators as democracies, I suppose.  At least at stopping foreign military intervention.  Isolation is a long-term losing strategy, I think, even if a country can avoid being invaded by posing a military threat.

And what, exactly, occurs when the US decides to enter the arena?



Where has the UN forced a dictator out of power without the US pushing it?  Even Clinton had to go into Bosnia without UN approval.



So what exactly has the UN done over the decades to free the people of North Korea?

My point stands.  The UN, and all major superpowers, are into creating democracy or freeing people from tyrants.  They are into stability even if they have to leave millions under the rule of dictators.  It is not just the US.

1: No, anarchy is the natural state of all humans, which swiftly revolves into Dictatorship, Theocracy, or Tribalism for the theoretical good of the general public. The latter two of these often metamorphose over time into Democratic systems, while the first ether collapses back into Anarchy or evolves into Monarchy, which may over time metamorphose into a Democratic system. However the problem is that Democracy is not stable ether. Its natural evolution is ether a collapse back into Anarchy or a dark apotheosis into Fascism. So far thankfully we have never seen what a long standing Fascist state turns into.

2: I don't think its racism per-se though that may be part of it for some, but the idea that non-'western' cultures do not have the natural inclinations toward freedom and individual thought needed for a democracy. I don't think this is true, I think that all cultures can or have at times fostered that kind of thinking. China at least does tend toward a more authoritarian mindset culturally, but so have India Korea and Japan, but all of them have become democratic, so I doubt it is really as hard as some would make it out to be.

  Where has the UN forced a dictator out of power without the US pushing it?

The point of the UN is to serve as a forum for international relations; not as a multinational military force that acts beyond the control of its member nations. They oppose dictatorships and human rights violations, but they don't have the power or the authority to act on it. The member nations would never permit it, because it would result in a decrease in their own sovereignty.

So what exactly has the UN done over the decades to free the people of North Korea?

Well, do you care to propose a solution that will not result in the deaths of about five million people in one of the largest cities in the world? Because any military action against North Korea will result in a massive artillery bombardment against Seoul, which will include chemical weapons.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:28, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

In other words, it's worthless.

In other words, it's worthless.

Really? Eliminating smallpox was worthless?

In reply to Falkus (msg #10):

By the time the WHA stepped in several other organizations were already doing a great deal to eradicate smallpox.  Besides the WHA could exist without the UN.

But on the subject, the UN is worthless in protecting humanity from tyranny, human rights abuse, and genocide.  So I will pretty much stand by my original statement.

Besides the WHA could exist without the UN.

Well, isn't that convenient? If you're going to use that standard, you can easily classify any organization or institution as worthless by claiming that what did accomplish could be done by somebody else.

  But on the subject, the UN is worthless in protecting humanity from tyranny, human rights abuse, and genocide.

Why? Because they don't outright invade countries?

In reply to Falkus (msg #12):

As I noted before that statement, the effort to eradicate smallpox was well under way before the WHA got involved.



Now you're getting it!

According to you, the hundreds of thousands who died in Rwanda are more acceptable than violating the borders of Rwanda.  Same with the Sudan.  Same with, well, the same with any country that commits atrocities within their borders.  That is why the UN is worthless, it gives tyrants and dictators a comfy place to sit back and denounce the real tyrants, the US and Israel, without any accounting of their own tyranny.

EDIT: Sorry for being off-track.  No.  Democracy is not the natural state of humanity.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:51, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

A much bigger set of carrots and sticks are available for dealing with the problem?


But the US is on the security council, so any dictator it doesn't want pushed out is in the clear.  If there were no veto power for the security council members, the UN would probably do a whole lot more than it does (which would have good points and bad points--I'm not sure which there'd be more of).


Again, that's largely a security council failing.  China keeps the UN from doing much to North Korea the way the US keeps the UN from doing much about Israel.  Like I said before, it's not that there's no will to do anything within the UN, it's more that a few countries can stop anything from happening.

[I added the "not" in there because I assume that's what you meant.  If not, please correct me]
I would agree with this statement, though perhaps not quite so strongly worded.  It's not that they're not into creating democracy or removing tyrants, it's just that they're far more concerned with stability overall, and their own power.  It's definitely not just the US.  Though, as I was saying before, what the US does or doesn't do tends to have more impact (or more significant lack of impact) than what, say, Jamaica does or doesn't do.  It's not that the US is more apathetic than other countries (I'd say most countries are more so, really), just that it often has more leverage to bring about change than most other countries.

So the US is the one on the security council stopping the UN from kicking some dictator butt?  Wow.



Again, wow.  Israel and North Korea are on the same level of tyranny?  That is one of the reasons that the UN is so very, very worthless.  If one were to walk into the UN, not knowing anything about the nations involved, they would think that Israel is ruled by demons.



Thank you for the correction.

As for the rest of your point, I think you overstate the infuence the US has in the UN.  We just pay 22% of the bar tab.

Yea, 22%, almost a quarter, by ourselves.

Devil's golden rule: them as has the gold makes the rules.

No, didn't say that.  The US is the one on the security council stopping the UN from kicking the butt's of the dictators they'd rather not see ousted.  The other members of the security council have the dictators they protect too.  More so than the US, probably.  But the original question was when was the last time the UN kicked out a dictator without the US's help.  But the UN can't really do anything without the US's help, because if the US doesn't want to help, it probably doesn't want to let anyone else do it without them, either.  The point being that the lack of instances of the UN doing things without the US's approval doesn't imply that the other members of the UN don't have any desire to do anything, but that without the agreement of the US its prevented from doing so by the US's veto.  Make sense?




Did I say that?  I certainly didn't mean to.  Apologies if it sounded that way to you, but I didn't mention Tyranny in my post, so I'm not sure how it could have.  I'm talking purely about the mechanism here, not whether the examples given were good or bad uses of it.


Well, much of the world does disapprove very strongly of Isreal's treatment of the palestinians.  The US tends to overlook this because Israel is both a strategic ally and more culturally similar to the US than other middle eastern countries.  It's like you said earlier, the US, like pretty much everyone else, cares more about stability and their own interests than about the rights of people on the other side of the planet (which is different, for the record, from saying they don't care at all about those rights).


And sit on the security council, so can veto anything we don't like.  That's about as influential as you can get in such a body, I'd say.  But for what it's worth, I wasn't talking about the US's influence in the UN, but rather their influence in general.  UN or no UN, if the US sits back and does nothing that has a different effect than chile sitting back and doing nothing, for example.

In reply to Tycho (msg #17):

You paint the picture of a broken UN which I would agree with and was my main point and I see your point about the mechanisms at work.  Whether it be due to Security Council deadlock or the fact that the actual tyrants have a say in UN policy the fact remains.

It is worthless.

Off subject (how odd, I know): I would say that we ally ourselves with Israel because they are an actual democracy surrounded by nations that hate them for their religion.  I would also say that the Palestinian Arabs have had a hand in how they are treated even if they were subjected to the weaponization of their culture by Fatah and Hamas.  What other nation is subject to barrage after barrage of missile attacks, specifically targetting civilians, and shows such constraint?  They are held up to an impossible standard.



I agree with that statement.  I would go the "no UN" route.

What other nation is subject to barrage after barrage of missile attacks, specifically targetting civilians, and shows such constraint?

Palestine?

According to you, the hundreds of thousands who died in Rwanda are more acceptable than violating the borders of Rwanda.

Take a look at Iraq. Tell me that imposing democracy through military force works.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:01, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

Except the IDF does not specifically target civilians.  Perhaps if the "glorious freedom fighters" of Fatah and Hamas would quit using their own as human shields those casualties would be minimized, eh?



Take a look at Germany, South Korea, and Japan and tell me that it doesn't.  Iraq at least has a chance at democracy now and Saddam isn't around to invade his neighbors and gas his own people.

"Broken" is a stronger term than I'd use, but yes, the veto power of each member of the security council makes it difficult to get anything done.  As for the actual tyrants having a say in UN policy, I'd say most of the worst tyrants have almost no power in the UN.  China doesn't have the best human rights record, true, but I wouldn't put them in the "worst of the worst" category.  Non-security council tyrants can write statements about this or that, but unless the security council members agree with it, it doesn't pass, and nothing happens.


That's definitely stronger than I would say.  It most certainly has its flaws and problems, and it's very difficult to get anything done via the UN, but I think having a forum for all countries to voice their positions, very occassionally manage to speak with one voice, and generally set a standard for rights (even if the standard is largely ignored) has value.  I'd be all for finding ways to improve it, but I think getting rid of it entirely wouldn't put us in a better position at all.


That's part of it, but I think their being a strategic ally is probably more important.  Perhaps not to the average joe on the street, but at the political level I think that aspect is pretty crucial.  Also, blaming the hatred of Isreal purely on religion I think is over-simplifying things.  Definitely that is part of it, a big part even, but to discount the issue of palestine is a flawed analysis in my view.


I'd agree, to an extent.  But if someone said the Israelis have had a hand in how they're treated, I'd probably agree with that to an extent too.  Both sides have blood on their hands, and pointing fingers is what both seem more interested in than moving forward towards peace.  Each side prefers to say "but they did X!" as a justification for their own action, but neither seems at all willing to say "yes, we did Y, and it was wrong."


The missile attacks are wrong, no question there, but they're also incredibly ineffective.  They are a moral outrage, yes.  But they don't harm as many people as Israel's retaliations do, and the cycle continues.  Israel does show more restraint than most nations would.  But it also doesn't seem to be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain peace.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm an "Isreal is wrong, Palestine is right!" person.  I think they're both in the bed they've made, and neither side is blameless.  I tend to challenge anyone when they take a definite side in this issue, regardless of which side they take, because I think taking sides is what's made it so difficult to resolve the issue for so long.

Hmm, if we're going to continue this part of the conversation, we should probably move it over to the Israel Palestine thread...

  Take a look at Germany, South Korea, and Japan and tell me that it doesn't.

Germany and Japan were culturally monogamous nations formed by natural borders and historical action. Iraq, Afghanistant and the other nations we're referring to aren't. Many of them are just nations that were created by colonial powers arbitrarily drawing lines in the sand. Countries whose people, had they been left to their own power, would never have come into existence. That's why there's constant conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.

You can't have a democracy in a nation where the groups vying for election will wage war if they lose. Unfortunate, but true.

North Korea's the exception, it could become a democracy. But there's no way to overthrow the North Korean government before they could level Seoul through artillery fire, killing several million innocent people.

And also are you trying to suggest that the division and occupation of Korea, against the desire of nearly every single person living in Korea, after World War II was a good thing? Yes, it created South Korea, an advanced democracy that stands proud amongst the nations of the world. But it also created North Korea, which doesn't.

Iraq at least has a chance at democracy now and Saddam isn't around to invade his neighbors and gas his own people.

The current Iraqi government has death squads, torture camps and imprisons political dissidents. In the word of the great Sir Terry Pratchett: 'Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.'

  Except the IDF does not specifically target civilians.

Operation Cast Lead, also known as the Gaza War, killed anywhere between three hundred and a thousand Palestenian civilians. The Israeli civilians killed by Hamas in the actions that led to the war?

Eleven.

So far a group not specifically targeting civilians... why are they killing so very many more of them?

While I agree the UN is "broken" (it doesn't meet its stated goal), I would not agree it is "useless". The UN provides a relatively neutral and safe space for representatives of nations to meet and establish the basis of communication. That alone is the first real step down the path of diplomacy.

It also provides a platform for different nations to cooperate on shared problems. The UN University, eradication of smallpox, defining human rights and so on are all good examples of this. The tough part of eradicating smallpox (after designing the vaccine itself) isn't getting people to go apply it. It's the logistics behind getting every person under every government innoculated within the accepted time period. The UN provides a platform for this.

The UN is, in a way, a forum for nations to meet and chat. That's important. I go to forums to meet with people before most major decisions I make. It's useful. It's not as useful as the guy who actually does the work, or the money that pays for it, but it's definitely a useful tool.

I would argue that the "ideal" UN would actually be bad. The UN right now lacks the power to enforce a position on other nations. Good! I don't want England and China deciding what should be the laws in the US, or deciding which government is good or bad. That's not their business. Government is not one-size-fits-all. The less effective the UN is at governing, the safer I feel.

Yes the UN is worthless at those things, because that is not what it was designed to do. That would be like saying my computer is useless because I can't drive it to work. the point of the UN is open comunication and promoting peace and goodwill between nations. Natins which include many dictators.

As to democracy being a natural state, no. Any government beyond tribal organization is inherantly unnatural.

And I think *most* people who didn't believe in democracy in the middle east thought the problem was one of culture and religion rather than race. Without a form of Islam which is open to secular governance it would have been impossible. The religious reformation that has been occuring in teh middle east for some time now which the West did not cover is one of the major missed background events to these events.

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED:

* to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

* to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

* to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

* to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

That is from the preamble of the UN Charter.

So it looks like the UN was created specifically for the purpose of ending human rights abuse, genocide, war, and tyranny.  It even gives the UN the ability use "armed forces" if it "serves the common interest".

What has happened is that the common interest is stability at the cost of human rights, freedom, and human lives.

By the terms of its own Charter I would say the UN is a miserable failure.  I could also mention the huge amounts of corruption and accounting "discrepancies" but that is dragging this argument on further in a place it doesn't belong.

The UN still has to exist in the real world. Given that limitation, it's done remarkably well.

And you all are WAY off topic. I would contend that if the UN doesn't have its own thread It now needs one.

Back on the original subject: While I agree that democracy and all other organized governments are not natural to humanity I would contend that the broad form of democratic governance practiced by France, the US, and some other countries is the closest to a natural system because it is at it's core an attempt to create a controlled and 'safer' form of anarchy where people are free to do as they please as long as that does not threaten others rights or safety. Thoughts?

In reply to Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk (msg #27):

I would disagree.

The natural state of humanity, since the beginning of humanity, is to form hierarchical groups.  Whether this is based on hunting skill, spiritual attunement, age, or warrior skills doesn't matter.  The group forms around such people and treats them as their betters.  This group then protects everything they see as theirs from those they perceive as different from them.

And thus time marches on.

In reply to Tlaloc (msg #28):

True in so far as it goes, but incomplete. There have also always been those that refuse to acknowledge the authority of any save themselves who often have no desire to lead others ether. There are even those who actively resent any form of authority at all. This is why the base state of humanity is anarchy.

That said these people are in most situations a minority, the sheep are willing to be led and the wolves are willing to lead them, and thus this base state will resolve itself into some kind of government.

The point of democracy is to allow all of these people to live together in relative harmony and safety. "E Pluribus Unum", From many; one.

In reply to Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk (msg #29):

I am not talking about individuals but the mass of humanity as a whole.  Often those individuals who do not conform or who do not abide by the rules of the group around them form their own groups.

An individual who walks away from society matters not to humanity.

I am not arguing the wonders of democracy or the fact that it elevates humanity as a whole.  What I am talking about is the natural tendencies of humanity since the start of humanity.  Democracy, even Greek Democracy, is a relatively new thing for humanity.

Oh, doubtless, in no wise disagreeing that it is very new in the grand scheme of things.

And it is the worst system ever devised, except for all the known alternatives.

I think something that needs to be asked here is what is the signifigance of a system of government being more or less 'natural'? I know some people use the term natural to refer to something uncorrupted, and presumedly holy, but from my perspective how natural a system of governance is has nothing to do with how desireable it is.

As far as I can tell the most natural state of existance for human beings is tribal groups with a war leadeer, his enforcer shaman, a healer, where women frequently die in childbirth and where men spend whatever time is not taken up by survival fighting with other tribal groups over which set of men gets to rape the other. Not what I would consider a highly desireable way to live.

It would seem, thread hijacks aside, that most are in agreement on the brutal, natural state of humanity.

Well, if we're all agreed, then it falls to me to disagree, otherwise, it'll be boring.

I say humanity's inherently good. That's why we're capable of setting aside our immediate self interest and form societies for collective benefit.

In reply to Falkus (msg #34):

Disagreement it is then!

I disagree since the act of forming a society is to safeguard one's own interests.  A selfish act that is merely disguised as selfless act.

Not to mention that good/evil isn't a part of this.  Nature is not good or evil, it is just doing what must be done to survive.  The selfish motivations of one person can generate good outcomes for many.  The selfless motivations of one person can generate misery and death for many.

If humanity were inherantly good, we would have no need of civilization.
And therefore would not have formed civilization.
Which would be bad.

In reply to silveroak (msg #36):

Or would it? The natural world pure and unsullied inhabited by just, honorable, kind and loving humans: Sounds a half step away from heaven to me.

Do they have winter where you live?
In the natural world the average human lifespan is about 35.
I'm 38.
With diabetes, which would be a death sentance without civilization.

I will have to agree with ol' Silveroak on that one.

I would have to say that without humanity's tendency to form groups, tribal structures and civilization we would have been extinct a long time ago.

I am a nature lover.  I love the beauty of its harshness and its violence.  There is no such thing as peace in nature since it is constantly attempting to improve itself and test what remains.  The brutality of it all is inspiring.

Democracy is an attempt to transcend our natural instincts.  To consider the voice of the weakest amongst us.  That is not at all natural.

   No, its not. And that is why it stands apart as the best system of governance yet devised.
   Even if you know nothing about the mathematical sciences of game theory It can be boiled down into the simplest of terms: When everyone wins... Everyone Wins. Therefore the best mode of behavior to adopt is one that ensures maximum benefit for the maximum number. This includes the poor, the deviant, the insane, and the outcast. These groups have been traditional destabilizing influences upon all known societies, but as we have observed in our own history the more you can stabilize their lives the less they will be inclined to destabilize others, and therefore, again by helping them you help yourself.
   It is very true that selfish actions which masquerade as selfless ones are a primary means toward progress, because when you peal away the layers it turns out that almost any selfless act is self serving in a back handed way. What people fail to realize is that most overtly selfish acts do not have the same back handed inversion, rather the opposite, they serve that persons interest in the short term but down the road are bad for everyone including them.
  The issue is that by long standing instinct we don't think long term, since a plan of five years duration is of no use if you are eaten by a bear tomorrow, but increasingly it is necessary to think about more than the next twenty minutes or so or else very bad things happen to you and everyone around you. Democratic systems are designed to do that, by holding officials accountable for the consequences of things they may have done years or even decades in the past.
   So in summation, yes, democracy is quite unnatural, and for good reason.

In reply to Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk (msg #40):

Even in a democracy their are losers.  That is why systems break down.  You always have the unfortunates who believe that they are losers because the system, or The Man, keeps them down.  It never occurs to them that they are losers because of their own actions and choices.  We are an envious creature and we believe that conspiracies abound around us.  There is always something outside our control that is messing with us.

And that is why democracy breaks down.  It is natural to have losers and it is natural for them to blame everything but themselves.  There will always be those who believe that everything is wrong because nothing is perfect.  You cannot "stablize" humanity to the point where you no longer find those losers.

It is the concept of perfection that messes up humanity.  The attempts to create Heaven here on Earth are the most brutal periods of history.  Democracy is the best system so far but it requires mature creatures to keep in balance and we, as a whole, do not have that maturity.

   This is unfortunately true, but one of the brilliant features of the design is it is intended to be self correcting, and at least thus far has been able to do so. Yes there will always be malcontents, yes there will be suffering, until the day that humanity completes its ascension into the numen there cannot be heaven on earth, but if we aim for heaven and avoid tripping over any straws we will at least land among the stars.

It seems there is a misunderstanding on the meaning of the term "natural". If by "natural" one means biological, then democracy isn't indeed natural. But if by natural one means "in the nature (=deep aspiration) of" then democracy is a very natural step for the human species.

Humans have this strange ability called "reason" that pushes them to go beyond the mere biological/survival-oriented lifestyle of all animals. In the beginning we formed bands to facilitate survival, just like many animals do. Then, once those bands provided for the basic needs of light - food, shelter, mating - we started to explore and analyze the world around us, manifesting a quality that is absolutely unique to humankind: curiosity (There is no such thing as curiosity in the animal world). This led humankind to various interpretations regarding the nature of the world, how it came to be, who created it, how it works, and with the discovery of religion came the discovery of morals and ethics and the concepts of good and bad (and this occurs extremely early in human history). Namely, we are not just to ensure mere survival of the kind, we are to act according to social norms who exist for their own sake, yet another invention that does not exist in nature (all other "social" behavior in biological nature is meant to ensure survival of the fittest as well as survival of the group; it serves no other purpose).
From there evolves the capacity to reflect on those norms and notice how they sometimes conflict with personal "interest", i.e. desires, wishes, likings etc. Democracy is the very fist attempt at reconciliating social and personal interest, nothing more and nothing less.

That democracy has its limitations, which are showing clearer every day, does not change the fact that it is a natural (= corresponding to the species' mindset and behaviour) evolution of human society. The "losers" of the democratic system are merely a sign that the system is not perfect and improvements are required. The solution, however, does not lie in a regression to more basic social systems or even to biological common ground (because that would only mean more of the same, starting from scratch over again) but in a more complex, higher organized system that has yet to be defined.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:26, Tue 15 Mar 2011.

I could possibly agree with this...


Disagree with this fairly strongly.  Many animals most certainly demonstrate curiosity (chimps, whales, dolphins, dogs, elephants, just to name a few, but there are many more).


I would argue morals and ethics predate religion, though the origins of each are probably linked.  People (and some animals for that matter) have a instinctual feeling of "hey, you're not supposed to do that!" as a reaction to certain acts that doesn't require religion.  This is, at least to a degree, an evolutionary trait.  Certain types of cooperation are mutually beneficial, so it's evolutionary beneficial for humans to feel an instinctual sense of what's good/bad in relation to those types of actions.  Hence, feelings about fairness, theft, etc., can come about through evolution.  I'd argue that religion developed in part to explain/justify those natural instincts, rather than the other way around.  Though once religion was in place, people started using it to create non-instinctual moral codes as well.


I think this may be a bit of an overstatement, or an understatement, depending on just what is meant.  I'd say our social behavior is biological in nature, but that there are aspects of it that are sort of side-effects that don't have strong evolutionary effect.  But the same is also true of animals as well.  Their social behavior is ultimately biological in nature, but not all instances of social behavior are directly beneficial.


This I can agree with, though with emphasis on the "reflect" part, rather than the conflict.  Animals also experience conflicts between their social instincts and their individual interests instincts.  We're may well be unique in our ability to ponder the conflict (though even there it could be a difference of degree rather than type--I would only be mildly surprised if chimps or dolphins could ponder it to a limited degree, for example), but we're not unique in having to experience and react to the conflict.


I'd say all previous social structures were probably also attempts and reconciling social and personal interest as well, though perhaps less intentionally so.  Hamurabi's laws, for example, were an attempt to strike a balance between them to a degree.  Democracy may be the most successful so far, though.


But by this definition, won't any system ever invented by humans, by definition, be "natural?"  Perhaps not if no one implemented it, but if it's in use, it's sort of automatically corresponds to our mindset and behavior, no?  Not that that's necessarily a problem with your response, more one of the original question, I'd say, since "is democracy natural" seems to mean different things to different people, judging by the responses.

I think we agree on the most parts, however there are a few minor details I do not agree upon.



Animal curiosity is motivated by purely biological motives, or, at best, for amusement. It has little to do with curiosity as a motivating force for knowledge. I don't see animals actively seeking knowledge.



Morals and religion are basically the same thing. The only difference between them is the particular telos.



Part of our social behavior is biollogically-driven, like the animals, but the best part of it, the part that evolved from our mind, is not biological. It is first normative, then progresses on to self-assessing, then to sharing/communicative etc., each new step building upon and thus including all its antecedents. Hence, we still display purely biological social behavior, because it is the most ancient and primal one, but it is definitely not the end of the story.



My interpretation of history is rather that social structures prior to democracy were exclusively normative in nature. Hamurabi's laws are such an example of purely normative social construct: when you do A, then B happens, and nobody wants to know why you did A in the first place, and nobody reflects on the law.

* * *

So, now on to the more important part (in my opinion, at least):



Wow, wow, not so fast! Don't forget you're analyzing this point using your modern or postmodern mindset, which allows reflection and thus "sees" infinitely more than a premodern one. One of the main characteristics of premodernity is the lack of reflective capacity about normative contents, at least for the broad mass (exceptional individuals who were well ahead of their time always existed, but they are not socially relevant). Thus, social forms in a premodern environment come from a shared "gut feeling" and are absolutely natural, i.e. they fit exactly the premodern society's mindset.

It's a different thing when it comes to modernity and postmodernity. The modern mind has the ability to reflect on normative contents and does so, thus resulting in a new form of social order called democracy, which was, as it emerged for the first time, quite natural. But now that we've spent some time in this system we start to see the cracks, and we will need to come up with a new, better one soon or risk regressing to a previous stage. That's both the power and the danger of modernity: we can design a new system that can transcend and include everything made before, or we can use of reflexive ability to implement aa gruesome dictatorship, much more destructive than the previous ones because it would be a dictatorship imposed on a modern and postmodern mindset. And that would NOT be natural; it would be a perversion of modernity: instead of progressing and abandoning old structures like we have made for eons, we would voluntarily get stuck into a structure we already know doesn't fit.



Well, the first thing to do when you answer a question is to state how you understand the question in the first place, otherwise it's Babel tower all over again.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:53, Wed 16 Mar 2011.

I would say our curiosity is also motivated by biology, but that doesn't take anything away from it.  But to say animals don't seek out knowledge seems very strange to me.  Watch an animal come into contact with something new.  I would say (some) animals most definitely seek out knowledge.  Their understanding of that knowledge may be more limited than ours, but they still, at times, seek out new information.


I'd disagree.  Saying it's not biological is to assume some non-physical thought process or something supernatural.  Thoughts occur in our brains, and our brains are biological organs. Our "higher" thoughts are not "higher" because they're non-biological, but because they're deeper, more important to us, etc.  You could say some of our behaviors are more than biological, that they involve more than just biology, but that's different from saying they're non-biological, or don't involve biology.


You don't think anyone reflected on Hamurabi's laws?  I'm fairly certain people did.  Probably quite a bit, I would guess.




Yeah, have to disagree fairly strongly with all this.  Premodern people weren't all that different from us today.  If you took a child from 40,000 years ago and raised them today, no one probably be able to tell the difference between them and anyone else alive today.  And likewise for taking a modern person back 40k years ago.  What is different about us today is not our ability to reflect, but our opportunities to do so.  The reason we "see" more than premodern people did, is that we've seen than they have.  I think you are proposing a fundamental difference between premodern humans and ourselves, whereas I think the difference is almost entirely situational.  We are different because we have experienced different worlds, not because we are fundamentally different creatures.



I'm not sure what's unnatural about going back to something in the past.  We have not always and at every step of the way abandoned old structures and "progressed."  We have moved with fits and starts, accumulating and losing knowledge and experience all the while.  There may be a general trend towards what we call progress (though, there might be a chicken-and-egg problem there--do we consider it progress because it's the way we've generally been moving over the ages?), but we haven't been moving in the same direction at every given instant in time.

Alright, the word "non-biological" was poorly chosen. I meant beyond biological, as you accurately corrected.



Not the ones under this law, I'm pretty sure of that. Or they reflected on it and found them OK. My postmodern mindset is not compatible with laws enforcing physical punishment and/or not worrying about the motives, but that's just me...



Yes and no. To activate a certain mode of thinking requires the right environment, granted, but it also requires personal ability (or else why do you think we still have religious or political fundamentalism in our modern and postmodern world?). But that doesn't change my conclusion. In premodern times, the environment was not present, so the reflection didn't occur, except in the few individuals who 1/had the ability of more complex thought and 2/had the time and opportunity to consider another social system / other values using this complex thought. That would be a fairly limited amount of the population.



It's not that it's unnatural, it's just a huge waste...



Uhh... show me one example where a society retreated to a previous social mode (e.g. democratic to pyramidal, or pyramidal to imperial, or imperial to tribal), barring intercultural conflict?

Hmm, I guess I just have a hard time buying that.  I'm sure there were plenty of Babylonians who didn't give it much thought, just as there are plenty of people today who don't give the laws they live under much thought.  But I have a hard time accepting the idea that nobody thought about it at all.  You might find physical punishment repugnant, presumably you could still see a system with laws that involve repugnant punishment being different in important ways (perhaps even superior) to one that involved a ruler's whim and repugnant punishment?  Just because a system has flaws (such as physical punishment) doesn't mean no one has reflected on it.  Even recognizing the flaws and not changing the system doesn't mean no reflection has occurred, it may just mean they haven't come up with a system that they consider to be better.  People thinking "well, we could put them in jail for months instead of whipping them, but do we even have enough jail space to do that?  And would it be enough disincentive to work?" is still reflection, even if we don't agree with their conclusions.  Remember, the babylonians were humans, more or less just like us.  They'd had different experience, different ideas of what was possible and not, etc., but they were just as clever, just as human, had the same kinds urges and desires and fears.  When Hamurabi introduced his code, that was a pretty big deal.  A big change from the way things were done before.  I just find it hard to imagine that everyone just shrugged and thought "sure, whatever," without thinking about the implications to them and others, how they would need to change their behaviors, what opportunities or problems it would create for them, how it would affect life in babylon, etc.


I can agree with that, though I don't think the prevalence of that ability has changed all that significantly over the last 40k years, say.  It's not that back then almost no one had that ability, and now almost everyone does.  Its that now most people have that environment, but back then almost no one did.


I can agree with this, but again I don't think it's all that different today.  Its not that everyone today is a Jesus or a Muhammed or Budha or John Locke or whatever.  Deep thinkers are few and far between, whatever age we look at.




Okay, I can agree with that I think (though there may be cases when going "backwards" may be better depending on the exact situation).


Barring intercultural conflict?  Hmm...not sure if I can.  Actually...I'm not sure if I could come up with a case of changing social mode that didn't involve conflict, regardless of direction, but if the key part is that the conflict is inter instead of intra, I think you may have a point.  Just to try, though, how about the english civil war to remove the monarchy, and then after a few years of cromwell the english reinstating a monarchy?  Definitely cultural conflict involved, but was it intra or inter?  Depends on where we draw the boundaries, I suppose.  On a smaller scale, there are almost always smaller groups within any larger civilization that trying to "go back" to "the old ways," such as back-to-the earth groups.  Within organizations such as businesses the structure can change back and forth as new CEOs take over, becoming more authoritarian under one leader, and more organic under another, then back again under a third.  In Athens Solon's constitutional government was replaced by the Tyranny of Pisistratus.  Again, this could be considered cultural conflict, but is it between or within a culture?  The spanish civil war was a coup by facists and monarchists to overthrow a republican government.  Definitely outside groups were involved in the war, but it was arguably fought between members of one culture (Spain's).

Those are the kinds of things I'm thinking of when I say that at any given moment, society as a whole, or any given portion of it may be moving either "forward" or "backward" (however you define them), even if there is a long-term trend in one direction or the other.  It sounds like you may consider the "backward" steps as anomalous because they involve conflicts, but I'm not sure if that's good grounds for discounting them.

I am reviving this thread to discuss a new and related issue raised in the recently closed community chat thread about the election.

If someone who has the opportunity to vote chooses not to, should they be allowed to complain about the officials elected?

Why? Why not?

In reply to Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk (msg # 49):

Didn't see the thread you mention, but in answer to your question, I'd say "depends on what you mean by 'allowed to complain'".  Are you talking about legally banning them from speaking against whoever is elected, with threat of fines/imprisonment/whatever if they do?  Because if so, then I'd say that's pretty crazy.  If instead you mean just personally telling people to shut up when they complain, that may be sometimes justified (though certainly not always).  Then again, telling people to shut up in private conversation is probably justified in many cases entirely independent of whether or not they voted.  ;)

Also, while going into the polling station and writing "no suitable candidate" on the ballot may provide some emotional benefit, it really doesn't accomplish anything.  If a person really doesn't think any of the candidates are any better than the rest (or any good at all), should it be obligatory for them to vote for one of them?  Being able to say "don't blame me, I voted for the other guy" may make us feel better, but it doesn't actually serve a great purpose beyond that.

Also, keep in mind that complaining can in some cases be more effective and bringing about change than can voting, at least if you're good enough at it to change people's minds.  A complaint that causes 10 other people to go to the polls has more impact than going silently to the polls yourself, though I stress that these shouldn't be seen as an either/or situation.  It's best of all to do both.

Absolutely, and in fact I have always argued that those who choose to vote have then lost their own right to complain, since by voting they have agreed to the process.

Those of us (I include myself in that) who choose not to vote, are the only ones who have not agreed to the completely flawed system, and thus are the only ones who have retained their right to complain.

I'm glad you brought this up because I was disappointed BBR closed the discussion even though it did not violate the ToU.

It's not about being allowed to complain; we're always allowed to complain.  It's about why one would shirk their civic duty and then expect their voice to count when they took no action to make a difference in the election.  It's a simple contradiction, and it makes them look like they are whining instead of taking action.

I don't think Doulos' comments make much sense, to be honest.  If you disagree with the process, so what?  Complain about the process all you want, but don't complain about the people who are elected if you chose not to be involved in electing them.  The "process" and the "substance" are two completely different things.

If I vote for someone and he doesn't live up to his promises, I have every right to complain about him.  If I don't vote for someone who gets elected, I have every right to complain that I didn't want him in the first place.  If I don't vote, I did not take action to make a difference in who got elected, so I really wouldn't feel like my opinion should count for much when I complain later.

There's lots to address here, and generally two two sides never come to an agreement, but I'll lay out the basic premise for my idea.

First, the concept of shirking civic duty.  Right there you've made an assumption that I even have a duty. I don't subscirbe to that. You do, and that's your right, but I don't feel I have any duty to vote.  That's a made up concept.

Second, there are all sorts of other (and in my own opinion, greatly more effective) ways to improve my society.  If it's an issue of getting certain types of legislation through then lobbying is going to be massively more effective in bringing about change in that area.

I have every right to complain about the people who do a poor job, particularly when I made it ery clear through my actions that I knew those people were going to do a poor job.  Children have the right to complain about those in power as well, and they don't even have the ability to vote.  It makes zero sense that ticking a check box, and my right to complain are in any way connected.  My counterpoint to the argument was intentionally absurd, because that's exactly how it sounds coming from voters to me as a non-voter.  Totally absurd.

We have to keep in mind that I as an individual, only have so many hours in my day.

I can spend those hours researching politcal views, waiting in voter lineups etc, or I can spend that doing other things.  Considering my own singular vote has an almost statistically zero % chance of actually doing anything at all, and that even I was the ONE vote the caused things to change that there is no guarantee that the individual will even do wat they say they did, for me personally it actually makes zero logical sense to waste time voting.  The risk that I get hit by a car on the way to the voting booth is actually greater than the chance that my vote will actually matter. (Keep in mind, I am speaking about my one vote as an individual - since that's all I care about).

Alternatively I could (and have - the past two federal elections in Canada) go to the park and pick up garbage with my kids.  We'e chosen to replace the logically pointless act of voting, with someting that we feel will actually bring about real change in our community - garbage cleanup.

So, while the voters can say what they will about civic duty, the loss of the right to complain etc, I feel completely justified that not only do I have the right to complain, but that my actions on voitng day very well could have brought more value to the world than all of the voter actions combined.

Let me also point out that I fully support someone voting if that helps them feel like tey are part of a reater community of people engaging in the same action toether.  From my perspective it's like church.  It does very little to actually change the world for the better (or worse) but if it gives an individual a sense of purpose and belonging in community then fire away.

In reply to Heath (msg # 52):

But what about the case where all candidates running are equally unsuitable in your view?  Say your number one top issue was lowering taxes.  And all the candidates promised to raise taxes.  So you didn't vote for any of them.  The one who does get elected makes good on their promise and raises taxes.  It doesn't seem too unfair in such a case to complain about it, since you didn't really have an option of voting for someone who would have done otherwise.

To Godwin this thing before it gets too far, say you're a Jew living in a province of Germany pre-WWII where the only candidates on the local ballot are nazis.  Is it all that unreasonable for the person to not want to give their vote to any of them?

I mean, we hear people complain about people they voted for doing just what everyone knew they would do all the time.  You might have someone vote for a republican because they wanted lower taxes, say, but then complain that congress isn't doing enough about climate change.  That doesn't seem a whole lot better to me than someone who didn't vote complaining about the same thing.

It's not exactly "made up."  It's just disregarded by those who don't want to believe it exists and want to disregard the laws that say it is real.  I could say the same thing about "murder" or "not driving without a license" or a number of other things.


That's not really the point.  The point is about complaining about what those who HAVE BEEN ELECTED actually do themselves.  If you choose not to vote for or against them, you can't really complain about them.  You are talking about something other than complaining about your elected officials, which is not the point of this discussion.


You also have a right to not vote for them and then ARE ACTUALLY ABLE TO STATE that you take ACTIONS--by voting.  If you don't vote, you are not taking the most basic action.


Exactly.  They have not shirked their civic responsibility, and have not foregone taking action that they could have taken--because they couldn't take it.  So this is a false analogy.  The point here is that someone who could take action but chooses not to should not be complaining about the results.


Well, checking the box means you are taking ACTION to affect the thing which you will then complain (or not complain) about.  If you choose not to take action that you can take, why would you then complain about it?


I disagree. Absurd is refraining from voting when you have a right to vote-- a right people have died to give you--and then doubling down on shirking that right by complaining about those who were elected by those who actually exercised their rights.  In a way, that is actually discriminating against people who believe their right to vote is important, that democracy is important, and that their vote matters.


So did all those men and women who fought and died to give you the right to vote.

This comment makes no sense.  On one hand, you say you don't want to be educated on the issues but still complain.  So what you are arguing here is that people who are ignorant on political issues should be complaining about politics?  That, to me, is the most absurd of the comments.

If you want to remain ignorant and not vote, that is fine (and in fact, those who are ignorant about the issues probably should not be voting), but that is all the more reason you should not be complaining--because in truth, you really don't know what you are complaining about.

This is a nonissue for several reasons:

1) Is someone who truly researches the issues and candidates really going to say that every single one of the politicians and issues they vote on makes it so they should not even show up at the polls?

For example, for judges, you vote "yes" or "no" as to whether they should be confirmed.  There is no alternate candidate, so everyone should feel comfortable voting one way or the other.  Same thing for propositions on the ballet: "yes" or "no."

So if you don't like a certain group of candidates (for governor, for example), then either do a write in candidate or leave that bubble blank.  You don't have to fill in every bubble.  And to just stay home because of one or two races or issues, and therefore ignore your right to vote on all the others, does not make sense to me, and sounds like an excuse.

2) You can do a write in in most cases.  I have done this in the past.

3) You can choose the least objectionable.  Voting for one person is often a compromise.  I do not believe any race has equally objectionable candidates.  There is always one a little better than another.

Not too interested in the back and forth on this.  I've had this conversation with elitist voters far too often and there is never agreement.  But there sure is a lot of judgement from voters.

I support your right to vote and your right to complain Heath.  It's too bad you can't offer the same support of me as I live in a free society, but it is what it is.

In reply to Heath (msg # 57):

What about handing in a ballot of completely unfilled bubbles?  Would that give you the necessary moral high ground need to complain?  Because if so, I have to admit that sounds pretty absurd to me.

While you may feel there's always a least bad option, at some point surely all of them are so bad that even voting for the least bad is an endorsement you just can't in good conscious give, no?  I mean, would you honestly vote for one candidate running on a "kill all the mormons" platform, just because the other one was running on a "kill all the mormons AND torture puppies" platform?

It sort of sounds like this is more of a principle thing than a practical thing for you.  Sort of like "even though I know it won't make a difference, I still need to do it anyway because someone died to give me this chance to not make any difference!"

I have to admit, that while I'm sympathetic to the "vote or don't complain about the result" mentality, I haven't really heard any good justification for it.  On the one hand, I do feel a sort of duty to vote.  On the other, telling someone they should still vote even if they think every candidate is a complete disaster seems wrong too.  I feel like people should do what they think will do the most to make the world a better place.  And some cases, complaining is more effective than just voting for whomever the system tells you you're allowed to vote for.

I am only arguing that I have the right to complain (if I don't vote), but not that there is much value in doing so.

Voting is a very important people to some people.  So is how they bake their Christmas turkey to other people.  Also, what the opening night lineups are for their hockey team.

What do people think of the idea that ones vote must be earned by a good candidate, rather than being guaranteed to the least-bad candidate?  Sort of a "you want my vote?  Then convince me to give it to you.  The fact that the other candidate is horrible isn't enough."

Many people complain about negative advertising in campaigns these days.  But negative ads mostly work because the system assumes you only need to be least-bad in order to win.  If its assumed my vote will go to someone, it's just as (or more!) effective for a candidate to spout lies about their opponent as it is to tell me what they're actually going to do.  Take away that assumption, and they'd have to actually tell me something good about themselves, rather than just something bad about their opponent.  And that sort of seems like it could be a good thing.

It would be a good thing I suppose, but voting between two near-perfect candidates is the same as voting on two near-pure evil candidates.  My vote has an almost zero % chance of actually making a difference, and picking garbage has 100% chance of making a difference, so there is no contest there in my books.

However, with two superb candidates you at least have less to complain about potentially!

Tycho, I don't support your idea at all.

Why? Because choosing the less-bad candidate is another word for compromise. Sure, it's not what I WANTED, but it's what I'll live with. Alright, I'm not getting the tyrannical computer overlord I want, but at least I'm getting this guy with a strong science background. Meanwhile, Bob isn't getting his communist dictator, but this other guy who really supports socialized welfare.

The more disparate our demographics and beliefs are, the more we have to be willing to settle in order to find middle ground. And one of the downsides of the US being so diverse is the fact that it is very, very disparate.

In reply to katisara (msg # 63):

But what if your act of not voting is sending the intended message that you don't consent to being ruled/governed/whatever by any of the candidates?  Consider the example I used earlier about a Jew having to pick between two Nazi candidates.  At some point isn't it actually worse to give the implicit support to someone simply because you thought the alternative was slightly worse?

To be clear, I'm not arguing against voting here.  I do vote, and I encourage others to vote.  I'm just think a case can be made that in some situations, when all available candidates are so bad that you don't want to give support to any of them, that not voting isn't just a lack of action, but rather a legitimate expression of disapproval.  Whether it's any more or less effective at making things better can be debated, of course.

I'm also sort of skeptical of hollow acts of pure symbolism.  If you can know with very good confidence that your vote will have no impact, what is the real justification for casting it?  I had a friend who said his dad would every election write "no suitable candidates" on the ballot and put it in the box.  On the one hand that seems like a sort of satisfying act of voicing your displeasure.  On the other, I'm not really sure it accomplishes any more than just not voting (other than wasting a bit of peoples time).

Finally, there's an aspect of non-voting that I can sort of understand, in that people often feel they're not actually given a choice on the issues that they actually care about.  A metaphor might be that you get to vote on whether to turn the volume up or down, but you don't get to vote on changing the channel. Say one candidate is saying "bomb Iran" and the other is saying "bomb Syria", and you're actually opposed to bombing either, what is the right thing to do?  If you feel the option you want isn't on the table, the fact that you get to choose some details of how you're not going to get your way might not seem worth the effort.

There is always more than one issue. Even if both candidates endorse something I'm opposed to (like, for example, war) there has to be at least some difference between them that I approve of in one and disapprove of in the other.

This assumes that the candidate you vote for will even do what they say they will, which isn't the case.

Or that the vote you cast will actually result in the candidate you want being voted in, which is never the case (except in ultra-rare cases, and never on a federal level).

Who cares what they believe (or say they believe) when the very act of voting is merely a feel good action and does not actually stand a chance of actually accomplishing anything.

Well, is it more likely that a Candidate who says they're going to do something won't, than a Candidate saying that they won't do something, but does, or are both equally likely?

I have no idea.

If I am a politician and you consistently do not vote, why do I care about you whatsoever? You're not contributing to my winning, nor to my losing. You have made yourself both irrelevant and silent.

At least if you write-in Mickey Mouse, I see something on the results saying "this person is a voter, and specifically did not vote for me". And if the laws require a certain majority, you have directly worked against my winning.

Now of course, if your choice is between one candidate who wants to kill ALL of the people, and another one who wants to kill only HALF of the people, you can't in good faith vote for either, and even voting via write-in is an implicit support of the system. But so is paying taxes. If your politicians are so bad that you have a moral rejection to participating in the politics at all, but you're still participating in every other way (especially the ways that are convenient to you/keep you out of jail) consider the possibility that you're not a peaceful protestor, you're just lazy.




If you are the only person doing that, yeah, you're just the crazy guy on the street corner. And that's the case of whoever you're voting for. You may be voting for Ronald Reagen in a race against Stalin, but if you're the only guy who votes for Reagan, you're still just the crazy guy on the street corner.

Democracy by its nature requires *large* groups of people to accomplish anything. If 50% of the people write in candidates, that's a huge group of people, and it'll have an impact.

There's also the issue that people seem to think they voted, and that's their whole civic duty for four years. But that's not the case. You have to follow up. Agitate. Contact your representatives. Put your money with your mouth is. If you just sit back and say 'meh, it is what it is. Don't blame me, *I* didn't take any action to possibly alter the outcome in any way', you're not exactly being a good citizen.

This is another reason why I don't vote.  Politicians are acting in the best interest of what will get them elected, and not what will help their constituents.

I can have a voice as an individual.  As a person.  Not as a voter.



A key difference is I could get put in prison for failing to pay taxes, while all I get for choosing to not vote is a moral tsk tsk'ing from those who do.



That's why I framed this in the beginning that I am speaking about myself personally, and not of the group as a whole.  From a personal standpoint my vote, particularly in a federal/provincial/state election, will never make a difference.  It simply won't.  It's a total waste of time from a 'make a real difference' standpoint.

Now, when 10,000 people don't vote, then things change, but that doesn't negate the fact that my own personal vote will never make a difference.



This is actually one of the parts I find most hilarious about the voting thing.  Most of the people I know who vote do exactly what you said - they use voting as the pinnacle of civic duty and treat those who don't as somehow less valuable to society - even if that act of voting is the only so called 'civic duty' thing they did all year.

I volunteer, I do city cleanup, etc - but because I don't partake in voting that suddenly gives voters the right to say things like 'You don't have the right to comlain', or 'What are you doing to change things?'

The reality is in most cases I'm doing way more to bring about change in the world because I didn't waste time reading newspaper articles about Joe Bob's views on abortion and lining up at voting booths, but actually making the world a better place by engaging my community and being a part of it.

I would even go so far as to say sitting in your house and playing video games could be more beneficial to society than voting.  If it helps with your mental state, and allows to find an outlet for stress, than at least you're accomplishing something, whereas the act of voting can, at best, give you the feeling of accomplishing something - a sort of social placebo activity.

What do you think 10,000 people not-voting is going to accomplish exactly? Since we regularly have elections with 30% voter turn-out, it seems like this plan is pretty much tested and ineffective.

I'm not suggesting it will or won't accomplish anything in particular.  I'm not concerned with that.  I've always been concerned only with my 1 vote.

EDIT: I see the confusion with my language earlier when I said 'then things change'.  I just mean the outcome of an election could be swayed if 10,000 people don't vote.  Depending of course on what those 10,000 people may have voted.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:22, Fri 07 Nov 2014.

If 10,000 of people who would vote for Candidate A don't vote at all, yes, Candidate B will win, and that would be a 'change'. However, it doesn't seem to be the one that would support your desired end goal (i.e., that Candidate A and B are both bad candidates). Nor does it have any greater value than say 10,000 people don't vote for Candidate B, or 10,000 people who didn't vote decide to vote for A or B, so I guess I don't see what your point is there.

And yes, your singular vote isn't worth a lot. But deciding to settle on only that single paradigm at the exclusion of all else isn't necessarily a very useful thing to do. Just like  Newtonian physics aren't very useful when asking questions at quantum scales, the effectiveness of behavior of a single individual isn't a very useful perspective when asking questions on the governance of hundreds of millions.

I've got more energy today to discuss this.  I'll try my best to be clear as I understand I can do a poor job with that at times.



Can we clarify a bit?  Why exactly do I have a duty to vote?  Who decides that?  I understand that it's a socially accepted norm, but that doesn't mean it's true.



I can complain about elected officials (though I rarely do since I don't see it as helpful).  You can claim otherwise, but I can just as easily also claim that I am right.  We're a little deadlocked here and only have personal opinion to sway each other.



By not voting I am making a conscious effort to replace an action that I see as pointless (since my 1 vote will never accomplish anything) with something that I feel will bring about real change (picking garbage).  I would argue (and do argue) that those who vote are actually taking the easy way out.




That's a fair point about children.



Maybe I'm starting to see the disconnect here.  It should be clear, I'm not complaining that 'so and so was elected', I am complaining that 'so and so is doing a poor job at his job'  I also would dispute that voting is an action that actually changes anything.



People died to give me the right to choose to vote or not vote, not the right to be forced to vote or be publically shamed.  I have no idea where you are going with the discrimination thing when I have already pointed out that I support the right of individuals to vote if they feel it's something that gives them value as a person in society (even if I personally don't share that view)  Discrimination is an odd choice of words.




The right to choose whether to vote or not.  I addressed this already.



If you think voters are rational that's fine, but I don't share that view at all.  Democracy is the best thing we have, but voters are really good at making decisions that are very bad for themselves.  There is a really good podcast I listened to on this topic - probably a few years ago.  I'll see if I can dig it up, if you're interested

At the end of the day, many of us non-voters do so for very specific reasons and only ask that we be respected as valuable citizens because we choose to carry out our citizenry in ways that are different from those who choose to vote.

I'm not sure I'm following you here.  I kind of am, but I find the connection between physics and voting tough to connect.

But boiling it all down to simply state, 'My 1 vote will not ever make a difference.' is enough for me (even though that's only 1 reason I don't vote).  It might not be for others, and so they vote.  I'm ok with that.

My desired end goal is to use my time in the best way possible (either engaging in things I find enjoyable, or things that I feel will help improve the world for myself, my kids, other people etc).

Spending time voting does not accomplish either of those things for me (my 1 vote is pointless, and I don't find politics enjoyable), so why would I do it? (Interestingly enough, if politics and voting is something an individual finds entertaining or fun, then that's another perfectly valid reason to do it in my books)

I guess I just find it offensive that I, as a non-voter, am sometimes viewed as lazy, or a lesser citizen, because I have a different view on what the most effective way is to be a citizen in society.

Hey, I don't take offense. You don't agree with a lot of things I believe in. I prefer you not vote.

Haha, fair enough :)

The less people that vote, the more powerful your own vote becomes.  So the best way to increase your political power in a democratic system is to dissuade others from using theirs.

Except one individual's vote will never become practically useful since there will always be people who vote just because they feel a sense of guilt if they do not.

Great theory, but not really true in practice.  The reality is, no matter what, my one single vote (or your either) will ever swing an election on a state/federal level, and even on much smallers levels the chances are extremely low.

Maybe they should make it so that, if a registered voter doesn't vote, their vote counts towards the third party with the most votes.

Probably a crazy idea.

That's sort of the question, though.  Are you obligated to be silent if you didn't vote?  I think the point is that you can not vote, and still be vocal about problems caused by those you didn't vote for.  You can be politically active and at the same time not vote.  Again, I stress I'm not suggesting this is the best thing to do, just saying that its possible.


If your write in, they see that someone is a voter and didn't vote for them.  If you speak out, they see that you didn't vote for them because of their flaws.  You can vocalize why you didn't vote for them, and express what it would take for you to vote for them.  The counter side seems to be saying that you can't/shouldn't do that.  And I guess I haven't seen any good argument why that would be the case.


It's certainly possible for people to just be lazy.  But imagine you're a anti-abortion voter.  That's your issue.  You've made a vow to never, under any circumstances support any candidate that is pro choice.  In your local election every single candidate is pro-choice.  Now, you can either compromise your morals, but make a (tiny, symbolic) difference by voting, or stick to your guns and make not difference with your (lack of) vote, but instead try to make a difference by speaking out against pro-choice candidates.  Is it the best course?  I don't know, but it doesn't seem "lazy" to me.

Again, I stress that I think voting when you have the opportunity is a good thing to do.  I'm not advocating anyone not vote.  I'm just challenging the idea that those who haven't voted are necessarily lazy/complacent/passive/whatever, and the idea that they have no right to complain about those who do get elected.


True, but if 50% of the population protest outside the capital that will also have a huge impact.  Even of those people didn't vote.

Here's perhaps another way to look at the issue:

Republicans won big in the recent election, largely by running a "we're not obama" campaign.  Many people seemed vote thinking "I'm not happy with how things are now, so I'll vote for the republicans."

Now, imagine if next year republicans try to lower taxes on the wealthy, privatize social security, and make cuts to medicaid.  All things that are fairly well-known republican goals, but which many people aren't fans of.  Now, if someone voted for a republicans (out of dislike of Obama and/or the currents state of things) gets upset when the republicans they helped elect push to do the above things, do they really have more right to complain than someone who didn't vote?  To a degree, I can see more to the argument that they have no right to complain, since they got just what they voted for (even if it's not what they actually wanted).

Or, imagine a gay person who voted for republicans because of he thought they would improve the economy.  Once elected the republicans push to reduce gay-rights.  Does this person have more or less right to complain than someone who didn't vote at all?  Isn't "if you didn't want this, you shouldn't have voted for these guys!" at least as legitimate as "if you didn't want this, you should have voted!"?

Why should we consider it more valid for someone to complain about unsurprising actions taken by the politician they voted for than for someone to complain about actions of someone they didn't vote for (because they didn't vote at all)?

Tycho, regarding your first post, you seem to be placing voting/protesting as either-or activities. Yes, if the question is between voting OR protesting, protesting is probably more effective. But it isn't, and it shouldn't be. It baffles me why someone would spend four hours in the cold complaining about Obama, but refuse to spend 20 minutes driving to the voting booth (or do like I do, a true lazy person, and just order an absentee ballot).

Regarding 'right to complain' ... I think you bring up some good points. But still, the pro-life person is simultaneously giving up on the process and not trying to fix it. Unless he is skipping voting because he's in the process of standing up some new political party (or isn't voting because his new political party's candidate wasn't permitted to run), yeah, it's a cop-out.

Either you care about the issue enough to work to change it--in which case you should be working to change it--or you don't.

And I'd agree with your first example that someone who votes GOP because it's 'not Obama' deserves what's coming. They literally are getting what they wanted, and are upset. Your homosexual is a little more nuanced. He isn't complaining about getting what he wanted, but that it's not a full package. That's normal, and I'd argue it's even very productive, to say 'this is important to me, but this is also important to me. We got this, now let's work on that.'

of course though, when it comes to actual 'rights', everyone has a right to complain about whatever. It's just some people are huge hypocrites when they do it :P

In most cases I'd agree.  But if the person is complaining that Obama is too right-wing, then they can either vote for Obama (and complain about him), or vote for whoever the republicans run (and complain about them).  For some people the real problem is that all the options are horrible in their view.  And rather than pick the least bad option, they'd rather fight to get different options (which you sort of can't do if you always pick the least bad option, since you're then feeding the system which you're against).


I think that's probably where disagree.  Not voting certainly can be a cop out.  But I'm not convinced it's always a cop out.  Voting for the least-bad option doesn't actually get you a better option.  In fact, it can reduce the chances of getting a better option in the future by supporting the status quo.  I'm not entirely convinced that "not voting" is equivalent to "giving up on the process and not trying to fix it."  If someone truly has given up on making things better, then sure.  But not everyone who doesn't vote has "given up."  Complaining about issues (to other voters) can be more effective in bringing about change than voting for a candidate you don't actually support.  That in and of itself isn't a great reason not to vote.  But if one has another reason not to vote (say, moral opposition to all the available candidates), I could consider it a valid course of action.

Also, if you vote with a candidate because you agree with them slightly more than you agree with the other candidate, does anyone honestly think that candidate isn't going to claim your full support on every issue?  "We have a mandate from the people to do X!" is pretty much what every candidate says after they win, even if poll after poll repeatedly shows the voters were actually opposed to X.  Even though republicans ran on a "I'm not Obama!" campaign, I have very little doubt that they will claim public support for every bit of legislation they put forward.  You can't really indicate on your ballot why you voted for a candidate, so they all assume/pretend that it's because you agree with them on everything.


I agree there.  I just don't think it's necessarily true that voting for someone who's against you on the issue just because the other candidate is worse than them is the same as "working to change it."  You can work to make changes in ways other than voting.


Yay, agreement! ;)
(leaving "some people" sufficiently vague probably helps us be in agreement on this, though!)

That seems counterproductive to the idea of choice and freedom.  Australia actually fines people who do not vote in elections, and again, that seems to be forcing people to vote, which is the exact opposite of what freedom is all about, and is the equivalent to spitting in the face of those who fought and died to provide freedom for us as individuals.

Voting isn't an action in isolation.  It involves research, travelling to the voting station, waiting in lines etc.

There is the question of how much time it actually takes to be sufficiently informed about the options.  20 hours?  40 hours?  Hyper-active politically involved people probably spend 10 hours a week, all year long, informing themselves of the issues, just so that they can feel like they are making the most informed vote possible.  And yet, in many cases, they mght still be totally off base with their own voting strategies because there are lots of things they can't see in a situation.

So, it's not just 20 minutes driving to the voting booth. Most politically involved folks would be offended that someone did not inform themselves before voting and would ask you kindly not to do that.  It's potentially 500 hours a year to become a sufficiently informed voter - and even then that might be enough.  AND that vote won't change anything.  Every time I sit down and think about this it becomes much more difficult for me to rationalize the act of voting as a sensible option for an individual.

So, yes, it actually can easily be an either/or situation.  Let's say it's only 10 hours every four years to inform yourself on the basics of a political party and what they stand for.  I would say that's nowhere near enough, but for the sake of discussion it works.

Would I rather spend 10 hours casting a vote that has the practical effect of accomplishing exactly zero?  OR.  Would I rather spend those 10 hours having coffee with a friend, cleaning up a local park, and getting a couple extra hours sleep?  The answer to me is stuinningly clear and I'm baffled that it isn't clear to everyone else as well.

Is complaining a helpful thing to do if you have not voted?  No really.  It's not helpful if you HAVE voted though, so the question of having voted or not is sort of not important.

However, I go back to my initial argument.  If you have voted, you are agreeing to the democratic process.  By marking down on the piece of paper you are saying 'I believe this is the best way to choose the person who is going to run things' and then you live with the consequences of that.  I would say it's even sillier to complain about things when you have voted since you already agreed to the system by which those individuals get into power.  At least those who didn't vote are fully aware that voting was a silly activity to begin with because they knew they were getting a bad option in place no matter what.

I was under the impression that your vote didn't matter to you?

Your example of Australia is another way of dissuading the self-perpetuating spiral of political apathy.  Unfortunately that dissuasion doesn't extend to the apathy of the current political parties.  The Democrats and Republicans should be afraid of having a low voter turnout, because it means they would both lose.  They might put effort into getting the majority of people who are able to vote to vote, rather than just those who always vote.

True enough, in the sense that almost every other action matters much more to me.



Does it accomplish that?  By forcing people to cast votes does it actually dissuade apathy?  I wonder.   Either way, it's incredibly offensive to think that a free society would force others to engage in an activity that actually does very little.  Sad really.

However, if I was going to be charged $40 if I didn't vote I would then probably be forced to go spoil a ballot since the cost ($40) would potentially outweigh the benefits (cleaning up the city park).  It wouldn't do a thing to actually influence an election (for me personally) but then government could talk about how civic involvement was increased (though in reality it wasn't since they now have a dirtier park and an extra spoiled ballot - net loss in the civic involvement category)

I don't know if it accomplishes it, but I think that's what they'd say the intent was.

It's a good question to ask whether it would accomplish that, and probably easy to find out.  Do you know when the law was implemented?  I could try and get a good sample size of voter turnout %  before and after.



Spoilt Ballot % would be another thing to check. It might also as you said have a negative affect, perhaps even a net loss overall.

I'll see if I can find the law they passed regarding the fine and get back to you on that once I've gathered the evidence.
-------------------------------------------
 Personally where I live there isn't really that much time taken up on voting, we have mail-in voting so you don't have to wait in line or go out of your way.

Despite this however, in my state (Washington), Voter Turnout went from 53.1% in 2010 to 28% in 2014.  So making it easier really doesn't seem to have helped.
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EDIT: Ooh, unless the fine was only payable in the form of community service ;)
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:29, Sun 09 Nov 2014.

I believe the 1920s sometime.  But an increase of voter turnout does not mean there is a change in voter apathy. It just means that they feel forced to go, whether they care or not.




One of the big arguments from pro voters is that voters should also be informed, so the number of hours that it takes to cross the threshold from uninformed to informed, should also be a part of that. That's a moving target though, and surely would be a different number depending on how "into" politics you are.

I agree making it easier is not the only factor though - political corruption and the lack of actual value in a single vote are also issues. I have no doubt large numbers of people just don't care, and frankly, when combined with the other factors, I'm not sure it's worth their time to do so.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:33, Sun 09 Nov 2014.

I've sort of been backing Doulos' side for a while, but wanted to raise a point on the other side too.  A key part of Doulos' argument is the fact that his individual vote is vanishingly likely to sway the result, so why should he bother?  Which sounds relatively sound.  On the other hand, if many people think the same way, their collective lack of voting very well could sway the result.

There are many situations like this in life, where your individual actions or lack there of will have relatively minor impact, but the sum total of many people making the same choice has a significant negative impact.  Often change requires a whole bunch of people doing something together that individually would have little impact.  One person walking down a street doesn't get much attention.  Get a few thousand and suddenly you have a march, and it gets the message out way more effectively.  One person saying "I'm not buying this product anymore!" won't really change a company's policies, but a whole lot of people doing it can get their attention.  Environmental examples unfortunately usually go the other way:  one person deciding not to do their part (e.g., littering, wasting, etc.) wouldn't have a huge impact, and the system could surely cope with it.  But get enough people thinking "well, just me doing this doesn't matter" and you can end up with a very big negative impact.  How many people thinking "there's so many passenger pigeons!  Me killing a few will never make a difference!" does it take to drive a species extinct?

One way to address this issue is to think not about your individual action, but about the strategy in general.  Does the strategy you pick (ie, voting or not voting) lead to good results if lots of other people take it?  If not, its probably not the right strategy.  Another way of saying that is: if your "it makes no difference" position requires that everyone else not do the same thing to be true, then you may be freeloading (ie, depending on everyone else to do the job for you).

It's not exactly the same as a tragedy of the commons situation, but it's similar in some ways.  Everyone trying to just maximize their own benefit at the margin, rather than trying to achieve the maximum for the whole, everyone can end up with less.  "It's fine for me not to vote, because everyone else will" isn't too far from "it's fine for me to graze a few extra sheep on the common ground, as long as everyone else doesn't do it too".

I've heard this argument before, and it has a touch of validity to it (Immanual Kant seems to be given credit for the general idea of it, and he's sort of a smart guy).  I admit I've had to reason through this one for sure.  It's probably the most powerful pro-voting argument I can see out there.

Essentially, the argument goes, you don't need to prove that your non-vote will ever practically make a difference (in a negative way), but that it could theoretically make a difference (in a negative way).

In the end it brings the act of voting back to a way of expressing your support for the democratic process in a symbolic way.

I can totally get on board with that.  If that's the reason someone wants to vote, then fire away.  For some people voting provides an emotional warm fuzzy.  It can be like kissing your child good night while they are sleeping.  Could they wake up at that exact moment and because they see you kissing them at night they gain more confidence in themselves as a person and go on to do great things in life?  Sure, that's a possibility.  Yet, that's not why people do it.  They do it (I do it!) as a symbolic way of demonstrating care and love for that individyual.  It's a purely selfish act that gives me a feeling that I enjoy, which does not provide any real benefit to society - yet I do it.  It's not a rational action, similar to voting, but it does bring me a certain emotional benefit.

For me personally, the key difference is that I do not gain that same warm fuzzy feeling from voting, but I'm fully aware that many, many people do - and for them I encourage them to vote.

EDIT:  Keep in mind, this only deals with one of the reasons not to vote - that your one vote will never make a difference.  There are certainly other reasons not to do so.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:43, Sun 09 Nov 2014.

I guess that's not really what I was saying.  It's not about "warm fuzzies," it's more about "I should do what's right, regardless if I could get away with doing what's not right and come out a bit ahead."  It's sort of the opposite of an ends-justify-the-means position, in that its says we should do the right thing not because it makes us better off, but in fact we should do what's right even if it makes us worse off.  Or, perhaps a better way of stating it is: don't try to determine what's right by looking just at the impact it has on yourself.

It's not about warm fuzzies, it's about pulling your weight, even if the rest of us could get by even if you don't.  It's sort of like paying your taxes.  Would the government collapse (or even really notice) if one joe schmoe doesn't pay his taxes?  No, it wouldn't.  But that doesn't make it okay for joe schmoe not to pay his taxes.  Sure, everyone else only has to pay some tiny fraction of a penny to make up for it, and wouldn't even notice the difference of just him not doing it.  But if everyone did it, then we would have huge problems.  We don't pay taxes because it gives us warm fuzzies.  We do it because it's necessary.  And even though any individual could not pay their taxes without the whole system falling over, no one individual has any more right to shirk their responsibility than anyone else, so we all have to chip in and do our insignificant-in-isolation part.


And I think those "other reasons" are where you and are I actually in a good deal of agreement.  It's just the "my vote won't make a difference" argument that I think is problematic.

The idea of 'voting is right' is also something I greatly dispute though.  It's only seen as 'right' because it holds social value.  I don't believe it has any inherent rightness in it.  Maybe that's another spot where voters and intentional non-voters disagree.

As far as I can see, replacing the action of voting with a lot of other actions is a great deal more moral. Again, that's a personal opinion, but it really does come across as offensive to claim that I am a less morally right person because I have a different opinion on how to be citizen - particularly when it replaces what I view as a symbolic action (voting) with a tangible action (community cleanup).

Paying taxes has some other very large incentives - prison for starters.

Sorry, wasn't my intent to say you weren't moral.  I was responding to your comment about "warm fuzzies" and the idea that voting was fine if you enjoy it or whatever, but had no value in itself.  My point was that it's not about warm fuzzies, it's about doing what you think is right, regardless of the pay off, as opposed to calling it the right thing because of the pay off it provides.  Your arguments have all been about the pay off, or the cost-benefit analysis or the like.  The argument I was giving was saying that that's not necessarily the right way to look at it.  In this case because you're depending on other people doing a necessary task for you, and if everyone does that, the job doesn't get done.


I find that answer...troubling.  It basically sounds like you'd be okay with tax avoidance if you knew you wouldn't get caught.  If that IS what you're saying, then I will go ahead and say that's not a very moral position, in my opinion.  But hopefully I'm misunderstanding your meaning here.

Tycho,

I have no problems paying taxes I use many of the services.  I was just saying that if the two were equally "purposeless" (which I don't think they are), there would still be other incentives to pay taxes (prison!).  Similar to how I would probably be forced to vote if I was going to be given a fine if I didn't.

I guess I'm not sure we've gone very far with the initial argument.  It sort of goes: being a citizen means voting, and that's the right thing to do, so even if it isn't actually the right thing to do in practical purposes, it's still the right thing to do theoretically.

However, all of that hinges on the first assumption, that voting, as a citizen, is by its very nature the right thing to do. I suppose that part would be in dispute by me.  I see it as neither right, nor wrong, in and of itself.

Three of those things normally take 20 minutes. If they're an issue, order an absentee ballot and do it that way. Filling out an absentee ballot takes all of five minutes. You can do it on the toilet if you want to be efficient, and it costs all of $.35.

As for research, that's a different question ... Yes, in a democracy (and really, in general), you should be educated on what is going on in your environment, how the economy is changing, how your government is acting in your name, etc. This isn't a question of politics; it's a question of normal living. Yes, I consider it essential to keep yourself aware of what is going on around you.

Of course, there are some things which may be totally political to you. Tax rates for groups other than your own, gun rights, etc. Stuff that have no direct impact for you. But then, you're not required to have an opinion on everything. If you don't think events in Syria are of special political importance, you can disregard you in choosing your favored candidate.

I consider myself pretty anal retentive about educating myself, but that just meant visiting each candidate's website and votesmarg.org and reading the voting history. That's maybe 10 minutes per candidate, if I'm slow. In reality, the political parties have made it much easier. Republican = pro-life, pro-gun, pro-religion, economy-focused. Democrat = pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-minority, focused on providing aid directly to citizens.

There are certainly some cases where I'd say it's justified to not vote. You're an astronaut in space busy doing space-stuff. You're the lead cancer researcher about to make a breakthrough that'll save millions of lives. You're deployed to West Africa saving lives from Ebola. But for the majority of us, an hour of our time doesn't save someone's life.

That's not really the argument I'm making.  The argument is that if nearly everyone didn't vote (as you're doing), there would be negative consequences (e.g., the crazy people who voted for themselves would get in, politicians would be completely unaccountable (even more so than they are now), etc.).  Those consequences won't occur if just you don't vote.  But they would if lots and lots of people acted the same way and didn't vote.  So somebody needs to put in some effort to make sure that those unwanted things don't happen.  Your "it makes no difference if I vote or not" is only true to the extent that everyone else doesn't suddenly agree with you and stop voting.  Your action is only viable (in the sense that you can do it without incurring the negative consequences) so long as everyone else doesn't do it.  And it's that fact that makes it problematic.  You're counting on other people not acting like you do, and that's where the morality becomes questionable.

It's not a case of saying "let's assume it's right to vote, therefore it's wrong to not vote."  Rather it's saying "what would happen if everyone didn't vote?  If the answer to that is something unacceptable, then no individual should be not voting, because doing so is free-loading off others."  If an action is morally right, then it should be the case that it's fine if everyone does it.  You shouldn't have a problem if everyone starts doing what's right.  So if you do have a problem if everyone takes action X, then it's probably not the case that X is "the right thing to do."  It's a way to find out IF an action is moral, not an argument from assumption that it is.

Put another way, "I like it and I can get away with it," isn't actually a good argument that something is moral.

$0.35 and 10 minutes is not worth it for me for an action I deem useless though.  Any time at all is too much.  It just isn't worth it.

Now, as to the importance of being educated about things, that's up for debate as well.  I find my life to be fuller and far more on task when I can replace that time with time spent enjoying coffee with a friend, or posting here at RPoL.  I just don't see much value is knowing the vast majority of things that people claim are important to know.

At such time when something suddenly becomes important (for example up north here, maybe it's important to start becoming aware about work camps and the effect they have on the local economy and infrastructure), I can then do the research, and if I decide I really need to change something, become involved with a lobby group that will actually bring about change (because that's where the real power lies as far as I can tell - in financially backed lobby groups).

I get it that these issues seem really important to people.  How my Edmonton Oilers perform on a Saturday night game is also really important to me.  In my view poltics and voting is a hobby, and some people take their hobby really seriously.  I don't.

I gotcha now. I agree, this is a strong theoretical argument.  Not really a practical one in my books.

Hmm, I guess I'm not sure what you mean by that.  I hope it's not a "yeah, that makes sense, but it'd be inconvenient for me, so I'm going to ignore it" argument?

Perhaps illustrating it with a different example would useful?  Say you have a friend who invites you to dinner out, and tells you that "this is my favorite restaurant!  I always get free food here, it's great!"
"Free food?" you ask, "how do you get free food?"
"well, they've got this policy, where if you're not happy with your meal, you don't have to pay.  So i just eat, tell them I'm not happy with it, and I get it free!  It's great!"
"Oh...isn't that, like, stealing or something?"
"Nah, it's there own policy.  It's their fault for having it if they don't want me to eat for free.  Besides this place does really good business.  A few free meals isn't going to hurt them."
"But, you you're not actually unhappy with the meals?  I mean, you eat them all, and say it's your favorite place to eat."
"yeah, yeah, you just have to tell them you're unhappy with it.  You don't actually have to be unhappy for real.  I mean, how are they going to know, anyway, right?"

This is a situation where I assume we both agree that the friend is acting unethically.  But they keep getting away with it, the restaurant seems to be doing fine, and the friend really likes doing it and considers it fine.  How would you go about convince them that what they're doing is wrong in a "practical" rather than "theoretical" way?

There is real and tangible damage being done in that situation.  The store now makes less money since I am eating more of their food and not paying for it.

There is (and never will be, it is all theoretical) no damage being done when I don't vote as an individual.  Yes, if everyone stopped voting there would be some bad stuff that could potentially happen.  But that will never happen, so it's not a real thing that can occur.  Furthermore, there is also a net benefit to society when I replace that action with other things.  The two situations are not comparable.

In reply to Doulos (msg # 102):

"But" the friend says, "there's no damage done here!  Look!  The restaurant is doing great business!  They're not going broke!  Look at all the customers here that pay!  They're not going to miss a few bucks from me now and then!  There is no harm at all!  Everyone is doing fine!  Also, I spend the money I save here on other stuff, so the economy benefits!  Everyone wins!  Sure, if everyone stopped paying it'd be a problem, but that's never going to happen.  It's not a real thing that could occur."

This seems like the same situation to me.  By saying "look, nothing changes if I vote or don't vote so it's okay" you're doing the same as the friend he they say "look, nothing changes if I pay or don't pay, so it's okay!"  In each case, the fact is that something is different when you do or don't pay/vote, but it's small enough to be unnoticed.  Just because the "big stuff" doesn't change (ie, the restaurant doesn't go out of business, and your vote doesn't decide the whole election), doesn't mean that there is no difference at all.

You say the tangible difference is that the restaurant makes less money.  What if the friend says "well, people who get a warm fuzzy from a restaurant making money are free to pay for their food.  But I just don't get anything out of them making money, so that doesn't do it or me.  I don't share the assumption that them making more money is necessarily a good thing."  Is there a counter argument to that?

The difference is that one is tangible and real and the other is theoretical.

There is real money coming out of the pocket of the restaurant when I take extra food.

Where is the real damage being done when I don't vote?  I'm not seeing it.

"But" says the friend "there is no tangible damage being done here.  Who cares if you take a tiny amount of money out of the pocket of the restaurant?  Why is it better for them to have the money than me?  Where is the real damage being done? I just don't see it."

To answer your question, the real damage is that when fewer people participate in voting, the message is sent that the population doesn't care what the representatives do.  It sends a message of apathy, and that leads to bad (or worse) behavior on the part of the representatives because they don't think people are paying attention, and wouldn't do anything about it even if they were.

Sure, your individual vote isn't going to change a politicians behavior from great to horrible.  But your friend's free meal isn't going to bankrupt the restaurant either.  Each is just a tiny action amongst many, many other actions that drown out its individual impact.  To the company, having $20 less at the end of the month is lost in the noise.  And to the politician, one less voter gets lost in the noise.  But those actions contribute to the state of things, and they add up.  Moreover, they influence other decision makers (ie, voters and restaurant-goers), and nudge them to do the same thing, which multiplies the impact of the action a bit.  If enough people start doing it, things get really bad.  So both you as a voter, and your friend as a restaurant-mooch, are depending on other people to not do what you do to make your actions viable.  It's banking on other people doing the less-fun task, so that you can get the benefits of doing the more fun thing.

If the restaurant idea doesn't do it for you, consider a small country deciding whether to curb its carbon emissions.  On it's own, it can't stop climate change.  So why should it do anything about it, when it'll hurt its economy to do so?

Or if that doesn't work, how about hunting endangered species?  Any individual hunter might only kill one or two animals a year.  That, by itself, isn't going to kill off the species.  Why should they stop, when their action has only a tiny impact on the population?

Or cutting down parts of the rainforest?  Any individual slash-and-burn farmer is only cutting down a few acres of a vast, vast forest.  The world wouldn't even notice whether he cut it down or not.  Why should he not cut it down, when his action alone wouldn't have any noticable impact on the overall amount of rainforest?

The answer to all these is that individual actions add up.  Just because one person doing X doesn't make a significant difference, don't assume that many people doing that doesn't make a big difference.

You're just one person, your individual vote wont' change the election result.  But if all the people who thought the same thing went out and voted it would have a huge impact.  You can't control other people, you can only control yourself.  You're like a little country considering what to do about climate change, or a single hunter wondering if he should shoot that tiger, or a farmer next to the rainforest considering whether or not to chop down more rainforest.  In isolation, your decision doesn't matter.  But the sum total of all those like you matter a great deal.

Put another way, if you only look at the effect of your actions weighed up against the effect of everyone else's actions, you'll always be able to justify whatever you do as making no real difference.  And that lets you convince yourself that almost any action is okay.  That's why we need "theoretical" reasoning about things like this.  To help us make decisions that have a tiny, but non-zero, impact on the world.  It helps us see which "team" to play on, even when the teams are so large it seems like it makes no difference which we pick.

Is it actually possible for enough people to ask for free food from a restaurant to start doing damage to the restaurant owners?  I would argue yes.

Is it actually possible for enough countries to cut carbon emissions to start making a difference? I would argue yes.

Is it actually possible for enough people to stop cutting down rainforest to actually make a difference?  I would argue yes.

Is it actually possible for enough people to stop hunting edangered specias to actually make a difference?  I would argue yes.

Is it actually possible for enough people to stop voting to actually make a difference?  This is where the real question lies.  If you can answer yes to this, then I'm willing to admit that there might be a case for voting (of course this is assuming this is the only reason not to vote - which as we've decided, it isn't).

I'm really not interested in theoretical thought games that have no bearing on reality.  Voting is such an ingrained social behaviour that I find it almost impossible to imagine a real scenario in which enough people would stop doing so to cause elected officials to feel like they can now officially ignore voters.



This is a really good point, and if not voting does actually lead to this then perhaps there is a case for voting. I'm not convinced this is true, though it would be extremely difficult to try and test.

Somehow you'd need to track elected official's behaviour and attitudes and chart it against the percentage of eligible voters as it went up or down.

If anything I wonder if the opposite is true.  In my city there is a municipal election going on.  Last municipal election there was a voter turnout of about 23% of the eligible population.  In discussing this issue with someone who is very involved in the local political scene he mentioned how important the current candidates felt it was to really impress the few number of voters that were actually expected to turn up for this year's election - since each individual vote, in their mind, held more value.  So, while I don't buy that line of thinking from a statistical standpoint, in the minds of those running for office, they actually feel even more pressure to do what is needed to get elected. Does that carry forward to similar behaviours after they are elected?  I am unsure.

In short, I've yet to see any tangible thing that will change if I don't vote, except that I now have more time to improve my community in other actual tangible ways.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:43, Tue 11 Nov 2014.

In reply to Doulos (msg # 106):

I guess my reply to that is that in the last EU rep election here in scotland ended up with a UKIP representative because so few people bothered to vote.  UKIP is pretty unpopular in scotland, but managed to convince their supporters to get out and vote, while everyone else stayed at home.  UKIP got 10% of the vote, in an election with only about 30% turnout. So by everyone else being apathetic about it, UKIP (which is an anti-EU party) managed to get a seat at the EU representing a country where they're very unpopular.

People being apathetic about voting leads to them getting representatives they don't want.  This happens.  It's not just theory.

Interesting situation. I'm going to look into it!

EDIT:  I have some interesting thoughts on this.  Perhaps later today!
This message was last edited by the player at 17:17, Tue 11 Nov 2014.

Democracy is not the best way to go in most cases.  It allows those without much knowledge to vote on issues that could affect many lives.  A democracy means there is no law except that which is voted on by a majority of the populace.  That would be a scary society indeed.

A representative democracy or republic is much preferred.  People vote for their representative leaders, who then bear the responsibility of gaining all the knowledge needed to vote for their contingencies' best interests while staying within the confines of the law.

First, it has been assumed that voter apathy is to be "blamed" on this vote. That's not clear from the articles.  It could have been that those who did not vote would have strengthened the outcome, it's tough to say.

Second, who is to say that this is a bad outcome?  How do we know that this isn't exactly what is best for Scotland?  The theory behind voting is that if I don't, the entire system will fall apart, not that some other third party will get elected.

Third, one single vote would have done nothing to change the outcome, so I still am unconvinced.

I would like to put forth that if all those non-voters volunteered 30 minutes of their time during the election to do something of real value for their country, that they could have done some massive good.

Just to state the final point on this.  The issue is rather self explanatory.  If you do not participate in something that you have the right to participate, you should not complain about the results.  That is a self evident rule.  Can you complain? Yes.  Does it seem awkward to the rest of society? For the most part, yes.  I simply do not see the argument in favor of not voting.  Why is better not to vote at all?

For example, if you don't help bake the pie that someone gives you to eat, you shouldn't complain about what its ingredients are.

These are rules that you made up, sorry, but I don't agree at all.  When the entire system is broken, and you choose to remove yourself from the system, it's completely appropriate to complain about the outcome of that system (when someone who is elected does an extremely poor job).

Let's assume you are stranded on an island with 9 other people.  A system is devised whereby everyone will vote on whether to punch themselves in the face, or punch themselves in the stomach.  Regardless of whether you choose to participate in the vote, you will also be punched in one of the two places.

All 9 of the others cast their vote, but you decide to spend the time that they spent voting, instead looking for a way off the island.  After the vote everyone gets punched in the voted upon area and it hurts - a LOT!

Under this scenario you are basically the only one who has a right to complain, because you knew that both options were poor, and you were the only one who knew this and decided not to take part in that action, instead doing your best to find another way to improve the situation.  All of those who did vote are the ones who look silly for complaining, given that both options were bad.

Now, take this scenario and increase the numbers to 1,000,000 people.  Not only are both options bad in their own way, but the odds of your vote actually influencing things are next to none.  It's absurd to even take part in te whole process and absurd for those who vote to complain when things are crappy in the end.  Only those of us wise enough to opt out of the situation have maintained the right to complain.

Now you have my view on why I don't vote, and why complaining (which I don't bother with anyways), is really only the right of those who don't vote.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:30, Wed 12 Nov 2014.

In reply to Doulos (msg # 112):

Doesn't your viewpoint assume that somehow withdrawing from the system makes a difference? That, by refusing to participate, you somehow aren't responsible for the problems that the system creates in your absence? Further, that if enough people agreed with you, and withdrew from the system (i.e., refused to vote) as well, that the system itself would be more open to fundamental change (such that you'd be willing to participate/vote)?

I think this is more of a question of "responsibility" rather than "right;" it's silly to ask if one has the "right to complain" about something because everyone has the "right" to complain about anything. The real question we should be asking is if voting makes someone responsible for the outcome of the system, even if the outcome is the undesired one (the one you didn't vote for), and if, conversely, not voting completely removes responsibility for what happens.

Correct me if I'm wrong, D., but it seems to me that, in your viewpoint, because one does not vote, and "opts out" of the system, their hands are clean of whatever the system decides to do.

Imagine we have a voter pool of 4 individuals (A, B, C, & D), to vote on an issue with 2 possible outcomes: one beneficial to society (in favor), and one not beneficial, or selfish (in opposition). In this example, all one needs is a simple majority, or else the proposition fails. Let's say that A votes in favor, and B votes in opposition. If C votes in opposition, the vote is tied 1:2 against the proposition that would benefit society.

Now, if D decided to not vote, the negative outcome for society occurs, whereas if D voted in favor, D could prevent the negative outcome. I think you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that if D neglected to act, that D would not be somehow responsible (i.e., the cause of) for what happened; after all, it was in D's power to make a difference (in this case, D was the deciding factor).

What does this mean for our real world voting? It demonstrates that one's responsibility is tied to the difference that one's vote makes. In a voter pool of 100,000, one's vote counts for only a very small fraction of the pool as a whole, so one's individual responsibility is also very small. However, the responsibility remains; by refusing to vote, one is still responsible (even if in a very small way) for the system's outcome. One cannot wash one's hands completely of culpability simply by neglecting to participate, for to not vote costs a vote for the option that would have been more favorable.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:29, Wed 12 Nov 2014.

Sure, that makes some sense.  I'll gladly take responsibility for the infitisimal amount by not voting, particularly since I am replacing that time with tangible actions (such as cleaning up our local school playground).

In the end, I become more convinced every election that voting is a symbolic action that feels good and gives people the sense that are contributing to the democratic process.  That's not a bad thing, but it does nothing for me personally.  I teach my kids that real world actions are far more important, and lead by example - by cleaning parks instead. In my mind I am raising more effective civilians in our world.  However, should the decide that they also want to vote to feel a part of society, that's fine as well.

The initial question that started all of this is whether non-voters have the right to complain.  I say yes, and that they have more of a right than voters.  Others say no.

The real answer is that both sides should probably replace the time spent complaining on something more constructive.

I'm a little surprised this took the turn it did.

Low voter turnout DOES have a major impact. It's pretty well documented, and you can find it in any google search. This is especially true in the midterms. The people with the highest showing at midterm elections are older, especially retired people, who by and large vote for the exact same candidate they did last time. People below 40 have very poor showing, and below 25 barely appear at all. What is the result? Well, you get the same people in office that you had last year, and continue to have a congress with a 10% approval rating.

There are certainly specific instances as well. Established candidates especially want to *reduce* the number of voters overall, because of the rule I mentioned above. We saw this in the Bush/McCain primary elections of 2000, where McCain was considered the new guy, and far more moderate than Bush. But Bush pulled him into a media sniping war. Voter frustration rose, turn-out was low, Bush swept it, even though he had a lower popular vote than McCain. Obama beat Bush specifically because he managed to push it the other direction, by motivating people to vote who otherwise would not.

In general, low-voting turnout is also a major contributor to Republicans winning races: http://www.cincinnati.com/stor...p-election/18557257/ Even though democrats seem to be more popular, and certainly have more money, they don't get as many people into voting booths. As a consequence, they lose.

Let's assume that's true.  My response is so what?  If I vote in a year where there is low turnout my vote won't matter.  If I vote in a year where there is high voter turnout my vote won't matter.  Only if I vote in a perfectly impossible situation, where the vote is decided by one vote, will my vote matter.

Not quite true. One of the factors that influence voter turnout is other people voting.  Via word of mouth, people who don't vote influence others to not vote; so if there's a large group of people who feel like their vote doesn't matter, they convince many others that their vote doesn't matter.

Don't think of your vote as needing to be the only deciding factor.  Think of your vote as one stone in an avalanche.  By itself, it may not do much, but it can make other stones start falling.

That's still quite theoretical.  Picking garbage isn't.

When the best responses to why I should vote include arguments such as 'see your vote like a rock in an avalanche' you can see why it might be difficult to take voting seriously ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:51, Wed 12 Nov 2014.

It's not my best analogy, but: voter apathy is one of the biggest reasons for low voter turnout.  And quite often, that's fueled by the "my vote never matters" attitude.  The more people who believe their vote matters, the more people who actually vote, and that does make a difference.

Well their vote (as an individual) doesn't matter, so it turns out they are right.

You guys can throw all sorts of theoreticals out there, but the truth is one single person's vote doesn't matter.

This isn't a theoretical.  If you vote, you inspire others to vote too.  In the same vein thinking your vote doesn't matter discourages others from voting.

Just because your single vote isn't the deciding factor doesn't mean your vote doesn't matter.

Right, but the number of voters who vote does not change the outcome of my vote mattering (by important amounts).  Unless of course the number of voters who actually vote drops to absurdly low numbers like 1.

So, if its true that my voting or not-voting encourages/discourages others to do likewise (not sure to what degree this is actually true), then all it does it move that total number of voters around a bit, but doesn't increase the actual value of my one single vote by any sort of important amount.

For example, let's say my not-voting encourages 50 other people in my community to do the same.  In the local municipal election there will be about 1200 votes.

So the value of my vote goes from 1/1200, up to 1/1150 - still astronomically small chances of that one vote actually mattering since those 1150 votes would have to split down the middle exactly 575 to 575, with my 1 vote being the swing vote.

My one act of not voting may drop the total numbers by 0.05% (which is having an awful lot of faith in the influence I have in not voting), but the actual effectiveness of my one single vote has not gone up by that same amount because of the way elections work.

You're not seeing the big picture.

Let's say, on average, you voting (actually, attitude towards voting, but they're very closely related) encourages five people to vote.  That doesn't seem like much, except those five people will each inspire five more.  They'll each inspire five more, so we're already looking at 125 people who now vote who might not have before.

It keeps going, exponentially raising each time, turning into a movement.  In the same way that one random comment online can become a meme, you can influence thousands of people through word of mouth.

Of course, the real world doesn't work this way, partly because of what you do-- by not voting (well, having a bad attitude about voting) you discourage people from voting.  They discourage others, and the result cascades.  When the two waves hit each other, they can cancel out, so it takes another push to start it going one way or another again.

That's why your vote is important.  When you vote, you show you have a positive attitude towards voting, which makes others feel more positive about voting.  That helps beat voter apathy.  Your vote really does matter, just not in the way you think it does.

And who knows?  Sometimes it does matter in that way.  In 2004, the Washington state governor's election was won by 130 votes.  I have more friends than that on Facebook, so if I had posted something on my wall, I could have influenced the election.

I believe you are giving way too much credit to the power of one non-voter.  However, if a massive movement happened where vast numbers of people stopped voting and instead performed other tangible civil actions, like volunteering, I am convinced our world would be a much better place.

In reply to Doulos (msg # 124):

While I certainly won't dispute the benefits of volunteering (in fact, I commend you for your dedicated volunteerism), it really doesn't make for a good argument againt voting. After all, you can volunteer any time you want, whereas voting only comes around once and a while. I would understand if, for some reason, poll days were the only days that you were available to volunteer, but I somehow doubt that this is the case.

I recently moved to a new state, and voted in the last general election. Because I wasn't familiar with any of the candidates, I did a minute amount of reading to familiarize myself with their positions. Then, I drove down and dropped off my ballot. All and all, it took little time at all, but can you really make the argument that one shouldn't vote just because your time might be better served doing something else? If that was true, then, by that logic, you would be required to always act within the best interest of society. I might ask you: why are you here on RPoL, when you could be cleaning up city streets, or serving in a soup kitchen?

For some reason, the notion that society would be better spent by volunteerism rather than a selfish matter, like RPoL (or voting, as you would argue), only seems to really strike a chord with you when it comes time to vote. It sounds more like you are fishing for excuses rather than defending your position.

I mean, I too recognize that I could be out there counseling people about their medications, but I'm here talking to you all here instead. That's a selfish action, don't you think? Wouldn't you think me a hypocrite if, for some reason, I stated that I don't have the time to take someone's kid to school because I need to counsel people on their medications? If voting was important to you, you would surely make time for it. So, your argument should be less about "voting is a waste of my time, since I could be doing better things," and more about, "I don't value the act of voting itself."

Edit:

This sounds less like an argument against voting, and more like an argument against every activity that doesn't involve activities considered to be "tangible" civil actions, or volunteering. However, we're talking about participating in the democratic process; as I demonstrated earlier, your vote matters (even if only in a very, very small amount, depending on the situation).

While we'd both probably agree that the world would be a better place if people watched television for a half hour less, and volunteered a half hour more, it doesn't seem quite fair to equate the act of voting to half of an episode of Law and Order, does it?
This message was last edited by the player at 04:12, Thu 13 Nov 2014.

I can't really think of any more ways to restate my stance on this, so I'll have to let it go I suppose.  This is typically what happens in these conversations - though this has been cordial and respectful, which is always great!

I trust you will all enjoy carrying on as a civilian in our society as you see fit, and I will do the same.  Hopefully there can be some mutual respect towards both voters and non-voters as we make our decisions based on our understanding of the world.

Perhaps, but it was only an illustration, not a fact-based example.  However, the point is that your attitude toward voting really does matter.  In the internet age, you can spread your opinions faster and wider than ever before, so the ability to influence many other people into voting (or not voting) is very real.

And yes, volunteering is a great thing, and a good way to make your voice heard.  However, not everyone can volunteer freely-- I'm disabled, for example, so it's not easy for me to help in many ways.  Another way to vote is with your wallet, although that means rich people have more voice, and poorer people have none.  Voting is a simple and easy way to make your voice heard, and it's balanced in a way that money isn't.

In reply to Grandmaster Cain (msg # 127):

If you believe that is true than you it makes sense to vote. I dont believe that it is anything more than a symbolic action.

Symbolic acts can be quite strong.  Most protests are largely symbolic-- even a large sit-in or boycott won't hurt a major company's profits overly much.  What symbolic things are good at is convincing others to act, even if it's symbolic.  So again, your choosing to vote can and does inspire others to vote.

Doulos, do you feel its something particular about your vote that makes it not matter, or does no ones vote matter?  It seems to me that your argument is that your voting or not voting will not change the outcome of the election.  But that seems like it should be equally true for everyone.  And yet elections do have outcomes.  How could it be that everyone's vote makes no difference, and yet we end up with a result?  Who's vote matter?  Who cast the deciding vote?

Your argument seems to rest on the assumption that voting or not voting makes no difference.  But you need to explain how someone can get elected, if none of the votes had any impact on the result.  How can you add up a bunch of "nothings" and get "something?"  I would argue this disproves the assumption on which your argument rests.  Thoughts?

Let's just assume for one second that voting and picking up trash are equivalent actions... because one person doing either activity on their own can't have much impact.

It is only when significant numbers commit to either action that a noticeable benefit occurs. For Duolos the benefit of one is immediate and obvious (cleaner environment, perhaps), but for those promoting voting encourage it because the people in power represent all the people and even if you vote for the losing side, every side sees how "the voters" went on the issues at hand and adjusts their marketing campaign to suit the majority of voters.

Again, this is all great in some vague theoretical sense, but it doesn't negate the fact that my singular vote, particularly in a federal election, has an astronomically small chance of doing anything.  This is one of those areas in life where I just can't intentionally waste time on an action when it is only symbolic.

I don't really concern myself with the theoretical too much here.  I do admit that you pose an interesting thought experiment, and I don't really have a good answer, but I just sort of shrug and say 'Okay, but so what?'

To make things clear, I think playing video games would also be a good replacement for voting.  Or sleeping.  Or drinking coffee and enjoying the day.  All of those actions provide real enjoyment to my life and voting does not.

If significant numbers vote, does it bring a benefit?  I'm not sure.  What if I am in the minority opinion?  Then it brings a horrible outcome for me.  Voting just shuffles around the deck chairs on the political Titanic - to get a different version of the same corrupt individual into power.  That's a whole other reason not to vote, but it's a real one as well.

And yet, even though this is just as true for everyone else, things still happen due to people voting.  How could that been if voting didn't matter?  You've asserted something ("my vote doesn't impact the outcome") which if true would contradict observations.  That shows the assertion isn't true.

For what it's worth, the more you defend your position, the less sympathetic I've become to it.  When you started the conversation, I was happy to agree that there are legitimate reasons for someone not voting.  And I wasn't really too fussed if someone didn't vote even without a good reason.  But you also seem to be asking for people to respect what you're doing, not just tolerate it.

Your reasons basically boil down to two things:
1.  It's too much effort
2.  voting doesn't have an impact
The first I would argue is called into question by the fact that so many other people manage to pull it off.  And "it's too much effort" isn't all that different from "I'm too lazy."  If you had just said "I'm too lazy," I'd have had a bit more respect for it.  But you keep trying to portray it as something more than just laziness, which sort of rubs me the wrong way a bit.
For the second, we've just shown that it's actually not true.  You say it's just "theoretical," but that's not really a counter.  I don't see it any different from the hypothetical not-paying-for-their-dinner friend I mentioned before.  As far as I can tell "it's just theoretical" is functionally the same as "I can get away with it."  So again, by trying to claim some kind of moral position for what you're doing actually makes me less sympathetic to your position.

If you said "I really just don't care who wins" (similar to what you did in your very last post) I could see that as a totally legit reason not to vote.  But all the stuff you've been arguing through most of the thread just sounds like trying to justify laziness and apathy instead of owning up to it.

It seems like it may be one of those cases where trying to rationalize what others see as a bad habit, you actually end up offending them more than the habit itself does.

Here's another perspective: Doulos, you seem to be saying "My/your vote doesn't count unless it's the one that decides the election".  Which, in addition to being untrue, strikes me as a little arrogant.  The point of voting is to show the will of the people-- it's a collective opinion, so single-vote grandstanding seems to go against that.

You seem to be creating an either/or situation, when the reality is both are true.

Is it true that in mass numbers elections are decided by votes?  Yes.

Is it true that my one singular vote has an almost zero chance of actually determining an election (at least at the federal level).  Yes.

Both are true and one fact does not negate the reality of the other.  How to reconcile those things? No idea.

As for the rest of your post, I guess I should lay out all of the reasons (that I can think of) for not voting.  I don't feel as if you've done a very good job of summing up my position, but I'd say that's my own fault for doing a poor job of clarifying it since we have mostly been focusing on only one aspect of why I don't vote.

1) My vote will not change what will happen - and so the risk (getting hit by a car, slipping on ice on the way to the voting booth etc) is not worth the reward (ie zero) of voting.

2) Becoming informed on the incredible nuances of the political system, and everything that is involved, is a massive job.  There are reasons why entire sections of Universities are devoted to Economics and Political Science.  It's highly complex and superintelligent people can't agree on most of it.  I use to be highly involved in politics, spent a lot of time informing myself on the issues, volunteered with Elections Canada, and the whole ordeal.  And never did I ever feel like I knew enough.

3)  Those being voted in have proven they will rarely do what they say they will do, so informing myself on the issues is a waste of time in many (though not all) cases anyways.

4) Lobby groups have shown themselves to be the real driving factor behind political change as far as I can tell. If I really thought that changing things in certain areas was important I would use my dollars and lobby groups to try and change things.

5) I've discovered that my own happiness in life has zero connection to politics or voting.  Almost all of what I truly care about in life comes from relationships, coffee time, leisure time, fun etc.  I found that I became a much happier and more enjoyable person to be around when I cut out politics from my life.  Does politics have an effect on the other areas of my life that I enjoy? Sure. But far less than most people might assume.

I am sure there are other reasons I am missing, but these are far more than enough for me personally.

I like what one section from an article at reason.org has to say this.

You seem to be hung up on this point.  Refusing to vote because the election does not hang on your one ballot seems rather arrogant to me.  Also, it's incorrect, since every vote determines the election.

Incorrect, as demonstrated earlier.  Just because your vote doesn't determine the election does not mean your vote does not matter.

Many people vote who are not informed on the issues.  If anything else, this means your vote is even more important, since you apparently do.

Also untrue.  According to Polifact, Obama has kept 45% of his promises, and only broken 22%.  The rest are either compromises, or are stalled or otherwise in the works.  So, he's made reasonable efforts on 78% of his promises.  I wouldn't call that "rarely".  The Congressional GOP has a rate of 38% promises kept, 32% broken, for a total of 68% reasonable effort.  That's much lower, but still the majority of the time, so it's not "rarely".

Not as true as you might think.  There have been many elections where special interests poured money into campaigns, only to lose in the election.  In fact, the only way to counter that is when informed people do vote.

There's an old saying by Neimoller: "First, they came for the Jews...."  You can look it up if you like, but the idea is that if you don't speak up and act however you can while problems are small and affect other people, there won't be anyone to speak up and act when problems are big and they come for you.

Call it arrogance if you want, I don't see how it's anything but 100% true.



I disagree.



I'm not concerned with others.  Only myself.



Fair enough.  I incorrectly used the word majority.  They only lie 22% at best.  That's hardly convincing me to waste my time voting for liars.  I mean they only lie about 1/4 of what they say right?



Just my experience with it all.  Your mileage may vary. Of course special interest groups and lobbies will not always get what they want, but they have a lot more power than my 1 in 10 million of a chance of a vote.



While the voters go and vote and feel like they have done a good deed, I'll be standing by actually doing good in this world.  This quote you brought up basically sums up the competely disgusting arrogance of the voting crowd.  Well done.

It's arrogance because you're refusing to vote unless you can single-handedly determine the outcome of the election.  That's rather counter to the whole idea of voting in the first place, right?


Well, first of all, there's a difference between lying and not keeping a promise.  Both are bad, but you're conflating the two.

Second, everybody breaks promises.  I'd wager if we looked over all the promises and commitments you've made over your life, you wouldn't do much better.  Really, I don't think many humans would.


And those who do actual good deeds, plus vote, therefore must be doing significantly more good in the world.  They're not mutually exclusive, you know.

Well, I think the arrogance comes from those who vote and look down on those who do not for very good reasons.

Well, as demonstrated, that's because there is a lot of good reasons to do so.  Voting is an easy, low-effort, way of making your voice heard.  It's also the most equitable.  Refusing to vote is a lot like refusing free food because it's too cold to leave your house.

Oh, wait... is that not what you meant?   =P

I'd say voting is more like being told to head downtown and wait in line for 45 minutes so that you can be offered cardboard cutouts of food that actually don't give you any nutrients ;)

Unfortunately, I think this is the part of your message that is getting through, which is what is putting people off.  Your position seems lazy and selfish because that's the case you're making for yourself (ie: "its too much effort" and "It'd only be worth it if I could decide the entirely election completely on my own.").

The sticking point for me is still this idea that unless you cast "the deciding vote" that your vote "makes no difference" or "doesn't matter."  Voting is a collective action.  No one, single person gets to make the decision.  That's sort of the point of voting, not a flaw.  Your position basically boils down to "I'll only contribute if my vote is the one that counts."  That really doesn't come off well, and expecting/demanding that people respect it comes off even worse.

I also think that if one really thinks only "the" deciding vote matters, then that really inhibits their ability to make moral decisions to a degree.  Who is responsible for driving a species extinct?  Only the person who kills the very last member, or everyone who's killed members?  The whole "I don't care about others, just myself" position ignores that your actions contribute to the final result, even if they don't bring it about all by themselves.  Or think about the litter you clean up.  Who is responsible for the park being full of litter?  Just the person who dropped the first bit of trash?  The person who dropped the last bit?  Or everyone who's dropped stuff there?  Is the 50th person to throw their cig butt on the ground less guilty than the person who threw the 49th or 51st?  Does their action "no matter" or "make no difference" just because the park would still be littered whether they threw it down or not?

The small actions of many can add up to large effects.  Whether you are contributing to that large effect matters, even if your own actions can't/won't bring it about in isolation.  If we don't understand that, we can end up helping make things worse.

Like I said earlier, that you don't vote doesn't really matter all that much to me.  But the reasoning you're showing in arguing your case does bother me, because it's the same kind of thinking that leads to so many of the problems in the world today.  Far too many people think "oh, it's fine if I do X, because I'm just one person," and that leads to far too many people doing X, with all the problems that causes.  We'll never solve many of the worlds problems if everyone only looks at their actions in isolation.

You're misunderstanding the context of that quote.

Obviously I don't have the ability to properly communicate my thoughts here, so I guess I'll just drop it.

Enjoy your voting.  I'm sincerely glad it works for you and allows you to feel connected to your community and to the process of democracy.  It sure doesn't for me (or for the 75% of the population that also didn't vote in this weekend's municipal election in my city).

Obviously the attitudes of voters are not going to become any less negative (if this discussion is any indication) on this issue.  That's unfortunate, but hopefully in time things will change.

And right there's the problem.  If 75% of people aren't voting, how can the will of the people be heard?

Voter apathy is a killer.  It means the election doesn't go to the one the people want, but to the candidate who gets his friends to the polls.

Assuming what you say is true (and I have no reason to doubt you) then if you and that 75% had voted, you could have altered the outcome of the election.  So, voting does make a difference.

The fact that you are using the word apathy means I have either completely failed at relating my position (most lkely) or you are intentionally ignoring my points (far less likely).

Apathy is not the reason I don't vote at all.  I care a great deal about tons of issues but believe voting does nothing to fix those issues.

Admittedly, Voter Apathy is a catchall term.  However, "I don't care because it doesn't matter" is a decent description of apathy, and I believe that's close to your point.

However, the bigger problem is that it's untrue.  You said 75% of the population didn't vote where you are. What that means is, only 25% did vote.  So, if the 75% had voted as a bloc, they could have pushed through anything they wanted, the 25% was simply not big enough.

Now, having both vote as a bloc is unrealistic.  However, most election results have a swing of 20% or less of the vote.  That means swing voters count for a lot more, they're the ones who determine the election.  So, the actual number of votes required to win an election is much smaller.

In other words, you vote *does* matter, because the deciding voter group is much smaller than you think.  Also, even if your side loses, the closeness of an election can send a strong message.

That's some political-level wordsmithing there GMC  :)  Clearly you're passionate about this topic - I'd say the emotional payoff for you to vote is certainly there, even if I believe the practical ones are non-existant.

That's because when intelligent people vote, we get intelligent results.  Unfortunately, the converse is true, too.  You strike me as being intelligent, which means your vote is important.

That the new chair of the environment committee is also an author of a book about 'debunking' global warming does tell me we need more educated voters.

In a way, I wonder if that isn't the better perspective to take. Yes, one voter is a mote in the water. But activists who manage to push hundreds or thousands of voters (or working in a team who can push hundreds of thousands) do make measurable differences--as long as they are successful in motivating those people to follow the activist and put out the vote. If the activist is out there and most people respond 'why bother'--yeah, that's not changing anything.

I'd say that's another shot in the arm for lobbyists from my perspective.  Rather than voting.

First of all, you have your terms wrong.  Lobbyists go after elected officials, and try and sway them.  They don't have much to do with the popular vote.  That's kind of a nitpick, but the difference is important.

Activists are the ones who try and get people to vote.  Largely because most elections depend on voter turnout-- the side that gets more people voting tends to win.  Corporate money can influence this, by buying a lot of advertising, but it doesn't always work.

If you look at the history of elections in the past 60 years or so, you'll see that about 40% always votes Republican, no matter what.  About 40% always vote Democrat. So, it's the 20% "undecided" voters who win elections.  That's assuming they vote, of course-- otherwise, it comes down to which side gets more people to the polls.

That's why voting, and activism, is so important.  It takes fewer votes than you think to turn an election.  That's why not only do activists try and get their side to the polls, but sometimes they'll try to convince the other side to stay home.  In effect, you're still voting when you stay home-- only this time, someone else decides where your vote goes.

You're right, my mistake.  I misread that post and thought he was referring to lobbyists.

Lobbyists do both. Classic lobbyists move only to the politicians, but realistically, lobby groups also push adverts, activate people, run voter drives, etc. ACORN, NRA, Planned Parenthood, etc. all push people to vote (in their way).

This still strikes me as an interesting topic. I know that you're the only representative for the "non-voter" side, Doulos, so I thank you for your continued participation.



On the "time" issue, I simply don't believe that you lack the sufficient time to vote. If you valued voting, you would almost certainly make time for it, so I don't believe that this is a viable excuse. I think that you simply do not value voting, since you'd rather be "playing video games...Or sleeping...Or drinking coffee and enjoying the day," because, "All of those actions provide real enjoyment to my life and voting does not." Thus, I think this is the point that we should be focusing on: the reasons for which you don't value voting.



I seriously doubt that you actually live your life in this fashion. Why not simply have food delivered to your doorstep, rather than go to the grocery store, then? Why drive to work, when you can work from home? We all make little risks every day-- it's part of being human.

Furthermore, simply fill out a mail-in ballot-- problem solved.



Of course it is, but that's irrelevant-- voting doesn't require that you be familiar with every possible nuance of the political spectrum, such that you could teach a course at the university level. It doesn't take too much brain power to consider if one is either in favor of "pro-choice," or "pro-life;" gay marriage or not; higher taxes or not; etc. While these issues are surely more complex, no one is asking that you become an expert on any of them. I tend to believe that human beings are competent enough to know their own preferences, and that enough should empower you to vote.

With regards to what candidates support what, there are a plethora of online resources available. I completed my mail-in ballot in about twenty minutes, using the League of Women Voters tool, which impartially outlined the stance of every politician in my area (since I was unfamiliar with them, having moved).



In other words, you believe that your representatives will not act upon their promises. While it is true that voters may not get everything they want from their elected official, it is patently absurd to suggest that politicians will "rarely" act in the interests of their constituents. After all, they wouldn't continue to be re-elected, right?



Lobbyists are usually mere citizens like you and me. Politicians are happy to confess that their positions will respond to lobby pressure, and it's true. You have the power to lobby your politicians, just as anyone else does, but the difference is that most people will not. While I've never gotten a personal reply to a letter I've written for a politician, my voice was still heard. Lobbying is almost a kind of informal voting, in which politicians get to see how badly people really care about certain issues. Sure, people vote, but lobbying an extra step that most people simply do not take. However, it has an enormous impact on politicians, and rightfully so.

While corporations have their own lobbyists as well, you shouldn't underestimate the power of citizen lobbying for a cause you believe in. Politicians aren't experts on everything, and need their citizens to help inform them on important issues; they have a whole team of staff that works around the clock to interpret and summarize expert advice, or even the advice of an emotional parent, or a passionate school teacher. Your voice does matter, but only if you make it heard.



If your happiness has zero connection to politics, than you're arguing that none of the issues matter to you. After all, no matter the outcome, you could honestly care less. If that is really the truth, then you're right-- there really is no reason for you to vote. However, I simply find it hard to believe that you don't even have an opinion on political issues. Do you pay taxes? Do you care about the curriculum of our children? Are you a feminist? Are you in favor of war, or against? The list goes on and on. Politics affects your life, even if "far less than most people might assume;" however, I think that politics actually affects your life in more ways than you realize.



Here is another piece of rationale that I picked out, though it ties into your third and fifth points. It seems to me that your position also relies upon the notion that there is little to no distinction between our representatives (or, rather, what they might do if elected). While this is certainly true for certain issues (and in certain races), it is not true for all of them. While I myself did not vote for any particular judge (since I believe that either candidate could do the job), I voted in favor of other candidates that actually had significant differences of political opinion.

I wonder if you don't see any differences because there are no issues that matter to you. If so, then like I said before: you probably shouldn't vote. However, if you're not completely apathetic to the outcome of political elections (which would first, of course, force you to admit that the outcomes themselves matter, even though you've argued against that notion), then you really should have a vested interest in the political process.

Some groups do both lobbying and voter activisim,  The thing to realize is that they're separate goals, with separate methods.  They're not mutually exclusive, but you can't call them the same thing either.

I have time enough in my life to do anything, so in that sense you're correct.  I only mean that since I consider the payoff to participate in the act of voting to be zero, any time spent above zero is too much.



Agreed.  I am willing to take little risks as long as I perceive that there is a certain benefit to it (eating the pizza, the social aspect of work etc).  In the case of voting there is a perception of zero benefit to me, so I am willing to take exactly that much risk to participate in that action.



I could get a paper cut!  This seems silly, but going back to the previous point, if the benefit is exactly zero then any effort above zero is too much.



I'm not certain you wouldn't get some push back from people on this.  All of the time I hear from people about how the uninformed, or the poorly informed, should not vote.  The tricky part is the line of 'how informed is enough' is different for everyone.

What muddies the waters even more is that I wonder if someone who did zero research and just voted based on the colour of t-shirt would get more respect from the average vote supporters than someone who does not vote.  I could be wrong on that count though.

Also, I think you've touched on one of the things I take issue with in politics as well.  I realized over time that the massive hot button issues were many times not really on the table despite the air time they were given.  Abortion, or gay marriage was given so much attention in some of these elections and seen as dividing marks between certain political parties, but in reality, neither party was really interested in dealing with that particular issue one way or another.



I agree, the word rarely is probably not correct, as pointed out earlier in this discussion.  In and of itself, this may not be the strongest reason not to vote, but when mixed in with the all of the other ones it seems to just add to the frustration level.

However, I do not think politicians need to do what they say they will to get elected, particulary since great numbers of people will vote along party lines no matter what that party member does.



This got me thinking, and I guess you're right.  Politics does have an affect on my life.  Perhaps I can only say that there is an inverse relation between my own enjoyment of life and my own involvement in politics.  So, yes, politics is always going to have an affect on things I care about, but I can enjoy those things more if I can stay away from the politics themselves.  If that makes any sense.




I must admit that part of my reluctance to really be too passionate about some of these things is the fact that my own beliefs and stances have changed so drastically over time.

I used to be a politically engaged, conservative Christian in full time ministry who wouldn't watch R-Rated movies, was vehemently opposed to gay marriage and Harry Potter, and subscribed heavily to Just War.

Now I'm an agnostic who is totally pro gay marriage who is reading Harry Potter to his kids in the evenings, doesn't engage with politics at all, and can really get down with a well done movie, even if it's R-rated!  I even went through a time where I thought pacifism was the way to (but have sort of edged away from that a bit as of late).

When your own deeply held beliefs become so radically altered you start holding things very lightly, and voting, political discussions about hot button topics, and arguments over whether Rowling is turning today's youth into witches just don't seem as important any more.  I still have those discussions, just as I am having this discussion here, but most of the real important stuff seems to happen on the personal level these days.  The beauty of this is that perhaps one day I'll see a reason to vote again, because 'Hey - I've basically radically altered a great deal of the other beliefs in my life - why not this one yet again!'

This part I can totally understand. It isn't so much a question of researching politics, but experiencing life.

Oddly enough, that's why your vote is so important!

Like I said earlier, the important votes are the swing voters-- people who can see both sides of a debate, and vote as they see fit.  The vast majority of people only vote along party lines-- whatever the Republicans or Democrats say they should vote for, they vote for.  So, the votes of the intelligent, thoughtful people who actually consider the issues really matters.

See, this is a much better reason for not voting.  I could be very sympathetic to the position that "I'm not sure I'll want the same thing next year as I do right now," position, and if that's your main reason for not voting, I'm much more okay with it.

BUT...

It does sort of raise two issues:
1.  It sort of undermines or conflicts with your "my vote doesn't matter" argument.  If your vote doesn't matter, why does it matter that you don't know for sure what you'll want next year?  I'd say that's a good thing, though.  The "my vote doesn't matter" argument is the one that people don't like, in large part because it's not true.  So using this argument instead of that one is a big improvement.

2.  The original question was about how people react when you complain about elected officials if you don't vote.  And in that case, I think this doesn't help.  Not knowing what you'll want may be a better reason not to vote, but it's also a pretty good reason not to complain afterwords.  To understand why it rubs people the wrong way when you complain after not voting, you need to realize that you were given a chance to actually do something about it, and you passed up the chance.  When you complain after the fact, it's sort of just bellyaching.  It's like someone asking you "what would you like to eat?" and you say "I don't care, give me whatever." And they say "okay, how 'bout a pizza?  You like pizza?"  and you say "yeah, whatever, I really don't care at all."  And they say "well, it's pepperoni, is that' okay?  it's a bit spicy?"  And you say "really, I don't care at all.  I'll eat whatever you give me."  And they say "okay, pepperoni pizza it is!".  Then the pizza shows up, and you try it, and don't like it, and say "uggh!  This is horrible!  I can't stand pizza!  And pepperoni?!  Uggh, I don't like spicy meats.  I mean, spicy meat is just gross!  Nasty food ya got here, really."  The problem isn't that you don't like it, it's that you had a chance to say you didn't like it when it would have been useful to do so.  But you pointedly passed up the chance to make your preferences clear when you had the chance.  Complaining about it after saying "yeah, I don't care, give me whatever," isn't helpful, and it's a bit rude.  Complaining about elected officials after pointedly not voting is pretty similar.  At least if you say "I'd like a salad," and they bring you a pizza, you have a decent reason to complain.  But if you say "gimme whatever you want to give me," you sort of lose the (moral) right to complain when they give it to you.

Put another way:  it's fine to not have an opinion, or to not trust your opinion enough to do anything about it.  But if you complain, you're sending the message that you do have an opinion, and that you want people to react to it.  And in that case, the appropriate thing to do with your opinion is to vote with it (ie, to make it known at the time when it can actually make a difference).

When you agree to the system, and agree that voting is the way you will participate in the decision making process, and then have the audacity to complain about the outcome when you were part of it all makes no sense to me.

It rubs me the wrong way when people complain after voting, so I guess both sides feel the same way!

People complain when they don't vote, so there's not much difference there.

Think of it like the activism you espouse.  Someone who volunteers one day per year might not make that much of a difference, in the grand scheme of things.  But they do make a difference, and they do a lot more than someone who never volunteers at all.  One vote does make a difference, and it makes a lot more difference than someone who doesn't vote.

Yes, people complain when they don't vote.  By not voting they are not (by default) shrugging their shoulders and saying they don't care.  That's an assumption that seems to be made at times, and yes, at times that could be why people don't vote.

However, there are lots of reasons people may actively 'choose' not to vote.  It's intentional, and could be for all sorts of reasons.  If you intentionally take yourself out of the system and say 'Voting is not a good idea' then in my perspective you actually have more right than the voters (who agreed to the system) to complain about the what comes out of the voting situation.

Now, this is really all theoretical, and I am only defending the theoretical right to complain for non-voters.  In practice I don't see much point in voters or non-voters complaining.  All of us would be better off directing our energies to much more useful pursuits!

True enough, although that is the end effect.


That makes no sense.

There are different levels of contribution.  Voting is the simplest and easiest, and it can effect great change.  Activism is a further step: in addition to voting, you donate time or money trying to get the message out, helping get others to vote, and so on.  Organizing activists is a step beyond that.  You can argue over where candidacy fits in this spectrum, but it definitely belongs on this list as well.

So, each vote represents someone trying to make a difference.  As small as each vote might mean, at least they are trying to make a difference.  People who don't vote, but complain, are akin to people who complain endlessly about how something should be done, but never do anything to make it happen.

Volunteering is all about "Doing something".  You don't sit around and talk about doing good, you get up and do something.  The actions might be small and partly symbolic, but they are real action nonetheless.  Voting is the easiest step of this, but even so, it is positive action.  So, in a way, saying "voting is not a good idea" is a lot like saying "doing something positive is not as good idea", which is why it does not follow.

I disagree.  Only from your perspective, but not theirs.



We still don't agree on that point, that it can actually effect change, so that's where we differ.

The rest of your perspective stems from that initial point, which we don't agree on, so that's where the disconnect is between the two sides.

As I've said before, I can appreciate the voter's perspective, but I don't personally share it.  I don't view those who vote as lesser citizens, even though I feel they are performing a suboptimal choice by voting (according to my own understading).  They just choose to be citizens in a different way from me.  It would be nice if the reverse could also be true from a voter's perspective, but I've come to realize that won't happen, and that's ok as well.

In reply to Doulos (msg # 165):

Ok, I'll try and restate.

You indicated that you see voting as less effective than volunteerism, aka actually doing something.  The first problem is that voting is doing something, however small.  We might not come to an agreement on that point, though.

The second point is that they're not mutually exclusive.  You can vote and volunteer, and many people do.  Logically, those people must be making a bigger contribution than volunteering alone.  So, if you really want to make a difference, you'd do both.

The third point is that votes do make a difference.  Swing voters and voter turnout decide elections.  For example, you said 75% of the people in your locale didn't vote.  If they had all turned out for one candidate or issue, they could have swung the election in their favor.

My choice to clean up a park on voting day is actually silly now that I've thought about it more and I think I'm going to stop doing it.  Any action is better than voting, so I think it actually sends the wrong messages (guilt, or something else perhaps) when I go and clean up a park as a replacement action.  It sort of legitimizes voting in a way.

I agree that voting and volunteering are not mutually exclusive.  Neither are volunteering and playing video games.  Or volunteering and drinking coffee.  The whole discussion comes down to a fundamental difference of opinion on whether the act of voting has any value to me personally at all.  I say it doesn't and you say it does.  From there our paths diverge.

Just because something doesn't have any value to you personally, doesn't mean it doesn't have value to society as a whole.

For example, taxes.  Nobody likes taxes, and I don't know a single person who thinks doing their own taxes is a valuable way to spend time.  However, taxes do have a lot of value to society, and the ability to have a functional government.  They're pretty much a necessity.  Voting is similar, except you get to choose where your vote goes.

Can't say I really see the connection between taxes and voting.

First, taxes are used to directly provide services for me.  All of my taxes?  No.  But always at least some.

Second, even if there was no benefit from taxes, there would still be an incentive for paying them, in the form of not wanting to go to prison.

So if not voting was illegal you'd vote?

In that case I'd probably be forced to go spoil a ballot, yes.  Hooray for democracy forcing you to exercise your freedom right Australia?

1.  Voting determines what services you get, at least in part.

2.  Not everyone pays taxes either.  Many corporations pay very little, if at all.  Some people have tax attorneys and specialists reduce their taxes to near-nothing.  And, of course, some people are so poor, they're not just tax-free, they get a credit every year.  Since many working adults don't pay taxes, and don't go to prison, it's not a useful example.