Warning: I haven’t checked if someone else has already made this point.
If you plan on attempting to influence anyone’s vote other than your own, it would be hard in practice to convince other people that they should vote for X if you yourself didn’t signal intent to vote for X, and the easiest way to do that is to actually intend to vote for X. In other words, a good reason to vote for X is so you don’t have to lie when trying to convince other people (e.g. your friends in swing states) to vote for X (the less-wrong-lizard). In other other words, being able to tell people that you voted may be more important than actually voting.
This probably only applies if you think your network of influence is powerful enough to actually possibly sway votes in swing states, but hey, who knows? Your friends have more friends than you do and so forth.
Similarly, I’ve long said that the most efficient action you can take(assuming you’re not some manner of celebrity) is to vote. Yes, the actual impact of a vote is trivial, even in a close race—“one vote never made a difference” is a trope for a reason. But everything else that an ordinary person can do is statistically trivial too, and voting at least has the virtue of being fast. There’s no point in campaigning on an issue and not voting—yes, the absolute change you can cause by campaigning is higher, but the change per unit time is vastly worse. I’ve known friends who devote great effort to campaigns and then refuse to vote, and it’s always just wierded me out.
Warning: I haven’t checked if someone else has already made this point.
If you plan on attempting to influence anyone’s vote other than your own, it would be hard in practice to convince other people that they should vote for X if you yourself didn’t signal intent to vote for X, and the easiest way to do that is to actually intend to vote for X. In other words, a good reason to vote for X is so you don’t have to lie when trying to convince other people (e.g. your friends in swing states) to vote for X (the less-wrong-lizard). In other other words, being able to tell people that you voted may be more important than actually voting.
This probably only applies if you think your network of influence is powerful enough to actually possibly sway votes in swing states, but hey, who knows? Your friends have more friends than you do and so forth.
Similarly, I’ve long said that the most efficient action you can take(assuming you’re not some manner of celebrity) is to vote. Yes, the actual impact of a vote is trivial, even in a close race—“one vote never made a difference” is a trope for a reason. But everything else that an ordinary person can do is statistically trivial too, and voting at least has the virtue of being fast. There’s no point in campaigning on an issue and not voting—yes, the absolute change you can cause by campaigning is higher, but the change per unit time is vastly worse. I’ve known friends who devote great effort to campaigns and then refuse to vote, and it’s always just wierded me out.