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Comment by triceratops | Hacker News Reader

If you stop smoking you'll feel better but it's not going to do anything to reduce smoking in the world overall. The only thing that can reduce smoking is the law: taxes, restrictions on where smoking is permitted, and so on.

You should still stop smoking (for your own good) but that alone won't change the world.

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It does reduce smoking by one smoker.

A statistically insignificant reduction to the world population of smokers. Without laws to prevent tobacco marketing to minors, the cigarette industry could add 100x as many customers in a day.

Not for that smoker. They'll (statistically) live longer.

You're restating a point I already made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24203338

You should still stop smoking (for your own good)

Anything you do is statistically insignificant when compared to the world's population.

But if one person in an average household quits that is a 25% reduction.

In the end that person and those around benefit.

You're restating a point I already made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24203338

You should still stop smoking (for your own good)

There are 4 smokers in an average household?!

so does someone dying from lung cancer caused by a lifetime of smoking. tears in the rain

That makes sense but the same argument could apply to voting....

That is true. And yet there aren't many good alternatives to voting if we want a free society.

This is one of the reasons why you have to lower the cost of voting as much as possible - in terms of time, money, and hassle - if you want broader participation.

I personally think politicians first and foremost need to try and restore trust in them by the people. I think the biggest reason for people to not vote these days is that they have already heard and seen confirmation for far too many lies. I used to go to every single election. Not anymore. It feels like a waste of my time. Not because the process is so complicated. No. It is a waste because we get lied to constantly anyway.

It does. If you really want something to change in the government, voting is pretty close to the bottom of the list of things you can do that might make a difference, statistically speaking. You still might as well vote, of course, but the chances of your one vote making an impact are extremely low.

That said, influencing the votes of other people can make a huge difference.

This has been my theory on why in some countries the extreme-right is doing very well (Belgium for example, with Vlaams Belang and NVA). These parties seem to understand that one vote doesn't change much in the grand scheme of things and that the key is to be able to convince a mass amount of voters at the same time. Hence why they are playing the modern media game and spending massive amounts of money into social media campaigns to reach a maximum amount of people. While other parties are not doing that (because they don't realize the game that is being played?) and it shows in election results.

"influencing the votes of other people" should probably be illegal, given the discussion about alledged mass manipulations on U.S. elections.

I consider that to be part of the point of voting. If everyone's opinion on societal matter produces a statistically significant effect, there will be endless turmoil.

Don't underestimate the network effect that one person may have by quitting. By sharing their story with others on how they quit, it may inspire others to quit, and so on.

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