Daniel_Burfoot comments on Voting is like donating thousands of dollars to charity - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Academian 05 November 2012 01:02AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (210)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Daniel_Burfoot 06 November 2012 12:41:25AM 0 points [-]

That expected $100 - $1,500,000 is going to get spread around to 300 million people...

If you're so concerned with helping other people, why not just abstain from voting, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the votes cast by those other people, and thus giving them more direct say about how they are governed?

I actually also think your estimate of 55% belief is overconfident, for any utility function that properly distinguishes between terminal and instrumental values (i.e. a utility function that takes into account aggregate health is proper, while one that specifically refers to people having health insurance would not be in my view).