By request of the community, an Open Thread for free-form comments, so long as they're still related to the basic project of this blog.
A word on post requests: You're free to ask, but the authors can't commit to posting on requested topics - it's hard enough to do the ones we have in mind already.
Topic for election time? Should most rational agents bother voting in national elections, given some typical costs and benefits of doing so? Are the voters typically behaving more rationally than the abstainers, or the other way around? Is such voting behaviour better explained as a social signalling mechanism than by its effect on who is in power?