[SEQ RERUN] Stop Voting For Nincompoops

MinibearRex

Today's post, Stop Voting For Nincompoops was originally published on 02 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Many people try to vote "strategically", by considering which candidate is more "electable". One of the most important factors in whether someone is "electable" is whether they have received attention from the media and the support of one of the two major parties. Naturally, those organizations put considerable thought into who is electable in making their decision. Ultimately, all arguments for "strategic voting" tend to fall apart. The voters themselves get so little say in why the next president is that the best we can do is just to not vote for nincompoops.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was The American System and Misleading Labels, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Stop Voting For Nincompoops was originally published on 02 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Many people try to vote "strategically", by considering which candidate is more "electable". One of the most important factors in whether someone is "electable" is whether they have received attention from the media and the support of one of the two major parties. Naturally, those organizations put considerable thought into who is electable in making their decision. Ultimately, all arguments for "strategic voting" tend to fall apart. The voters themselves get so little say in why the next president is that the best we can do is just to not vote for nincompoops.

Since any "mainstream" idea was most likely marginal at some point, changes in the way marginal ideas start and spread should eventually have a significant impact.

I don't see any significant advantage that The New York Times enjoyed over some contrarian's xeroxed pamphlets 20 years ago that wouldn't also apply to the nytimes.com website relative to some contrarian blog nowadays.

Twenty years ago, educated readers would get their news from newspapers, books, and TV, with (some) newspapers being the most intellectually respectable source of news; few educated readers would be getting news from xeroxed pamphlets.

Today, newspapers like the New York Times have a smaller share in the attention of educated readers, who also read blogs and other news sites on the internet. The New York Times may still be the biggest, but it seems much less impressive than it used to be.

There is also the contrary trend of consolidaton, as smaller local newspapers are dying. I'm not sure what the net trend is.

But more importantly, I simply don't observe any lessening of the mainstream media's control over the limits of respectable public discourse and the set of people and issues that will be in the public spotlight (whether positive or negative). The facts about which the original article complains are as true today as they were four years ago.

Similarly, I don't observe any weakening of the intellectual monopoly of the academia, althoug... (read more)

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