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Manfred 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?
Non-meta calculations, like usual. If someone else thinks the indefinite integral of x^2 is 3x^3, I don't say "well, if we have the same information, I must have a 50% chance of being wrong." Instead, I check the result using boring, ordinary math, and go "nope, looks like it's x^3 / 3."
Yes.
I agree with your approach to solving disagreements about integrals. I do not see how it applies to politics, where disagreements are far more diverse, including factual, moral, and unconscious conflicts.
Well, people do differ in values, but it seems like more often some people are just wrong. Viz: global warming as a factual disagreement.
So what do you do if half the population disagrees with you about a factual issue? (Copy and paste time!) I don't say 'well, if we have the same information, I must have a 50% chance of being wrong.' Instead, I check the result using boring, ordinary scholarship, and go 'nope, looks like there's a mechanism for CO2 to cause the atmosphere to warm up.'
Note that a key part of this process is that if you're wrong, you should notice sometimes - there's no "checking" otherwise, just pretend-checking. So that's a good skill to work on.
That some people are "just wrong" is not at issue. Even mistaken people agree that some people are wrong. (They just think it's the right-thinking folks who are in error.)
Of course you don't. If half the population disagrees with you about an issue, you should interpret that as evidence that you are incorrect. How strong the evidence is, depends on how likely they are to possess information you don't, to be misled by things you've prepared yourself for, etc.
Agreed. I guess what makes checking the math work in the integral case is just that the better you are at checking the arguments, the less you have to worry about what other people think.
In other words, people who are convinced by this argument are more likely than the average person to be correct about the objectively better candidate it convinces them to vote for?