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Thread: Question

  1. #1

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    The puzzle: In practice, national elections almost never hang on any one vote. Thus, you can be pretty sure that whichever candidate you vote for, or even if you do not vote at all, the outcome will be the same. It thus seems that you do not benefit yourself, your fellow citizens or your country by voting. Therefore, it seems, you shouldn't bother to vote, given that you could spend the time doing something more productive. This argument seems persuasive, and yet if everyone followed it, the consequences would be unacceptable.

    What do you think?

    NM
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  2. #2

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    NM. Think a bit. you'll figure it out.
    He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave.

  3. #3

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    If Jonny put his hand in the fire would you do it too?!

    The needs (and voices, or votes) of the many, outweigh the "needs" of the few!

    That's why it's important to vote, it's your right and people fought and died so you could have it.

  4. #4
    wilpuri's Avatar It Gets Worse.
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    I think I will vote in the next parliamentary elections and the next presidential elections, because I want to try it out. I don't think I'll be voting after that, except for may be in referendums or things that I actually care about. Seeing how nothing ever changes here, with no political party getting enough seats to work more independently towards their party goals. Instead they form coalitions, compromise and no one is quite satisfied. I hate our politics, so incredibly boring and so incredibly static.
    The common culture of a tribe is a sign of its inner cohesion. But tribes are vanishing from the modern world, as are all forms of traditional society. Customs, practices, festivals, rituals and beliefs have acquired a flut and half-hearted quality which reflects our nomadic and rootless existence, predicated as we are on the global air-waves.

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  5. #5
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    One vote only matters or holds weight if that vote was by someone in the Electoral College.
    The needs (and voices, or votes) of the many, outweigh the "needs" of the few!
    It is true that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but that rarely applies to politics as the needs of the American people doesn't seem to outweigh the needs of the greedy that weild the power and would rather suffice their own 'needs' than address the issues at home and the needs of the people.

  6. #6

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    to Wilpuri:

    Oh how wise the Chinese were to curse their enemies with - may you live in exciting times. I can only wish everyone on the planet lived in a politicaly boring society ruled by technocrats. Decision making based on lengthy dialogue and compromise definetely sounds boring but its as close as it can get to perfect governance. I am all for coalitions based on compromise rather than unanimous victories based on zealous faith.

    As for the voting question, NM, imagine you are in a room with four other people, is your vote worth something or not? Its worth exactly 20% of the total. If you progressively multiply the number of people your vote's absolute value will progressively shrink but it will never reach zero. Moreover, this argument against voting also fails to take into account the reverse - the fact that after casting votes tend to be counted and tallied up, hence their value starts rising progressively again with their accumulation. Finaly, this argument ignores social conditioning of votes - in a room of five people where you are the only one feeling passionetely about an issue and communicating that to others, statistical chances are you will attract at least one vote. Hence your voting postion actualy equals 40% of the total. In a real world situation, the so called 'base nodes' tend to accumulate huge amounts of votes that way - by social conditioning. Hence - one vote is extremely important if you know how to use it. Best example - the vote of a popular church pastor.
    sic transit gloria mundi

  7. #7

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    Too much gys. Look at it this way. Voter turn out has been declining for the past thirty years ( except for this year) dude, you vote is worth more now! .0000000000000000011% is way better than .0000000000000000010 %. Dont be and ingrate. vote. you hippie.
    He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave.

  8. #8

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    Originally posted by The Cimmerian@Nov 4 2004, 06:15 PM
    One vote only matters or holds weight if that vote was by someone in the Electoral College.

    It is true that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but that rarely applies to politics as the needs of the American people doesn't seem to outweigh the needs of the greedy that weild the power and would rather suffice their own 'needs' than address the issues at home and the needs of the people.
    There's really no point in electing Bush and his Republican cronies and then giving out that they only look after
    their own "needs" and ignore the electorate. You guys apparently voted this idiot in, twice!

  9. #9

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    It's like in Catch-22: If only one guys runs away, it doesn't make much of a difference. But if everyone else runs away, you'd have to be an idiot to stay.

    At this point, swing state voters are the only ones that matter. A farmer in Ohio has proportionally way more power than a new yorker. The hilarious thing is that that farmer will vote for a president who will cut farm subsidies, just because he's grossed out by gay weddings.
    "Jamf was only a fiction, to help him explain what he felt so terribly, so immediately in his genitals for those rockets each time exploding in the sky... to help him deny what the could not possibly admit: that he might be in love, in sexual love, with his, and his race's, death." - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

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  10. #10
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    Originally posted by Derkon@Nov 5 2004, 02:45 PM
    There's really no point in electing Bush and his Republican cronies and then giving out that they only look after their own "needs" and ignore the electorate. You guys apparently voted this idiot in, twice!
    I know, it's a sad day for humanity. I for one can say that I was a little surprised that he won considering all the people that can't stand him and have been complaining for the past 4 years. Maybe all those people who voted against him were the votes that were 'discarded'(forget the term they use for those votes but it's posted within this site). It all boils back to my understanding that whatever they(the gov't) want, will be done regardless of what the people say as their voices are rarely heard.

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