The real cost of voting is mostly the cost of following politics. Maybe you could vote without following politics and still make decent voting decisions, but that’s not a decision people often make in practice.
if you have a firm alignment with some interest group, calls or bloc, following politics is low cost—you just vote with them or their leaders. Parties exist for a reason.
By “following” I just meant “paying attention to”, which is automatically not low cost. I think it’s plausible that you could make decent decisions without paying any attention, but in practice people who think about rationalist arguments for/against voting do pay attention, and would pay less attention (perhaps 10-100 hours’ worth per election?) if they didn’t vote.
The real cost of voting is mostly the cost of following politics. Maybe you could vote without following politics and still make decent voting decisions, but that’s not a decision people often make in practice.
if you have a firm alignment with some interest group, calls or bloc, following politics is low cost—you just vote with them or their leaders. Parties exist for a reason.
By “following” I just meant “paying attention to”, which is automatically not low cost. I think it’s plausible that you could make decent decisions without paying any attention, but in practice people who think about rationalist arguments for/against voting do pay attention, and would pay less attention (perhaps 10-100 hours’ worth per election?) if they didn’t vote.