they believe the odds for voting (voting and polling data are more solid evidence)
it’s socially popular, and voting can be good for your social standing; people tend to live in politically segregated localities and communities, so for most people voting means affiliating with the groups your associates are connected with
there are huge marketing campaigns for voting since politicians and advocates have a vested interest in convincing people to vote for them, and in the process produce generic pro-voting spillovers collectively
voting is a cheap and bounded commitment (although political donations can be arbitrarily large)
voting affects current generations and fellow citizens more relative to future generations,
voting invokes coalitional thinking and group loyalty/morality more
consequences of votes, conditional on decisiveness, are revealed to a degree relatively soon
voting justifies reading about or watching politics for political junkies and policy wonks
I think the last reason is illegitimate, because it is symmetrical with the existential risk case. Just as voting justifies following politics, so does trying to decrease existential risk justify soaking up X-risk information. Therefore, someone who accepts it as a reason to vote should accept it as a reason to try to mitigate X-risks.
Among other reasons, because :
they believe the odds for voting (voting and polling data are more solid evidence)
it’s socially popular, and voting can be good for your social standing; people tend to live in politically segregated localities and communities, so for most people voting means affiliating with the groups your associates are connected with
there are huge marketing campaigns for voting since politicians and advocates have a vested interest in convincing people to vote for them, and in the process produce generic pro-voting spillovers collectively
voting is a cheap and bounded commitment (although political donations can be arbitrarily large)
voting affects current generations and fellow citizens more relative to future generations,
voting invokes coalitional thinking and group loyalty/morality more
consequences of votes, conditional on decisiveness, are revealed to a degree relatively soon
voting justifies reading about or watching politics for political junkies and policy wonks
I think the last reason is illegitimate, because it is symmetrical with the existential risk case. Just as voting justifies following politics, so does trying to decrease existential risk justify soaking up X-risk information. Therefore, someone who accepts it as a reason to vote should accept it as a reason to try to mitigate X-risks.