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ricketson comments on Voting is like donating thousands of dollars to charity - Less Wrong
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If one Virginia voter does an expected 1/(3.5 million)*($7 trillion) = $2 million good by voting for candidate X, then there is another Virginia voter that does an expected $2 million of damage by voting for candidate Y. It seems that either
Roughly half of the population is misinformed about which alternative is objectively better. In that case, how do I justify a belief that I have a greater than 50% chance of being right, when everyone else has access to the same information?
There are real differences in values, and by my vote I direct the outcome towards my preference instead of the other Virginia voter's. In that case, sure I want to vote, but should we really call it altruism?
Well, you can replace "which alternative is objectively better" with any other belief on which opinions differ and the same argument applies.
"any other belief"
This invites us to look at why beliefs differ. First we have to acknowledge that we are talking about differences between people with comparable levels of expertise, so this isn't the same as the disagreements that exist between experts and novices.
For elections, I think we can say that people disagree in large part because the situation is incredibly complicated. It it hard to know how government policies will affect human welfare, and it is hard to know how elected officials will shape government policy.
The only interesting factor that I can think of is differences in our scope of altruism -- one voter may feel altruistic towards their city, while another focuses on the nation, and a third focuses on all of humanity.
"First we have to acknowledge that we are talking about differences between people with comparable levels of expertise"
The assertion that the vast majority of voters have done a sizeable amount of research, rather than simply voting "along party lines" or "like mom always did" or "because dad was overcontrolling and I'm not going to support HIS party" strikes me as the sort of assertion that would require quite a lot of evidence.
One can reasonably conclude that in politics, as with math, the "average person" is ignorant and their opinion is not based on any sort of expertise.
"One can reasonably conclude that in politics, as with math, the "average person" is ignorant and their opinion is not based on any sort of expertise."
Even if you limit the population to those who are well informed, that population is still rather evenly split and so his points still hold.
On some issues, probably. On others, you have the well-informed, educated, cares-about-facts types versus the religious fanatics who want to push their religious agenda, or their personal agenda, or support pork-barrel funding of pet projects, or want to waste extravagant amounts on feel-good charity that accomplishes nothing in the end.
I don't think either political party in the US has a monopoly on educated - it's easier for me to demonize and strawman Republicans since I was raised Democratic. Apologies if my examples thus seem biased in that direction.
So, yes, sometimes, it's clear my opponent has a genuine, reasoned stance. Sometimes, it's equally clear that they don't. It's important to be aware that sometimes the opposing side doesn't have any rational objections because they're wrong.