Any existential risk angles to the US presidential election?

Stuart_Armstrong

Any existential risk angles to the US presidential election? — LessWrong

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Consider how many people you affect when you go to the store to buy breakfast. You practically effect nearly everyone else on the planet by a very small value.

You're effectively choosing the administration under which $\\sqrt\{N\}$ people will live until the next election. This is a much larger effect than the marginal change to the economy from you buying breakfast.

I bet that higher voter turn out makes the result of the elections seem more legitimate to the populace emboldening the government for decisive action.

To through your other argument around back at you. What's the marginal effect of one person refusing to vote. Probably less than for one person voting since most people who don't vote do so out of laziness with no deeper philosophical motive behind it. Let's put it this way: a candidate with a majority (or even a plurality in some systems) becomes the office holder, whereas less than 50% turnout doesn't cause a revolution; and even if it did, it would probably not be the revolution you want.

Let's put it this way, the two reasons you've given for not voting are:

1) You're unlikely to affect the outcome anyway.

2) If enough people don't vote the government will have less legitimacy and this can have positive effects.

Since the logic of these two reasons contradict, would you mind telling me which is your true rejection?

If one desires small government the state having little legitimacy sounds like a good idea.

We still want the state to have enough legitimacy to secure property rights and enforce contracts.

[anonymous]14y60

Let's put it this way, the two reasons you've given for not voting are:
1) You're unlikely to affect the outcome anyway.
2) If enough people don't vote the government will have less legitimacy and this can have positive effects.
Since the logic of these two reasons contradict, would you mind telling me which is your true rejection?

I'm another non-voter, largely (or medium-largely) for the reasons Konkvistador gives. But it's not the legitimacy of government that I wish to weaken. Places where government, even bad government, is not taken seriously are no... (read more)

3[anonymous]14y

You are right. I concede it probably isn't instrumentally useful for the goal of a small, strong and stable government capable of enforcing contracts and protecting rights. While the de-legitimized state might have a hard time growing even more and in its incompetence new de facto freedoms would slip out of its fingers, but the freedom is the freedom of anarchy not the liberty of minarchy. The argument I gave degenerates into a basic argument for anarchy and revolution in the hopes for change. Something that has historically almost never worked out well. [...] Good catch. I don't think people not voting has a large effect, just that people not voting also sends a signal to the system and it doesn't seem obvious that it is much smaller one than the one you send by voting for a party or candidate. 1) You're unlikely to affect the outcome anyway. 2) The tiny expected influence you have on the outcome doesn't go away when you don't vote, because abstaining from voting is also a political act. I would perhaps add 3) that this political act may have instrumental utility for certain kinds of goals. But applying 1) and 2) I get a bit of a problem. My value of information argument against spending time on thinking about party politics should then also clearly apply to thinking about voting or non-voting as well, advice I'm obviously not following. My revealed preferences point that some part of me thinks that not voting is very desirable. This can't be argued on consequentalist grounds for the reason you point out. Thinking about it I seem to consider non-voting valuable enough to think and talk about for symbolic reasons, seeing it as a sort of Schelling fence of personal political detachment from one's society. If you live in a society where your values or map of the world radically diverge from the rest of society, such a thing is perhaps good for personal well being, seeing oneself as a subject rather than a citizen helps you deal with the constant pain of things g

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Any existential risk angles to the US presidential election?

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Any existential risk angles to the US presidential election?

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