2) The risk you incur in going to the place where you vote (a non-trivial likelihood of dying due to unusual traffic that day).
3) The attention you pay to politics and associated decision cost.
4) The sensation you made a difference (this cost is conditional on voting not making a difference).
What are the benefits associated with voting:
1) If an election is decided based on one vote, and you voted on one of the winning contestants, your vote decides who is elected, and is causally responsible for the counterfactual difference between candidates.
2) Depending on your inclinations about how decision theory and anomalous causality actually work in humans, you may think your vote is numerically more valuable because it changes/indicates/represents/maps what your reference class will vote. As if you were automatically famous and influential.
Now I ask you to consider whether benefit (1) would in fact be the case for important elections (elections say where the elected will govern over 10 000 000 people). If 100 Worlds had an election decided based on one vote, which percentage of those would be surreptitiously biased by someone who could tamper with the voting? How many would request a recount? How many would ask it’s citizens to vote again? Would deem the election illegitimate? Etc... Maybe some of these worlds would indeed accept the original counting, or do a fair recounting that would reach the exact same number, I find it unlikely this would be more than 80 of these 100 worlds, and would not be surprised if it was 30 or less.
We don’t know how likely it is that this will happen, in more than 16000 elections in the US only one was decided by one vote, and it was not an executive function in a highly populated area.
This has been somewhat discussed in the rationalist community before, with different people reaching different conclusions.
Here are some suggestions for EA’s that are consistent with the point of view that voting is, ceteris paribus, not valuable:
EA’s who are not famous and influential should consider never making political choices.
EA’s who are uncertain or live in countries where suffrage is compulsory may want to consider saving time by copying the voting decisions of someone who they trust, to avoid time and attention loss.
Suggestions for those who think voting is valuable:
EAs should consider the marginal cost of copying the voting policy of a non-EA friend/influence they trust highly, and weight it against the time, attention and decision cost of deciding themselves.
EAs should consider using safe vehicles (all the time and) during elections.
EAs who think voting is valuable because it represents what all agents in their reference class would do in that situation should consider other situations in which to apply such decision procedure. There may be a lot at stake in many decisions where using indication and anomalous causation applies—even in domains where this is not the sole ground of justification.
Hey Diego, Ryan mentioned that he was planning to start a new open thread around Monday (on a roughly fortnightly schedule), so you may get a better response from posting this in that :)
Is voting valuable?
There are four costs associated with voting:
1) The time you spend deciding on whom to vote.
2) The risk you incur in going to the place where you vote (a non-trivial likelihood of dying due to unusual traffic that day).
3) The attention you pay to politics and associated decision cost.
4) The sensation you made a difference (this cost is conditional on voting not making a difference).
What are the benefits associated with voting:
1) If an election is decided based on one vote, and you voted on one of the winning contestants, your vote decides who is elected, and is causally responsible for the counterfactual difference between candidates.
2) Depending on your inclinations about how decision theory and anomalous causality actually work in humans, you may think your vote is numerically more valuable because it changes/indicates/represents/maps what your reference class will vote. As if you were automatically famous and influential.
Now I ask you to consider whether benefit (1) would in fact be the case for important elections (elections say where the elected will govern over 10 000 000 people). If 100 Worlds had an election decided based on one vote, which percentage of those would be surreptitiously biased by someone who could tamper with the voting? How many would request a recount? How many would ask it’s citizens to vote again? Would deem the election illegitimate? Etc...
Maybe some of these worlds would indeed accept the original counting, or do a fair recounting that would reach the exact same number, I find it unlikely this would be more than 80 of these 100 worlds, and would not be surprised if it was 30 or less.
We don’t know how likely it is that this will happen, in more than 16000 elections in the US only one was decided by one vote, and it was not an executive function in a highly populated area.
This has been somewhat discussed in the rationalist community before, with different people reaching different conclusions.
Here are some suggestions for EA’s that are consistent with the point of view that voting is, ceteris paribus, not valuable:
EA’s who are not famous and influential should consider never making political choices.
EA’s who are uncertain or live in countries where suffrage is compulsory may want to consider saving time by copying the voting decisions of someone who they trust, to avoid time and attention loss.
Suggestions for those who think voting is valuable:
EAs should consider the marginal cost of copying the voting policy of a non-EA friend/influence they trust highly, and weight it against the time, attention and decision cost of deciding themselves.
EAs should consider using safe vehicles (all the time and) during elections.
EAs who think voting is valuable because it represents what all agents in their reference class would do in that situation should consider other situations in which to apply such decision procedure. There may be a lot at stake in many decisions where using indication and anomalous causation applies—even in domains where this is not the sole ground of justification.
Hey Diego, Ryan mentioned that he was planning to start a new open thread around Monday (on a roughly fortnightly schedule), so you may get a better response from posting this in that :)