Quote:
Originally Posted by Phanuthier
Exactly. I see above that IFF tried convincing me in political science history, but that is all greek to me. I have no idea what he said in half his post and would probably have to wikipedia it.
Seriously, I've never felt like we're in a dictatorship more then this thread - YOU HAVE TO VOTE! WE'LL SEND YOU TO NIGERIA! WE'LL TURN EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T VOTE INTO LAB RATS! I mean seriously. Its not like I'm telling people not to vote, I'm just giving me reasons for why I don't vote. I'm not contaminating their votes, I'm not trying to sway their opinion. But now I'm told that I have to follow politics, choose a party to align myself to, and feel guilty for other people going to war? C'mon. Don't pull that Afghanistan stuff on me, are you in Afghanistan? If not, then I don't know why you are. I have 2 friends who are going to be deployed into Afghanistan in the next the next year as field operations - some of the most dangourous work in Afghanistan - and they don't ever try and get on me for being a patriot, must vote, et al like this thread. I find it very odd that so there are so many people here that keep saying I should vote because we send good men and women to Afghanistan, but the ones I know going to Afghanistan never bring it up. Very odd.
Is the issue right now between picking a voting for democracy? Are ethics and morals at the forfront for this running? If not, why am I getting these threats about losing it? Seriously, I don't equate skipping voting for periods that I don't choose to vote as losing my freedom forever.
If you view voting as a opportunity cost, you can see why I don't vote by a classical prisoners dilemma as follows:
Cost of being knowledgeable to form an opinion to vote : time x ($/time)
Cost of $$ spend in other forms that I may otherwise have had influence in how its spent: (taxed income) x (chance that money is taken away from favourable interests) x (chance money is given to interests that I am not favourable) x (max potential change for loss in favourable interests) x (max potential change in gains for favourable interests) x (chance that my chose party will win, chance that the party I do not want to see in party will win)
One can easily see that if a voter has no vested interests in the issues brought up in this election, that dominant strategy that will prevail is not to vote. One can also see that if an issue does concern them more, that they will vote based upon game theory.
By simple game theory, it can be shown that the dominant strategy for me to vote as there is a larger
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I appreciate your post, you took a lot of effort throughout the thread.
All I have to say is I feel people like you are a big problem in this world. You don;'t care about anything unless it bites you in the a**. If more people just cared about the world they live in and what other people are going through and some of the problems that might not effect you are having on other people, this world would be a much better place.