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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29662 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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That makes it sound a bit like you’re not simply not voting, you’re not really “participating” at all.

I’m also grappling with whether or not to vote at all, so I’m asking myself as I’m asking you—are you actually doing anything other than complaining? And complaining in the most ineffective way to the least degree possible?

To the second question you asked, an attempt at a steelman would be to imagine you’re in a room with a bunch of people and dinner plans come up and you say nothing. The choice is narrowed to two restaurants and you say nothing. A vote is taken and you think it’s pointless so you leave during the vote and come back.

It seems to me even if you’re the only one who wants Mediterranean and there’s no hope of swaying enough to your side, you still come off badly if you can’t even be bothered to say that.

Like I said though….grappling with it myself. Not sure what I’ll do.

It seems to me even if you’re the only one who wants Mediterranean and there’s no hope of swaying enough to your side, you still come off badly if you can’t even be bothered to say that.

Interesting, that doesn't match my intuition at all. If my party mostly wants pizza or tacos and I know they are not interested in sushi like I am, bringing up sushi at all only impedes collective decision making and may come across as whining. If I am truly indifferent between pizza and tacos, my input is useless at best.

Surely you agree though that bringing it up only after the decision is made is worse than before or both though right?

Two factors that I find repel me from voting are

  • the effort needed to develop a ranking over the candidates
    • sub-problem: develop and keep current opinions on the decisions I expect them to make
      • ex: What are my opinions on The Wall, what will Trump likely do?
      • ex: Do I even need to have an opinion on whether tips should be taxed, or is it fluff?
    • sub-problem: identify issues in the world to have a preference on that aren't in the discourse
      • ex: What are the odds of John Bolton's opinions on Iran getting into Trump's cabinet? Do I like them or not?
      • ex: Jake Sullivan's conservatism about escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war? Do I like them or not?
      • (I don't know actually know Harris' cabinet rumors well enough to have thoughts about them.)
    • sub-problem: for each issue, develop a score for each candidate for/against on that issue.
  • the ugh field around the actual physical implementation of the act of voting, executive dysfunction, and the difficulty of bootstrapping into knowing how to accomplish it.
    • App idea: a checklist manager for taking part in the polls you want to. You need to register to vote? Here's the form and the types of evidence to gather, press a button to have a copy and a stamped envelope mailed to you, paid half-and-half by each party. Daily reminders and follow-ups on the tasks and sub-tasks. It's two weeks before voting day, did you arrange the morning off? Probably this is already a thing; I hope it is. Maybe I should make it if not.

Between perfectionism, procrastination with a fun and infinite problem, and a multi-month process requiring advance planning and grit on the day of to wait in an hour-long line to poke a cranky ATM, it's very easy to round 1/3E8 of the cost/benefit from a given federal outcome to 0 and not bother. This is effectively charity to a process that's worked more-or-less well enough so far, all outcomes are within bounds, going with the flow is entirely tolerable.

For the first problem, various interest and political groups usually put out voting guides. You could delegate the decision to a group whose priorities you generally agree with (assuming there is one) and use their voting guide.

If forming any of those opinions seems so odious that you’re willing to claim you don’t care, why put up a fight? Concede you couldn’t be bothered to form an opinion in advance so complaining afterwards is unearned.

Is aimlessly complaining about whatever while making no effort to help or improve things or even understand what’s happening so important to you?

These problems and sub problems were invented by you, they aren’t requirements by any stretch of the imagination.

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