On the other hand, it’s being weighed against a big effect. If you believe that your disfavoured candidate has an extra 10% chance of getting the US into a futile $10B war (note: this is at least two orders of magnitude less than Iraq, even if we consider nothing but financial costs) and consider money spent on war to be wasted (rather than e.g. as a form of redistribution, with impoverished defence contractors as beneficiaries) then preferring $1M for oneself at that cost amounts to a 1000:1 preference for self over others in the same country. Far from implausible, alas, but it’s still quite extreme.
(Note 1: The above calculation is really simplistic. I know. I don’t think a less simplistic version would give drastically different results. Note 2: I am not assuming that all wars are futile. Note 3: There are plenty of other ways in which one candidate could be much better than another; e.g., 10% chance of a difference of $10B in GDP growth would look rather like 10% chance of a futile $10B war; GDP growth under past US presidents has varied by much more than that.)
On the other hand, it’s being weighed against a big effect. If you believe that your disfavoured candidate has an extra 10% chance of getting the US into a futile $10B war (note: this is at least two orders of magnitude less than Iraq, even if we consider nothing but financial costs) and consider money spent on war to be wasted (rather than e.g. as a form of redistribution, with impoverished defence contractors as beneficiaries) then preferring $1M for oneself at that cost amounts to a 1000:1 preference for self over others in the same country. Far from implausible, alas, but it’s still quite extreme.
(Note 1: The above calculation is really simplistic. I know. I don’t think a less simplistic version would give drastically different results. Note 2: I am not assuming that all wars are futile. Note 3: There are plenty of other ways in which one candidate could be much better than another; e.g., 10% chance of a difference of $10B in GDP growth would look rather like 10% chance of a futile $10B war; GDP growth under past US presidents has varied by much more than that.)