You say don’t try to use game theory to figure out how to best “make a difference” but admit you will have virtually no influence in this election and instead just vote for the person you like best, among the candidates listed on the ballot. But why not continue with this logic, and “write-in” the person in the world you like best? Why not write them in even if write-ins aren’t officially allowed in this election? Why not skip the official elections and make up your own polling place to vote at? Why not just declare your vote for them in a blog post?
This looks like a false dilemma. If so, why not at the same time: 1. Vote for the good of the registered candidates, keeping your vote and not directing it to one of the lizards, and naturally also vote in all the primaries. 2. Write a blog post with your “list of 5 worthy candidates who are not in the election”, which will include both a popular person with good chances, whom you consider the most worthy of them, and an unpopular person, whom you consider to be the really best option . Well, or come up with some even better strategy than mine. P.S. 3. As someone notes below, opinion polls have a strong influence on politicians, so it’s probably worth finding and voting P.P.S. in them as well. And I also heard that people generally prefer to vote in presidential elections because it is the most important decision, when in fact it is better to vote in parliamentary than personal elections, and most local than federal, because both options increase the relative importance of your vote.
Assume Elizier has sway over, say, 5,000 votes—what he posts on this blog will effect the voting behavior of 5,000 people. If he uses that sway to say “vote for the person in the world you like best,” you get 5,000 unheard votes for random people. If he uses that sway to say “vote for a relatively popular candidate (at least popular enough to be on the ballot) who’s not a nincompoop,” you get 5,000 votes for non-nincompoops.
If the goal is to “send a message,” as is said in the post, I’d argue that the 5,000 votes for non-nincompoops will be heard more than the 5,000 votes for random people. The random people votes will go unheard—not a very good message.
:-D Why not, indeed? Wouldn’t any of the alternatives you suggest both (1) be more satisfying as an expressive gesture and (2) create a higher expected value (i.e, desirability * plausibility) in terms of a chance of enacting your preferred policies than quietly casting a vote for a candidate who you despise marginally less than his three or four electable alternatives?
There’s clearly something wrong with choosing your absolute favorite. For most people that might well be themselves, and then we would have 300 million candidates with 1 vote each. (Pirate King, anyone?)
So you do have to vote to some degree strategically. But maybe this is a balance; like voting for the Libertarian Party or Green Party may actually make sense, because they have some chance of winning even if it’s relatively small.
Because otherwise, it really does seem to me that you are handing a free vote to your least-favorite lizard.
Even if I was just chooosing the “monarch” I wouldn’t pick myself. Deciding who is the right combination of trustworthy and smart is hard but the answer is surely not me (trustworthy is more important btw). I am pretty trustworthy but I am way too lazy and not nearly suffiently riisk averse in action. I “feel” like me being the president and just letting whoever is actually the best make the decisions is safer, but the base rate on this seem too low.
You say don’t try to use game theory to figure out how to best “make a difference” but admit you will have virtually no influence in this election and instead just vote for the person you like best, among the candidates listed on the ballot. But why not continue with this logic, and “write-in” the person in the world you like best? Why not write them in even if write-ins aren’t officially allowed in this election? Why not skip the official elections and make up your own polling place to vote at? Why not just declare your vote for them in a blog post?
This looks like a false dilemma. If so, why not at the same time: 1. Vote for the good of the registered candidates, keeping your vote and not directing it to one of the lizards, and naturally also vote in all the primaries. 2. Write a blog post with your “list of 5 worthy candidates who are not in the election”, which will include both a popular person with good chances, whom you consider the most worthy of them, and an unpopular person, whom you consider to be the really best option . Well, or come up with some even better strategy than mine. P.S. 3. As someone notes below, opinion polls have a strong influence on politicians, so it’s probably worth finding and voting P.P.S. in them as well. And I also heard that people generally prefer to vote in presidential elections because it is the most important decision, when in fact it is better to vote in parliamentary than personal elections, and most local than federal, because both options increase the relative importance of your vote.
I think I can explain the reasoning:
Assume Elizier has sway over, say, 5,000 votes—what he posts on this blog will effect the voting behavior of 5,000 people. If he uses that sway to say “vote for the person in the world you like best,” you get 5,000 unheard votes for random people. If he uses that sway to say “vote for a relatively popular candidate (at least popular enough to be on the ballot) who’s not a nincompoop,” you get 5,000 votes for non-nincompoops.
If the goal is to “send a message,” as is said in the post, I’d argue that the 5,000 votes for non-nincompoops will be heard more than the 5,000 votes for random people. The random people votes will go unheard—not a very good message.
:-D Why not, indeed? Wouldn’t any of the alternatives you suggest both (1) be more satisfying as an expressive gesture and (2) create a higher expected value (i.e, desirability * plausibility) in terms of a chance of enacting your preferred policies than quietly casting a vote for a candidate who you despise marginally less than his three or four electable alternatives?
There’s clearly something wrong with choosing your absolute favorite. For most people that might well be themselves, and then we would have 300 million candidates with 1 vote each. (Pirate King, anyone?)
So you do have to vote to some degree strategically. But maybe this is a balance; like voting for the Libertarian Party or Green Party may actually make sense, because they have some chance of winning even if it’s relatively small.
Because otherwise, it really does seem to me that you are handing a free vote to your least-favorite lizard.
Even if I was just chooosing the “monarch” I wouldn’t pick myself. Deciding who is the right combination of trustworthy and smart is hard but the answer is surely not me (trustworthy is more important btw). I am pretty trustworthy but I am way too lazy and not nearly suffiently riisk averse in action. I “feel” like me being the president and just letting whoever is actually the best make the decisions is safer, but the base rate on this seem too low.