I don’t think it is answered. The person who says they voted is not Eliezer, and his general comment about whom to vote for says nothing about whether he himself actually votes; just that he voted at one time in the past. (I can recommend that you wear a parachute while skydiving, but that doesn’t mean I do or do not think skydiving is something worth doing & have done it myself & will do it again.)
Even if it were not, Eliezer followed up further down that comment tree suggesting that his choice was clear in the 2008 elections.
I figured “I was therefore obliged to vote for third parties wherever possible, to penalize the Republicrats for getting grabby” seemed like the kind of argument that doesn’t apply to only a single election.
Perhaps I’m confused by “the person who says they voted is not Eliezer;” that quote, after all, was from this article he wrote.
I was referring to CronoDAS who said that they voted in ’08. Eliezer didn’t; ‘whenever possible’ is pretty slippery.
(Not that I think there’s any point to asking how Eliezer votes, being that he lives in California, I thought. In a state like that, voting is a pure waste of time, unless someone has come up with a really ingenious version of Newcomb’s Paradox showing you should vote even when you know your vote won’t make a difference.)
Margins matter—politicians don’t want to take a chance when they don’t have to, and if it looks like some policy leads to weaker support or stronger support, they act accordingly.
Answered in this comment.
I don’t think it is answered. The person who says they voted is not Eliezer, and his general comment about whom to vote for says nothing about whether he himself actually votes; just that he voted at one time in the past. (I can recommend that you wear a parachute while skydiving, but that doesn’t mean I do or do not think skydiving is something worth doing & have done it myself & will do it again.)
Even if it were not, Eliezer followed up further down that comment tree suggesting that his choice was clear in the 2008 elections.
I figured “I was therefore obliged to vote for third parties wherever possible, to penalize the Republicrats for getting grabby” seemed like the kind of argument that doesn’t apply to only a single election.
Perhaps I’m confused by “the person who says they voted is not Eliezer;” that quote, after all, was from this article he wrote.
I was referring to CronoDAS who said that they voted in ’08. Eliezer didn’t; ‘whenever possible’ is pretty slippery.
(Not that I think there’s any point to asking how Eliezer votes, being that he lives in California, I thought. In a state like that, voting is a pure waste of time, unless someone has come up with a really ingenious version of Newcomb’s Paradox showing you should vote even when you know your vote won’t make a difference.)
Margins matter—politicians don’t want to take a chance when they don’t have to, and if it looks like some policy leads to weaker support or stronger support, they act accordingly.