I would much rather converse with the strongest version of the argument than argue with a straw-man my mind constructs.
I really like this approach myself and commend you (up vote) for taking it, quite some time ago I did something similar with the pro-democracy positon. You might want to read and comment on it so we can both see if I understand the regular thoughtful arguments in favour of democracy.
P2 - The examples I cite are not valid because they explicitly advocated a new system, but that does not hold true for this election. Governments are not moved by internal forces (citizens voting) but by external forces, and actively work against both external change (which is known) and internal change (which most citizens do not see).
Be careful here, I was originally trying to say citizens voting can’t be used to change the acceptable policy options in certain directions. But if those policy options do become acceptable because of other reasons citizens voting can change the state in that direction.
Mostly however voting does very little of anything, especially because things that get people voting are nearly always things that escalate policy tugs of war.
P4 - Even violent revolution doesn’t usually work. Revolutions do not overthrow governing systems; they merely change who is in power in those systems.
I think they sometimes can set up new governing systems, just that those efforts tend to end badly. To give examples the French Revolution besides the terror and its atrocities also ended up abandoning much of its ideals and started a series of destructive continent wide wars. I don’t think I even have to explain what kind of horriblebadness happened due to the Russian revolution.
A possible solution to end democracy is a separate system arising that proves itself superior. Then the people vote for it or the government itself accepts the new system as superior. As proof, this is how the old Communist States died. (I actually did not know this. Probably due to the US’s selective teaching of history.)
Correct. Another plausible example is Apartheid South Africa abolishing itself. In that example you didn’t even need to prove a superior system existed on metrics like lifespan or GDP, just that it was plausible a different one might work just as well and convince people making up the state apparatus or power to control it that it is morally & ideologically superior. There was some terrorism and foreign meddling pushing in that direction long before this happened so this isn’t as clean a case as Communist Eastern Europe but I think it still evidence of how damaging a lack of legitimacy in the eyes of the people who are supposed to be upholding it is.
P6 - Humans rationalize our actions. By taking part in democracy, you become accepting of democracy; by not taking part in democracy, you become less so. To go out on a limb and put it in my own words, if you are hit on the head by a baseball bat every week you’ll eventually rationalize why it’s okay… but if you have to hit yourself every week, you’ll rationalize that it’s the most important/moral/good thing any person could ever do.
Yes.
(I’m a bit lost on the creepy/memetic argument though.)
Basically consider how this ind of behaviour looks from a memetic perspective rather than listening to why the memeplex justifies itself as another way to analyse it. I think we probably agree on the memetic perspective of how “going to Church” evolved. I assume we also agree that what the “going to Church” memeplex has to say about “going to Church” is probably false. We don’t think God exists.
This isn’t to imply that what “going to Church” had to say about “going to Church” was necessarily a priori false just because it evolved via memetic selection. It just happens to be so in that example. Being true can help a meme propagate quite well but it is not the only thing that can help it propagate.
By voting blue or green, you align blue or green. It poisons your perception of the world blue or green. And both blue and green support democracy, so voting for either one poisons your mind to support democracy.
Among other things. Not voting can be rationalized by “the country will be well governed either way” too and you’ll feel a loyalty and belonging to the state. But I think this possible rationalizations is weaker and that voting at least in countries like the US is far more inspiring of pro-state and pro-democracy feelings of patriotism than non-voting-because-I-trust-it-will-work-great. In the low voting, high legitimacy example of say Northern European Social Democracies I bet the people who do vote are more likely to have a favourable opinion of government than those who don’t. Maybe if more people voted the non-voters would be even more sceptical of the state, but I don’t think that is what is happening. Perhaps the high legitimacy is there because of other reasons like ethnic homogeneity or relative prosperity and endures in spite of non-voting. And a lot of people in Northern European Social Democracies do vote. It is a hard social science question to settle without doing experiments designed specifically to address it.
P8 - The purpose of abstaining from voting is to prevent your mind (and your group’s mind, eg lesswrong) from being poisoned, which is bad. (Furthermore, because of our size/influence, it does not cost us much to abstain.)
This is the reason I have more confidence in than the non-voting as a anti-democratic strategy. It wasn’t the one I brought up in the OP because I thought it kind of a logical extension of the no mindkillers norm we have on this site. So we share some scepticism about P5 though I still currently believe in it strongly enough to consider encouraging people here to vote probably wrong for that reason in itself.
I really like this approach myself and commend you (up vote) for taking it, quite some time ago I did something similar with the pro-democracy positon. You might want to read and comment on it so we can both see if I understand the regular thoughtful arguments in favour of democracy.
Be careful here, I was originally trying to say citizens voting can’t be used to change the acceptable policy options in certain directions. But if those policy options do become acceptable because of other reasons citizens voting can change the state in that direction.
Mostly however voting does very little of anything, especially because things that get people voting are nearly always things that escalate policy tugs of war.
I think they sometimes can set up new governing systems, just that those efforts tend to end badly. To give examples the French Revolution besides the terror and its atrocities also ended up abandoning much of its ideals and started a series of destructive continent wide wars. I don’t think I even have to explain what kind of horrible badness happened due to the Russian revolution.
Correct. Another plausible example is Apartheid South Africa abolishing itself. In that example you didn’t even need to prove a superior system existed on metrics like lifespan or GDP, just that it was plausible a different one might work just as well and convince people making up the state apparatus or power to control it that it is morally & ideologically superior. There was some terrorism and foreign meddling pushing in that direction long before this happened so this isn’t as clean a case as Communist Eastern Europe but I think it still evidence of how damaging a lack of legitimacy in the eyes of the people who are supposed to be upholding it is.
Yes.
Basically consider how this ind of behaviour looks from a memetic perspective rather than listening to why the memeplex justifies itself as another way to analyse it. I think we probably agree on the memetic perspective of how “going to Church” evolved. I assume we also agree that what the “going to Church” memeplex has to say about “going to Church” is probably false. We don’t think God exists.
This isn’t to imply that what “going to Church” had to say about “going to Church” was necessarily a priori false just because it evolved via memetic selection. It just happens to be so in that example. Being true can help a meme propagate quite well but it is not the only thing that can help it propagate.
Among other things. Not voting can be rationalized by “the country will be well governed either way” too and you’ll feel a loyalty and belonging to the state. But I think this possible rationalizations is weaker and that voting at least in countries like the US is far more inspiring of pro-state and pro-democracy feelings of patriotism than non-voting-because-I-trust-it-will-work-great. In the low voting, high legitimacy example of say Northern European Social Democracies I bet the people who do vote are more likely to have a favourable opinion of government than those who don’t. Maybe if more people voted the non-voters would be even more sceptical of the state, but I don’t think that is what is happening. Perhaps the high legitimacy is there because of other reasons like ethnic homogeneity or relative prosperity and endures in spite of non-voting. And a lot of people in Northern European Social Democracies do vote. It is a hard social science question to settle without doing experiments designed specifically to address it.
This is the reason I have more confidence in than the non-voting as a anti-democratic strategy. It wasn’t the one I brought up in the OP because I thought it kind of a logical extension of the no mindkillers norm we have on this site. So we share some scepticism about P5 though I still currently believe in it strongly enough to consider encouraging people here to vote probably wrong for that reason in itself.