As I understand Robin’s point, he is saying that if we don’t consider the expected utility of our vote, but only consider the goodness of the candidate, then whether or not we vote within or apart from the system is irrelevant. The only reason for not voting on a blog post is that one doesn’t suppose that this has a high expected utility.
Of course, since no one has provided any statistics, it is not at all evident that voting for a major party candidate has a higher expected utility than a vote for a third party, especially since the fact that one’s candidate wins does not show that one’s vote had anything to do with this. So Eliezer may be right. But he should back this up by showing that voting in his style has a higher expected utility.
As I understand Robin’s point, he is saying that if we don’t consider the expected utility of our vote, but only consider the goodness of the candidate, then whether or not we vote within or apart from the system is irrelevant. The only reason for not voting on a blog post is that one doesn’t suppose that this has a high expected utility.
Of course, since no one has provided any statistics, it is not at all evident that voting for a major party candidate has a higher expected utility than a vote for a third party, especially since the fact that one’s candidate wins does not show that one’s vote had anything to do with this. So Eliezer may be right. But he should back this up by showing that voting in his style has a higher expected utility.