Just out of curiosity, how much time did you spend on modelling and writing this?
I am asking, because you are saying that you probably need 0.75 hours to vote. Let’s say your remaining life expectancy is 40 years. If we have a 4 year election cycle, this means 10 elections. So, in total you would need 7.5 hours in your remaining life to go vote.
And I wondered if convincing yourself to not go vote took more time than to just go vote?
Thanks for noting that, Florian! I would also be curious to know whether you strongly downvoted the post (I guess you did), and explain a little why. Downvoting at this point does not decrease visibility, because the post was published long ago.
I have one footnote pointing to the overall point you are making after “I realise voting takes little time”:
Much less time than what I spent on this post, but hopefully it is valuable!
Even before starting to write this post, I already thought I was going to spend much more time writing it than on voting. Around 1 year ago, I said:
I tend to think spending more than 10 min on voting is not worth it if the counterfactual is either working on 80,000 Hours’ most pressing problems, or donating to interventions which aim to solve them (like those supported by the LTFF [Long-Term Future Fund])
I still wrote the post because:
I expect most people to be surprised by me not voting, so I feel like having a post I can point to explaining my reasons, and showing I thought about the matter (as opposed to just not voting out of laziness) is important.
Other people could find it valuable. For what is worth, a few people in EA Lisbon said they thought the discussions we had about my post on voting interesting.
Some arguably less important points are below.
I am asking, because you are saying that you probably need 0.75 hours to vote. Let’s say your remaining life expectancy is 40 years. If we have a 4 year election cycle, this means 10 elections. So, in total you would need 7.5 hours in your remaining life to go vote.
Your calculation underestimates how much time I will spend voting. The number of elections in Portugal is more like 1 per year:
The number of elections per year in Portugal, where I live, of 0.95 (= 1⁄5 + 3⁄4):
European elections happen every 5 years.
Local, legislative and presidential elections happen every 4 years.
So, if I vote for 40 more years (conservative because my best guess is that I will leave further than just into my 60s), I still have 40 potential votes, which would take 30 h (= 0.75*40). I have spent around 40 h modelling, writing, thinking and talking with people in the context of my post. In addition, I expect my opportunity cost to increase, which makes future votes more costly. So it is unclear to me whether writing the post was worth it or not excluding indirect effects.
And I wondered if convincing yourself to not go vote took more time than to just go vote?
I do not think “convincing yourself” is the best description of my attitude towards this post. I did kind of have to do some convicing of myself at the end, after looking into the arguments, but I was open to continue voting before thinking about this, and discussing it with other people.
I do think that things like voting are dominated in their impact not by direct, but by indirect effects, which cannot really be captured in simple numbers. For example, if I vote I set a good example for my friends, which in turn makes them more likely to vote, which in turn makes their friends more likely to vote. Repeat this enough times and you have more stable democracy. I get that you could also model this in a relatively simple way, but my point is that there are a lot of interacting factors like this.
Making a only numbers based argument in such and similar cases gives the illusion of certainty, while actually you likely have not considered many important factors, which makes the number kinda random and not something that you can base solid decisions on. However, I think having such a number anchors you strongly, which makes it harder to change your opinion in the future, especially if the arguments are non-number based.
I do think that things like voting are dominated in their impact not by direct, but by indirect effects, which cannot really be captured in simple numbers.
I agree indirect effects are important. As I said in the post, they contributed both to my decision of continuing to vote in the past, and my decision to stop voting recently.
For example, if I vote I set a good example for my friends, which in turn makes them more likely to vote, which in turn makes their friends more likely to vote. Repeat this enough times and you have more stable democracy. I get that you could also model this in a relatively simple way, but my point is that there are a lot of interacting factors like this.
Thanks for raising this. It is a common objection, but I am not persuaded by it:
As far as I know, all the people I regularly talk to vote, so I am not seeing how I would easily make more people vote.
I estimated voting is only worth 0.2 $ in donations to GiveWell’s top charities, which means tens of seconds given how much I value my time. In contrast, I guess convincing someone to vote takes tens of minutes to hours, so it would not be worth it.
I agree more people voting will tend to lead to a more stable democracy, but we have to compare this with the effect of additional donations or working time.
I agree we should think about which norms we want to spread. However, I would rather spread the norm of “contributing to a better world (regardless of whether this involves voting or not)” instead of that of “voting (regardless of whether this contributes to a better world or not)”. Note I am not arguing for everyone to stop voting! Very few people are in my position of having their marginal earnings going towards effective donations, which means their opportunity cost is much lower, and therefore voting will tend to be way more advisable.
Making a only numbers based argument in such and similar cases gives the illusion of certainty, while actually you likely have not considered many important factors, which makes the number kinda random and not something that you can base solid decisions on.
I am under no illusions! I appreciate the uncertainty of my numbers, but I would say this weakens the case for voting:
I appreciate there is uncertainty in my parameters and model, but these decrease my confidence that I can make the right voting choice, thus decreasing the direct value of voting. To be honest, my current estimates for the 2 major candidates (AD and PS) have so little resilience that I sense my vote is roughly as likely to be positive as negative.
I could learn more about the parties to get to an informed decision, but this is not worth it given my opportunity cost. This does not mean I consider elections and politics irrelevant:
To be clear, I agree that safeguarding liberal democracy is quite important. For what it is worth, I was a member of PAN for 3 years. I was not very active, but during that time I discussed concepts related to effective altruism, suggested ideas for policies, took part in some meetings, and collected signatures. My decision not to vote does not mean at all that I would endorse going back to a dictatorship. In fact, I admire the people who took part in the Carnation Revolution “that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974”, and could see myself having participated in some form. However, skipping voting in Portugal today has a very minor effect on increasing the chance of a totalitarian government at the current margin[10]. Relatedly, continuing to eat factory-farmed animals on the basis that the food system would collapse if everyone decided to go plant-based overnight is a poor argument, because such an abrupt change is wholly unrealistic.
For what is worth, given my current opportunity cost, I would be happy to participate in a citizens’ assembly, and I am happy to discuss politics with family and friends.
However, I think having such a number anchors you strongly, which makes it harder to change your opinion in the future, especially if the arguments are non-number based.
I agree it is important to be mindful of measurability bias. On the other hand, I am not worried by the above because indirect qualitative effects played a major role in my decision not to vote. For example, I talked with close family about whether they would be bothered by me not voting. Everyone was fine, but if anyone had a meaningful preference for me to vote, I would do so. Decreasing the quality of my relationships with close family members would easily dominate the direct effects. I did not quantify this, but this is the kind of qualitative arguments I think are worth considering.
By the way, I am not sure whether you wanted to reply to this:
I would also be curious to know whether you strongly downvoted the post (I guess you did), and explain a little why. Downvoting at this point does not decrease visibility, because the post was published long ago.
Just out of curiosity, how much time did you spend on modelling and writing this?
I am asking, because you are saying that you probably need 0.75 hours to vote. Let’s say your remaining life expectancy is 40 years. If we have a 4 year election cycle, this means 10 elections. So, in total you would need 7.5 hours in your remaining life to go vote.
And I wondered if convincing yourself to not go vote took more time than to just go vote?
Thanks for noting that, Florian! I would also be curious to know whether you strongly downvoted the post (I guess you did), and explain a little why. Downvoting at this point does not decrease visibility, because the post was published long ago.
I have one footnote pointing to the overall point you are making after “I realise voting takes little time”:
Even before starting to write this post, I already thought I was going to spend much more time writing it than on voting. Around 1 year ago, I said:
I still wrote the post because:
I expect most people to be surprised by me not voting, so I feel like having a post I can point to explaining my reasons, and showing I thought about the matter (as opposed to just not voting out of laziness) is important.
Other people could find it valuable. For what is worth, a few people in EA Lisbon said they thought the discussions we had about my post on voting interesting.
Some arguably less important points are below.
Your calculation underestimates how much time I will spend voting. The number of elections in Portugal is more like 1 per year:
So, if I vote for 40 more years (conservative because my best guess is that I will leave further than just into my 60s), I still have 40 potential votes, which would take 30 h (= 0.75*40). I have spent around 40 h modelling, writing, thinking and talking with people in the context of my post. In addition, I expect my opportunity cost to increase, which makes future votes more costly. So it is unclear to me whether writing the post was worth it or not excluding indirect effects.
I do not think “convincing yourself” is the best description of my attitude towards this post. I did kind of have to do some convicing of myself at the end, after looking into the arguments, but I was open to continue voting before thinking about this, and discussing it with other people.
I do think that things like voting are dominated in their impact not by direct, but by indirect effects, which cannot really be captured in simple numbers. For example, if I vote I set a good example for my friends, which in turn makes them more likely to vote, which in turn makes their friends more likely to vote. Repeat this enough times and you have more stable democracy. I get that you could also model this in a relatively simple way, but my point is that there are a lot of interacting factors like this.
Making a only numbers based argument in such and similar cases gives the illusion of certainty, while actually you likely have not considered many important factors, which makes the number kinda random and not something that you can base solid decisions on. However, I think having such a number anchors you strongly, which makes it harder to change your opinion in the future, especially if the arguments are non-number based.
I agree indirect effects are important. As I said in the post, they contributed both to my decision of continuing to vote in the past, and my decision to stop voting recently.
Thanks for raising this. It is a common objection, but I am not persuaded by it:
As far as I know, all the people I regularly talk to vote, so I am not seeing how I would easily make more people vote.
I estimated voting is only worth 0.2 $ in donations to GiveWell’s top charities, which means tens of seconds given how much I value my time. In contrast, I guess convincing someone to vote takes tens of minutes to hours, so it would not be worth it.
I agree more people voting will tend to lead to a more stable democracy, but we have to compare this with the effect of additional donations or working time.
I agree we should think about which norms we want to spread. However, I would rather spread the norm of “contributing to a better world (regardless of whether this involves voting or not)” instead of that of “voting (regardless of whether this contributes to a better world or not)”. Note I am not arguing for everyone to stop voting! Very few people are in my position of having their marginal earnings going towards effective donations, which means their opportunity cost is much lower, and therefore voting will tend to be way more advisable.
I am under no illusions! I appreciate the uncertainty of my numbers, but I would say this weakens the case for voting:
I could learn more about the parties to get to an informed decision, but this is not worth it given my opportunity cost. This does not mean I consider elections and politics irrelevant:
For what is worth, given my current opportunity cost, I would be happy to participate in a citizens’ assembly, and I am happy to discuss politics with family and friends.
I agree it is important to be mindful of measurability bias. On the other hand, I am not worried by the above because indirect qualitative effects played a major role in my decision not to vote. For example, I talked with close family about whether they would be bothered by me not voting. Everyone was fine, but if anyone had a meaningful preference for me to vote, I would do so. Decreasing the quality of my relationships with close family members would easily dominate the direct effects. I did not quantify this, but this is the kind of qualitative arguments I think are worth considering.
By the way, I am not sure whether you wanted to reply to this:
Nevermind if you did not intend to reply.