The idea that those nominated for national office are usefully categorized as nincompoops is extremely low probability. Most of us, even the more popular among us, even Robin and Eliezer and Anna themselves, could not get nominated even for the senate. Or if they could, by the time they had done what they needed to do to get nominated, Eliezer2008 who wrote this post would measure them as nincompoops.
Among other issues, the electorate is going to filter for some mix of popular opinions. If you study for years in order to move your policy opinions way outside the mainstream you will only hurt your chances of being elected. You might improve your chances of influencing the world, though. I would imagine the kind of influence someone like Robin or Eliezer or Luke or Anna by writing and being read makes more difference in the long run by factors of 100s or 1000s or more than any votes they might or might not cast. Any one of them seriously interested in even being nominated for US Congress or higher office would clam up fast about polyamory, drugs, and/or FAI.
For most of us, probably for all of us, the best we can hope for politically is to make a tiny net difference. I am priveleged, for example, to receive the mind-dead anti-Obama falsehoods in email that many members of my extended family circulate and pay attention to. I write back pithy refutations including the suggestion that whoever it is that keeps lying to them is 1) immoral (“bearing false witness” I call it) and 2) their REAL enemy, trying to manipulate them into political action by lying to them. Did ANY of my tiny audience switch a vote because of me? Possibly, possibly not. Are any of my tiny audience going to look at Obama with different eyes because of my email? I bet yes. Does this change their behavior in a republican primary a few years from now when a reptile is running against one of the lesser mammals? You know, I think it probably does. The opinion of our species moves by accumulation, not by single brilliant leaps.
I vote because I enjoy it and because it leaves me able to post and email about how others should vote without having to lie, which I also enjoy. When questioning the value of voting, consider the other things that cost you more that may be similar, that you already do. Like reading this and other message boards. Like writing to this or other message boards. Surely, if you are interested enough in influencing other people, or in finding the right answers, to write comments here, and/or to spend hours reading it, then voting is a fun little extra.
Of course, this opinion about voting is from someone who thinks that not having children is the silliest way possible to try to lower the future population of the planet. By not having children, you take a significant avenue of influence of your ideas on the future out of play. If for no other reason, you should pick an election issue or candidate who speaks in some interesting way, positively or negatively about an issue you’d like to blog about or argue about in comments to blogs. Then have a party, signalling with all your might your seriousness by citing your actual vote. It will make your stuff more readable to the kinds of people who vote. And most of politics is about getting considered, not about being right for obscure or nerdy reasons.
The idea that those nominated for national office are usefully categorized as nincompoops is extremely low probability. Most of us, even the more popular among us, even Robin and Eliezer and Anna themselves, could not get nominated even for the senate. Or if they could, by the time they had done what they needed to do to get nominated, Eliezer2008 who wrote this post would measure them as nincompoops.
Among other issues, the electorate is going to filter for some mix of popular opinions. If you study for years in order to move your policy opinions way outside the mainstream you will only hurt your chances of being elected. You might improve your chances of influencing the world, though. I would imagine the kind of influence someone like Robin or Eliezer or Luke or Anna by writing and being read makes more difference in the long run by factors of 100s or 1000s or more than any votes they might or might not cast. Any one of them seriously interested in even being nominated for US Congress or higher office would clam up fast about polyamory, drugs, and/or FAI.
For most of us, probably for all of us, the best we can hope for politically is to make a tiny net difference. I am priveleged, for example, to receive the mind-dead anti-Obama falsehoods in email that many members of my extended family circulate and pay attention to. I write back pithy refutations including the suggestion that whoever it is that keeps lying to them is 1) immoral (“bearing false witness” I call it) and 2) their REAL enemy, trying to manipulate them into political action by lying to them. Did ANY of my tiny audience switch a vote because of me? Possibly, possibly not. Are any of my tiny audience going to look at Obama with different eyes because of my email? I bet yes. Does this change their behavior in a republican primary a few years from now when a reptile is running against one of the lesser mammals? You know, I think it probably does. The opinion of our species moves by accumulation, not by single brilliant leaps.
I vote because I enjoy it and because it leaves me able to post and email about how others should vote without having to lie, which I also enjoy. When questioning the value of voting, consider the other things that cost you more that may be similar, that you already do. Like reading this and other message boards. Like writing to this or other message boards. Surely, if you are interested enough in influencing other people, or in finding the right answers, to write comments here, and/or to spend hours reading it, then voting is a fun little extra.
Of course, this opinion about voting is from someone who thinks that not having children is the silliest way possible to try to lower the future population of the planet. By not having children, you take a significant avenue of influence of your ideas on the future out of play. If for no other reason, you should pick an election issue or candidate who speaks in some interesting way, positively or negatively about an issue you’d like to blog about or argue about in comments to blogs. Then have a party, signalling with all your might your seriousness by citing your actual vote. It will make your stuff more readable to the kinds of people who vote. And most of politics is about getting considered, not about being right for obscure or nerdy reasons.