271–280 of 391 posts
EDIT: Whoever downvoted this, YOU are the reason that HN is going to pot. You may not like that I am not voting, but instead why don't you instead respond telling me why I'm wrong?
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Seriously, I thought you were being tongue in cheek in your comments. If you're serious, then your idea of rating people according to some measure (you advocate some hazy notion of informedness, but it's not important what it is) and denying people who score low is outrageous. In fact, in principle, this is no different than saying blacks, or women, or gays, etc. should not vote! Let me state it simply: Voting is a r…
Whilst I don't necessarily agree with limiting voting by knowledge or intelligence, I do think people are too quick to shun it without thought. If it's so wrong, explain why, rationally, not with an appeal to morality. Otherwise it reeks of 'What you can't say' [1]. Would you want an uninformed, unintelligent leader? If not, would you want uninformed, unintelligent people to choose a leader? Of course, I do agree tha…
Problem is, rarely I find myself in a setting where these interesting topics can be discussed in a rational setting. But that's the subject of another post.
My rational argument against CWuestefeld's suggestions is simple (based on entropy minimization): Do not make any complex issue even more complicated by your actions.
Let me explain: In its essence CWuestefeld suggestion rests on the notion that some voters' votes are off less value. If we accept this, then the question becomes, how do we determine the value: who should be allowed to vote. He says that it should be contingent on "knowledge of economics, full understanding of the issues etc.". I might counter with a different definition, e.g. "Most politics is dominated by men, so men should know better" or the somewhat better "without knowing the reality of a factory worker, how can you vote on issues that affect us". This leads to murky, philosophical debate that makes the issue even more complex and intractable than the one it's trying to solve.
Please, do vote if you understand the issues, and where the candidates stand. But otherwise, please DO NOT VOTE. Just because an idea makes you feel warm and fuzzy doesn't make it right. There are plenty of things in this world that are counter-intuitive, and if you're relying only on your beliefs , there's a good chance you'll get it wrong. If you've never taken a class or read a book on economics, please don't vote…
Advocating that people take themselves out of the pool because they may not understand the entire situation would eliminate every possible voter.
For those of you looking to do some last minute research before voting today, my web app provides candidate information along with information on the positions each candidate supports or opposes: http://elect.io
Cool and easy to use. We actually worked on something similar where we ask your position on causes and show the grades according to policies: http://www.votereports.org
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, I thought you were being tongue in cheek in your comments. If you're serious, then your idea of rating people according to some measure (you advocate some hazy notion of informedness, but it's not important what it is) and denying people who score low is outrageous. In fact, in principle, this is no different than saying blacks, or women, or gays, etc. should not vote! Let me state it simply: Voting is a r…
> Voting is a right given to a citizen who meets > certain definitions (i.e. inmates cannot vote). The European Union has declared that preventing inmates from voting is an infringment of their human rights. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11671164
I got curious, so rather than going lunch, did some Wikipedia reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_Sta.... Turns out the right to vote cannot be denied based on :
* Religion (in Constitution is found in Article VI, section 3. * "Race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (15th Amendment, 1870) * "On account of sex" (19th Amendment, 1920) * "By reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax" (24th Amendment, 1964)
Conversely, this means that the right can be denied based on other factors, just not one of the above.
It also says: "As of July 2007, fourteen states, eleven of them in the South, ban anyone with a felony conviction from voting for life." This is outrageous, and should be considered a cruel and unusual punishment! When someone servers their term, they should be given their citizenship rights back.
personally I don't vote for 3 reasons: 1. my vote doesn't matter. I live in a 100% blue state, it'll go Democrat no matter what. So whether I decide to vote democrat or republican or green, my vote really won't matter. + the redestricting is always aimed at propping up small states. Why does California and Delaware both get 2 senators? 2. the system is broken, there are no good politicians. There is no incentive for…
You've constructed reasons not to vote, but you've left out the most important one in your reasoning: if everyone thought like you, we'd be giving absolute control to a small group of people. How do you think that would work out?
Every day I watch people make bad decisions for seemingly very good reasons. They are still bad decisions, though, and the key flaw is they either massively elevated an unimportant factor in the decision, or just didn't even consider the important factors.
What's strange, though, when this is pointed out to most people, they ignore the advice, sure in themselves that their process was correct. After the fact, they still have justifications about their decision, even if the prior stated flaws in their process turned out to be correct.
It just amazes me.
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In fact some States (e.g. WA was like this) only allow voting by mail. Potentially disenfranchising perhaps; how do I vote if I'm homeless?
Pierce county in WA still has polling places. It's Oregon that is entirely vote-by-mail.
To say that most elections aren't decided by a single vote, and thus your vote doesn't matter; is like saying that no one goes bankrupt over a single dollar, so single dollars don't matter. If you agree that single dollars don't matter, send your extra ones to me please....
Please, do vote if you understand the issues, and where the candidates stand. But otherwise, please DO NOT VOTE. Just because an idea makes you feel warm and fuzzy doesn't make it right. There are plenty of things in this world that are counter-intuitive, and if you're relying only on your beliefs , there's a good chance you'll get it wrong. If you've never taken a class or read a book on economics, please don't vote…
While I support the idea of people educating themselves (and I would also recommend the reading list you provided), who can guarantee 100% that they are free from propaganda or brainwashing? Especially given the vast amount of information everyone is confronted with every day. We are emotional creatures, each susceptible to misdirection by those who intended it (or perhaps even worse, by those we trust who don't inte…
It'd eliminate all of the candidates, too...
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Way to correlate! I have to say, this type of attitude makes me suspicious. One of the parties in US elections gains a lot by discouraging people in general not to vote, because it tilts the results in their favour. This might not apply to you, but I always wonder if these kinds of comments aren't just in support of that strategy.
One of the parties in US elections gains a lot by discouraging people in general not to vote, because it tilts the results in their favour. This implies that you believe that the other party (from whichever one you were thinking of) would always win if voting were mandatory. This seems like a result of interacting almost entirely with those of the party you favor, like people in 2004 who asserted that since no one th…
There is plenty of room in the setup of US elections for one party to have an advantage when turnout is low but still have varied results from year to year and region to region even when voting is mandated. But more importantly, even when you can get 60% of the popular vote in a 100% turnout election, lower turnout can still increase this percentage if the low turnout meant proportionally more of the winning party voters turned out, resulting in more than 60% majority.