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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   30744 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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the follow through required in a low-barrier system would result in more men voting, which in turn would (in aggregate) help the right.

You imply that the male

thought process goes:

"I have a certain amount of willpower X and the effort barrier to my voting is >X, therefore I will not vote"

and thus if the effort barrier for voting is lowered to <X, men will vote. If instead we posit that the male thought process goes

"I have a certain amount of willpower X and the effort barrier to my voting is >0, therefore I will not vote"

then male voters actually WON'T be tempted out to the polls by reductions in effort barriers, because the effort barriers would have to be impossibly small.

Yes, we can debate a threshold vs no-threshold model here. My understand from the empirical results studying Motor Voter and similar programs is that they do something which suggests that there is at least some sensitivity to effort.

I think what I was trying to get at in my original comment is that men could be more likely to 'socially optimize' or lie about voting than women are, for some reason. Not sure I fully endorse that.

the effort barriers would have to be impossibly small.

I think this depends on the context. For instance I would imagine if the 'effort barrier' was that everyone could track if you voted and there was real social status to be gained/lost on your actual participation (as opposed to stated participation), we might see more men vote than women.

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