Hacker News Reader

Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Votes are not insignificant as winners and losers consider the actual votes not just who won. (ex: When drawing district maps.) Further, even if you dislike all the options for president, congress, local election, etc there are still generally referendums where obtaining is meaningless as they are direct Y/N questions.

Not voting on the other hand accomplishes nothing and convinces the system that you don't matter.

PS: I don't necessarily mind you conceding all your power to other people. I simply object to flawed logic.

View on HN

The act of voting, from an individual perspective, is objectively irrational. Since the chance of your particular vote affecting the outcome of an election is 0 your time and effort is wasted.

The lesser of two (or few) evils argument only applies on a collective level but you are an individual making ab atomized decision, not a collective.

Since your particular vote has no effect on the outcome if you are going to do so anyway you might as well vote for someone you believe in. And if no candidate exists that fits that criteria you are not just wasting your time, you are willingly participating in your own delusion.

Voting is like praying. Both have zero effect on the world, but there are huge structures that rely on maintaining the illusion to the contrary.

> Not voting on the other hand accomplishes nothing and convinces the system that you don't matter.

Once again, these embedded assumptions about the 'system' and my responsibility to it, all under the pretext that it is a system which is capable of significance if only more people, or the right people, took part in it. Reminds me of the cliche definition of 'crazy', expecting different results.

There's plenty of more useful ways to affect the world than that. But by all means, if you think things will be different next time...

And there's a difference between active vs passive involvement. By staying home and not voting I'm not actively negatively affecting the system. My involvement is entirely passive.

I am not trying to convince you to vote. Please feel free to stay home as that's probably better for me than you going out and voting.

Still, to give a specific example: Republicans want to replace the affordable care act. They also want to get elected.

So, let's figure out what explains their actions. People who vote, political donors, or everything else such as people send out angry tweets etc.

PS: It's possible for the 3rd option to be important, but frankly your actions not going to be.

> Republicans want to replace the affordable care act.

And that got rejected in congress unsurprisingly, just like all of his more extreme policies which everyone freaked out about (how's that wall coming?).

The latest executive orders will make a difference but a minor one in the long run. The US government's involvement in the healthcare system is still a super expensive mess.

Despite the intense discourse, billions of dollars spent, countless hours of us vs them, the US isn't much different than a year ago. I'm not saying it all doesn't matter but I'm struggling to see the utility in caring in my short life.

So far trump signed 53 or more bills into law. Now, yes they might not make headlines, but they are very much different laws than if he had lost.

The US does not change quickly. But, just because you stop paying attention does not mean you are not impacted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com