Surely you should be considering voting as a massive prisoner's dilemma: when you decide whether or not to vote you aren't just deciding for yourself, you're also deciding for anyone who thinks similarly to you. I'm not saying that your individual vote is going to make any noticeable difference, but the votes of every jaded rationalist in America on the other hand...

Remember you are likely to overestimate how much other people's decision process is similar to yours. I must have missed the software update when we implemented TDT on voter brains.

Of course, that doesn't constitute a conclusive argument, but consider what voting actually costs you. At worst, it's an hour of your time, and since you're probably spending half an hour on a forum on the internet telling people (amongst other things) how you're not going to vote, you can't reasonably say that sacrificing that hour of you life is too big a utility loss.

I try not to be hypocrite as much as possible. If I say voting is a bad idea, I hope most people who know me will agree this is a good indication that I don't vote either. Also unlike with voting, I actually think I could perhaps change peoples minds, I view it as sanity training. More sane people is a good thing since they have positive externalities.

If I had my way, voting would be compulsory in every democracy on the planet.

Please no!

I'm not saying that democracy is the best way of doing things, but if some countries ARE democracies then we should at least try to do mitigate the negative effects of the system.

Democracies in say Western Europe actually only work as well as they do because of the competent civil service and respect people have for experts, which de facto radically limits how much politicians can do, especially since the process needed for them to fire any of these people is usually not worth the effort if it is possible at all. How would your relationship with your boss change if he couldn't fire you?

Argentina have the best system - voting is compulsory once you're over 18, but you can refuse to vote if you formally express this intention to the authorities at least 48 hours before the election. That way, nobody is forced to vote if they don't want to, but it takes the same amount of effort to abstain as it does to vote, so you don't lose moderates to laziness.

That sounds ok.

If anyone has an argument against voting, I'd be interested to hear it.

• It is a ritual that contributes to belief. Why do you think Islam has obligatory praying several times a day?
• It is a waste of time. A small but obvious one. Like buying lottery tickets is a small but obvious waste of money.
• Large voter participation legitimize government action that in fact has very little to do with the political process.
• Voting is associated with democracy, democracy is a bad idea ask Aristotle.
• I don't need to argue with friends and family because I wouldn't vote for their candidate.