I think we’ve mostly said what we have to say, and this is off-topic.
My numbers showed that at best voting is instrumentally a break-even proposition. I do it because I find it hedonically rational; for instance, I don’t have to lie to my family about it. Part of what makes it a net plus for me hedonically is that I have a vision and a plan for a world where a better voting system (such as approval voting or SODA voting) is used and so I am not doomed to eternally pick the lesser of two evils. I can understand if Crystal makes a different decision for her own hedonic reasons.
I also suspect that metarational considerations such as timeless decision theory would argue in favor of it, because free riding on other people’s voting effort is akin to betrayal in a massively-multiplayer prisoners’ dilemma. I have not worked out the math on that, but my mathematical intuition tends to be pretty good.
Your description of your friends’ advocacy suggests you are attached to the idea that politics is a waste of time, not just for you, but for others. I suspect that belief of yours is not making you or anyone else happier. I recognize that you could probably make the converse criticism of me, but I am happy to prefer a world where aspiring rationalists vote to one where they don’t (even when their vote would probably be negatively correlated with mine, as I suspect yours would be).
I think we’ve mostly said what we have to say, and this is off-topic.
My numbers showed that at best voting is instrumentally a break-even proposition. I do it because I find it hedonically rational; for instance, I don’t have to lie to my family about it. Part of what makes it a net plus for me hedonically is that I have a vision and a plan for a world where a better voting system (such as approval voting or SODA voting) is used and so I am not doomed to eternally pick the lesser of two evils. I can understand if Crystal makes a different decision for her own hedonic reasons.
I also suspect that metarational considerations such as timeless decision theory would argue in favor of it, because free riding on other people’s voting effort is akin to betrayal in a massively-multiplayer prisoners’ dilemma. I have not worked out the math on that, but my mathematical intuition tends to be pretty good.
Your description of your friends’ advocacy suggests you are attached to the idea that politics is a waste of time, not just for you, but for others. I suspect that belief of yours is not making you or anyone else happier. I recognize that you could probably make the converse criticism of me, but I am happy to prefer a world where aspiring rationalists vote to one where they don’t (even when their vote would probably be negatively correlated with mine, as I suspect yours would be).