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Comment by popalchemist | Hacker News Reader

Logical fallacy here. Every vote matters, as they are made in a blind prisoner's dilemma kind of context. We can have assumptions/expectations about the likely outcomes, some of which would statistically make individual votes "insignificant," but those assumptions may or may not be true (see: this year, duh); therefore every vote is made on the tacit recognition that it MAY matter. And this tacit recognition contributes to the behavior of the masses. It is a category error to think that only some of the votes matter, due to the quantities being what they are on one side or the other.

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> We can have assumptions/expectations about the likely outcomes, some of which would statistically make individual votes "insignificant," but those assumptions may or may not be true (see: this year, duh); therefore every vote is made on the tacit recognition that it MAY matter.

We have hundreds of years of Presidential elections to show that individual votes are insignificant. That's a lot of empirical evidence. And given the size of the electorate, the probability of a one vote margin is statistically extremely unlikely.

> It is a category error to think that only some of the votes matter, due to the quantities being what they are on one side or the other.

What is "matter" supposed to mean, exactly?

Let's say there's a ballot counting error, and the announced results are mistaken. Does that matter? I would say no, that doesn't matter, as long as the outcome of the election wouldn't change on a recount of ballots. This is why, by law, they don't do a recount unless the margin is extremely small. Because otherwise, it doesn't matter. The exact vote total is only of marginal interest; in a sense, it's trivial.

> We have hundreds of years of Presidential elections to show that individual votes are insignificant.

Enthusiasm, like apathy, spreads. One person enthused about voting can inspire quite a few more people to vote, and a few of them to be enthusiastic about voting, which spreads even further.

The principal driver of voter enthusiasm, or lack thereof, is the candidates.

Inspiring others to vote and actually casting your own single vote are separate.

If each vote is insignificant, why bother counting them at all? C’mon. The votes matter. Every one of the million of votes for the winner matters just as much as the vote for the loser. You are influencing the outcome exactly as much as every other person in line. Individually? Negligible. But in aggregate, that’s an election.

> The votes matter.

Yes, collectively. Notice your usage of the plural.

> Every one of the million of votes for the winner matters just as much as the vote for the loser.

This is not the argument you think it is. How do the votes for the loser matter? The loser still lost, despite those votes. There's no consolation prize for 2nd place.

> You are influencing the outcome exactly as much as every other person in line.

Agreed.

> Individually? Negligible.

Exactly.

> But in aggregate, that’s an election.

Also agreed.

The votes matter in the aggreggate. However, I as an individual voter have no influence over the aggregate, or the outcome. Other voters do what they want, not what I want. My vote doesn't change their vote.

I didn't say there was no reason to vote. I'm just saying that it's a bit irrational to vote strategically, as if your vote will determine the outcome. People have been convinced that they have to hold their noses and vote for someone they dislike in order to stop someone they dislike more. That's mass irrationality, and how we always end up with people we dislike. And what did it get the individual voters? Tens of millions of people vote for someone they dislike and still lose. They lose the election and their souls.

If everyone thought, as you assert, that an individual vote does not matter, then they would not vote; therefore both the quantitative and qualitative meaning/value of the "votes" (plural) would change too. They are inextricably bound; you are just viewing things through a statistical lens but that is not the only one that is valid. Grow up. Your attitude is poison and if more people thought like you we would have lost democracy long ago.

Furthermore the act you describe of taking the time to vote based on the issues, even when a particular candidate or proposition goes against the voter's normal worldivew, is not irrational, it is doing one's civic duty to be informed. The vote is the inflecion point at which that civic duty materializes most clearly; but it is part of a larger, always-ongoin process in which the citizens and the state are in a dialogue with each other; and the citizens are in dialgue with other citizens.

If there were no impetus to vote, then the dialogue itself becomes somewhat irrelevant; therefore the voting is what anchors the abastract to the concrete world of here-and-now. Your again, extremely small-minded, view of the world can not account for this.

> If everyone thought, as you assert, that an individual vote does not matter, then they would not vote

I just said, immediately before your reply, "I didn't say there was no reason to vote", and this is your response? Nice reading comprehension.

> it is doing one's civic duty

That's exactly what I was referring to in my original post: "Voting tends to be more of a symbolic or ethical act than an rational act".

> Your attitude is poison

> extremely small-minded

Please read and respect the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> if more people thought like you we would have lost democracy long ago

The United States has always been a plutocracy, and the plutocrats who wrote the Constitution were explicitly suspicious of direct democracy, intentionally adding a number of measures to obstruct it. The most recent election was largely a contest between competing factions of billionaires, and guess what, a billionaire won.

It's actually so-called "strategic" voting, choosing the lesser of two evils, that perpetuates the evils of our plutocracy.

"Voting tends to be more of a symbolic or ethical act than an rational act"

An act that is consistent within one's ethical framework is a rational act. Agree or disagree, and why?

Thanks.

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