Voting is irrational because the probability that your vote will have any effect on the outcome is about zero. I discuss that more and have a back-and-forth in the comment section here.
At least, it is in insane countries where it isn’t compulsory.
Voting is analogous to taxes and should be legally enforced as such. (Or, rather, the public service of attending a voting booth and scribbling something arbitrary that may or may not be a vote on a piece of paper should be compulsory.)
I agree that voting is a Tragedy of the Commons—but in the exact opposite way to how you frame it. Because people don’t fully internalise the costs and benefits of their votes, but value self-expression, (1) it is very cheap for the ill-informed to use their votes to signal expressively, and (2) there is little incentive to become a well-informed voter. For a given level of political ignorance, we get far too much voting.
To my mind, voting is analagous to pollution and should be taxed as such.
Why? Assuming I vote randomly all I’m doing is increasing the noise to signal ratio. If everyone you force to do it votes randomly then it’ll average out.
the public service of attending a voting booth and scribbling something arbitrary that may or may not be a vote on a piece of paper should be compulsory.
Why? I fail to seem any gains from that. Neither do I see any major empirical differences between countries with compulsory voting and countries without.
In general the correct response to most “I fail to see” or “I can’t imagine” claims is to observe that this could be either a fact about the problem or a fact about the speaker’s imagination.
Neither do I see any major empirical differences between countries with compulsory voting and countries without.
The current solution to the tragedy of the commons is brainwashing with patriotism and relying on poorly calibrated tribal-political instincts to get by. This works well enough and I honestly don’t think this is a problem that particularly needs addressing, compared to all the other things that can be done. It is merely a minor systemic insanity.
In countries without mandatory voting, if voting is more inconvenient for certain groups than for others, the latter will be over-weighed in the election. With mandatory voting, casting a valid vote is no more and no less inconvenient than spoiling the ballot, so that’s not an issue—all eligible people who ceteris paribus would prefer, no matter how slightly, to vote will do so.
(Unlike wedrifid I’m not in a country with mandatory voting, BTW.)
I’m tapping out of this conversation. It’s predisposing me towards racism. I’m sure anybody actually interested will have no problem finding a book on game theory.
Voting is irrational because the probability that your vote will have any effect on the outcome is about zero. I discuss that more and have a back-and-forth in the comment section here.
But it isn’t zero… and we know that if people systematically obeyed that advice, the world would be much worse off.
Voting may be a Tragedy of the Commons, but it’s not just simpliciter irrational.
At least, it is in insane countries where it isn’t compulsory.
Voting is analogous to taxes and should be legally enforced as such. (Or, rather, the public service of attending a voting booth and scribbling something arbitrary that may or may not be a vote on a piece of paper should be compulsory.)
I agree that voting is a Tragedy of the Commons—but in the exact opposite way to how you frame it. Because people don’t fully internalise the costs and benefits of their votes, but value self-expression, (1) it is very cheap for the ill-informed to use their votes to signal expressively, and (2) there is little incentive to become a well-informed voter. For a given level of political ignorance, we get far too much voting.
To my mind, voting is analagous to pollution and should be taxed as such.
Why? Assuming I vote randomly all I’m doing is increasing the noise to signal ratio. If everyone you force to do it votes randomly then it’ll average out.
It’s worse than that. The randomness is biased in ways that can be systematically manipulated.
Why? I fail to seem any gains from that. Neither do I see any major empirical differences between countries with compulsory voting and countries without.
In general the correct response to most “I fail to see” or “I can’t imagine” claims is to observe that this could be either a fact about the problem or a fact about the speaker’s imagination.
The current solution to the tragedy of the commons is brainwashing with patriotism and relying on poorly calibrated tribal-political instincts to get by. This works well enough and I honestly don’t think this is a problem that particularly needs addressing, compared to all the other things that can be done. It is merely a minor systemic insanity.
Well, informed voting is, but how do you reliably check if somebody was well-informed as they voted, to legally enforce it?
Only requiring informed voters to vote would be a potentially useful optimisation. As you point out that distinction does not seem to be practical.
So what problem is mandatory voting supposedly solving again?
In countries without mandatory voting, if voting is more inconvenient for certain groups than for others, the latter will be over-weighed in the election. With mandatory voting, casting a valid vote is no more and no less inconvenient than spoiling the ballot, so that’s not an issue—all eligible people who ceteris paribus would prefer, no matter how slightly, to vote will do so.
(Unlike wedrifid I’m not in a country with mandatory voting, BTW.)
I’m tapping out of this conversation. It’s predisposing me towards racism. I’m sure anybody actually interested will have no problem finding a book on game theory.
Taboo “racism”. From context it seems to mean [having beliefs that while more accurate make me uncomfortable].