AlexMennen comments on Voting is like donating thousands of dollars to charity - Less Wrong
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Comments (210)
Forget 1 in 10 million. For my state (Texas), a simple binomial model suggests my chance of being the critical vote is about 1 in 10^51121. I did vote, but it wasn't due to a instrumental pursuit of expected value. For me, it was an intrinsic value of civic participation and a feeling of connection with the political struggles of past generations. These things are part of my notion of the good life. If they're not part of yours, that's fine.
A binomial distribution is far too narrow.