^ He'll save us. Don't worry be happy.

"That matter to me???? Climate change is not a fucking special interest, get your head out of your ass. We are facing down a mass extinction and you are implying I'm being selfish. Jesus Christ"

This reminds me of the crazy man who lives under the bridge in my hometown yelling how the apocalypse is nearly here and all sinners will die very soon.

Oh the time zones... So:

First of all, where the fuck did stephanie go? This thread got a little bit less ridiculous and I feel like Thucy starts to feel hemmed and will soon start to refer to us as "they".

Secondly, as we talked before, a vote has a bigger power then just being counted up to select the winner. A real example, but from a country with a much more reasonable electoral law. I have been always (for 5 years, lol) voted for a centrist-rightist party (called Civil Platform or PO) because they were a guarantor that the terrible Law and Justice (PiS) wouldn't return to power - they are extremely conservative in matters of religion, and yet bordering on communism when it comes to welfare. However, this year we have presidential elections (consisting of two rounds, two candidates go two second round) and in the first election I'll vote for leftist candidate. While I don't agree with them almost at all I feel that it is very unhealthy that out of the whole spectrum of parties in Poland only about 6% are anywhere left from the center. She (btw, she is so fucking hot - Magdalena Ogórek) will not win, for sure, and frankly my vote in the first round is wasted. Of course, it doesn't matter to me because I will vote on my real candidate in the second round. So what does my vote do? Well, it makes leftists' result just a little bit better. I might do the same thing in parliamentary elections in autumn. And then the next elections. I tell all my friends to do this. I do hope that once they get like 15% people will start voting on them and will have a stronger leftist voice in the political debate. SO, do my votes go wasted? In the traditional notion of social choice theory - yes. Just like voting in a republican or democrat state you know you vote have no "power" to change the outcome. But does it really ever do? In the beginning of this thread I had a discussion with someone, that while rationalizing voting voters take the probability of having the decisive vote, which is nuts, because almost never is there a situation that one vote is decisive. I show my support, that will later on be reflected in the statistics, and those statistics will later on affect decisions of future voter. So while yes, my vote might be wasted in the traditional notion, it sure as hell isn't worthless, and it sure as hell is much more influential than a no-vote.

And while "Can ideas be dangerous?" or "Should we censor some ideas?" could be another thread altogether, I do believe the fact that Thucy and Mr. Brand are trying to convince people not to vote is just fucking dangerous. Imagine if all people vote - 100% turnout. Then, the outcome - who is elected, the composition of a parliament, the outcome of referendum - is a absolutely unquestionable, democratic decision - it's just vox populi. You couldn't argue with it unless you are arguing for overthrowing democracy. But then, the turnout is almost always so much lower, say 60%. Now here it get's tricky, because there is a chance that all those 40% who DIDN'T vote share the same opinion. However, we'll never know, so we just have to assume that the 60% that did cast a vote are a representative sample of the population. But while this is obviously not entirely true, you cannot do anything else, because those people just didn't say anything. But then the turnout drops to 30%. And now you have to assume that those 30% is the representative sample of population, and I don't know how fluent you are in statistics and combinatorics but the chance that those 30% are a representative sample is even lower. Their choice is subject to a whole bunch of biases, but even so, unless you've got the revolution you wanted their decision is the final, unquestionable decision because you have no idea what the other 70% wants.

Ok, so what is so dangerous about this? (And if you really want I can go look for studies I recall, but I think it's in compliance to everyday logic). The more extreme are one's views, the more motivated (and therefore likely) he is to go cast a vote. Or by extrapolating - the more extreme the party. So, while having a 100% turnout gives you the unquestionable outcome, lowering that turnout makes the outcome spread to the extremes, as while the share of the fanatics might remain the same, their share goes up. And fanatics deciding for the rest of the country is fucking dangerous.

Example time (another one from Poland, so I get it if you're not interested):
Before the 2005 parliamentary elections in Poland PO (look previous post) were leading in all polls (and in the heart of poles, hehe) by about 6-7%. However, the election day in Poland is always on Sunday, the weather was beautiful, late summer, perfect for a weekend trip. So, while the (often a bit more prosperous) electorate of PO thought "Nah, we gonna win anyway, I'm gonna go grill some sausages in one of our beautiful forests..." the PiS electorate remained still very driven (not to mention fresh out of church where the priests didn't fail to make clear who they support) and provided their party with a great turnout. While all the polls were giving PO a solid ~6% lead what we ended up with was PiS winning with 2,5%, which resulted in a 5% difference in number of mandates. What followed next were two years of total governmental paralysis, with wild prosecutions and a threat of leaving EU. All because the turnout wasn't good enough.

Thucy, if you want to live in a system where the decision is made in the most democratic way possible what you should do is use your energy and the direct actions, be they whatever they are, and try to motivate people to vote. Aim for the 100% turnout! You say you don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils. Great! Get those 42% who didn't vote in 2012 to vote on an alternative. Those 42% is enough to win by a landslide.

"Great! Get those 42% who didn't vote in 2012 to vote on an alternative. Those 42% is enough to win by a landslide"

As I said, I dont have millions of dollars, so this will never happen

How many people participated in the Occupy movement? How many millions were spent?

I'll also point out that there was an extremely close election in recent history: Bush vs Gore in 2000. If 279 Floridians had cast votes for Gore instead of Bush, history would likely be *very* different. I don't want to re-hash the travesty of vote-counting that followed on all sides, but this example shows how Thucy's negativity can have serious consequences.

Thucy, you may not have millions of dollars, but you have your own talents, whatever they may be. If you can *positively* influence people that your positions are correct, then you will be effecting change to the best of your ability. That will have a much better outcome in the long term.

@Jeff, but notice that even in this case not a single vote was decisive - which reminds me, where did ☺, I wanted to do some more convincing about how his pee is irrelevant.
What it does show however, is that the american electoral law is absolutely nuts : D

True, not a single vote was decisive. But 537 vote differential out of 6 million cast is less than 0.009% of Floridians who voted. A single person on a mission could have easily convinced that many people to vote for his or her candidate of choice.

American electoral law isn't absolutely nuts. It's just different. And special. And...exceptional!

I am apparently one of the rare few people on webDip who was able to vote in 2000. :P That election really REALLY pissed people off. Yet another reason why Thucy's position is so abhorrent to me.

I agree with your point absolutely - the Gore-Bush election was the best example why you should vote (and the best example why US electoral law sucks dirty balls - different, special, exceptional? Basically you're saying US electoral law has trisomy 21?)

Except that Bush didn't actually win that election, but w/e.

What do you mean? He DID actually win the election. He didn't receive the most votes (Gore did) but in american electoral law that is not required to win elections.

Jeff, you are affirming our entire point. The fact that Florida decided that election instead of the popular opinion of the people of the United States of America is why the Electoral College sucks and needs to be reformed so that states can split their electoral votes or simply go.

yassem - that is my point: He lost the election but still became president.

bo, that is *not* the point of this discussion.

Thucy is advocating dropping out of the electoral process entirely as a protest against what he perceives to be plutocracy. That is a self-defeating proposition. Therefore, it is ridiculous to even assert that others should follow it (never mind that it was really only a media stunt by a comedian who wants to sell tickets to his documentary).

If you want to talk about reforming the Electoral College...again...then start a new thread and make that the topic.

I am in for a new thread about Electoral College! And must again agree with Jeff. the fact that electoral college is (IMO) messed up doesn't give any reason not to vote, as according to tens of arguments we posted above.

@mendax, it might be a matter of semantics for you, but it isn't. In presidential elections being elected as president is winning the elections. American system is just really weird, and often counter-intuitive in that matter. There are actually several "natural" (or intuitive) consensuses we might use in elections - unanimity, majority, getting the most votes or my personal favorite - Condorcet criterion (a winning candidate must be preferred over all other candidates in 1 to 1 juxtaposition). In terms of american presidential elections the voting method is not complying to any of the above consensuses, which is why it is so widely criticized. It still doesn't mean that he didn't win the elections, because we all know he did, that's why he ruled for the next 4 years : D

Why can't we discuss that here? It's part of this conversation. Respond to my points and respond to whomever else's you wish simultaneously. It's not that confusing. Thucy is removing himself from the political spectrum by forfeiting his vote. It is his choice but it is a stupid choice.

@yassem ... the only systems that will ever be accepted other than the electoral system are a) a reformed electoral system, in which states can split their electoral votes, as many do, or b) a plurality. This country is too stuck on tradition to make a drastic change like applying the Condorcet criterion or anything like that.

@bo
First of all, Condorcet criterion is not a voting method, it's a consensus. If you try to use it as a voting method there is a big chance you won't get any outcome. There are however many methods that use Condorcet criterion as their consensus class.
Secondly, many? Is it two or three already? (Split votes) And I would be fine with splitting votes actually - still burdened with many flaws and susceptible to gerrymandering but still a huge step forward from what is used right now.
And lastly - the mechanics of voting in US is already plurality, though the counting is not on nationwide level. The huge improvement would be using alternative vote, or instant-runoff (if I recall the English name correctly) which eliminates the major problem of plurality voting - tendency to create two-party system.

And just to go on the record before someone points this out: while I love the Condorcet criterion I don't think that Condorcet-based methods should be employed in the case of presidential elections. Not to mention that the best Condorcet-based methods have very difficult computation, I believe that making such decisions should employ a method that has a tendency of maximizing the total utility - for example approval voting (go approval voting!)

Maine and Nebraska give two electoral votes to the winner of their state's popular vote and then one electoral vote to the winner of each district's popular vote. As such, it's almost guaranteed to be a split electorate, but it's still not perfect. I would rather simply have them apportion the popular vote and split it based on percentages, where a state like Indiana, with 11 electoral votes, could vote 65% Republican and 35% Democrat, meaning that 7.15 electoral votes go to the Republican and the remainder to the Democrat. Of course, this will get a lot messier because the numbers aren't always so clean, but it's not like we can't calculate these things.

@yassem: I have this obnoxious thing called a life. I'd advise you not to try it, but who am I kidding? Obviously you already made up your mind on that one.

I think the biggest problem with the Condorcet criterion is that Americans would either have to vote several times or write down more things on one ballot.
That's a bridge too far.

Voting once is troublesome enough..

@bo, you see, the thing with splitting electoral votes of given states according to percentages would get much messier if you assume there would be another option (apart from dems and reps).
Hasn't Virginia changed it's electoral vote yet? I like how they wanted to mess up the idea just a little bit more, and give the two votes to the candidate who won in most districts : D

@Stephanie, the only obnoxious thing here is you : ) You say that I don't have a life, just because I am right and you are left with no arguments : P

And BTW, it just occurred to me that I've been extremely hypocritical, as I myself know of an instance when not voting DID have a strong influence - hell, I even participated (chose not to vote)! However, I want to stress that by no means does that make anything what Thucy said even remotely valid, as this was an entirely different situation. And on that bombshell, I've gotta run. I'll elaborate once I'm back...

I want there to be another option. Third parties should not be irrelevant. Voting for your preferred party should not be a vote taken away from the most similar mainstream candidate. If 3% of the population votes Green, then the Green Party should have 3% of the electoral vote. If it's 0.3%, then the Green Party should have 0.3% of the electoral vote. At the very least, it puts their name out there and gives them a viable means of receiving the same attention that the Democrats and Republicans receive.

Gore actually also won Florida, but whatever. Bush was elected by the Supreme Court.

@yassem: You asked why I wasn't reacting with your typical attitude towards me. Having a life is in fact my argument for not reacting.

Nah, stephanie is stupid but now he's also boring... What a disappointment...
@bo, yes, but you see, there is no real good way to distribute electoral votes (which cannot be split further into fractions) according to percentage of votes. Of course, there are many methods but also many controversies - especially what divisor to use in highest avarages methods like d'Hondt. Especially in case of presidential election why not just make state-wide elections? Why complicate things? Only because of tradition?

@Thucy, please, do elaborate. How was he elected by the supreme court? I though the ruling only concerned the manner of recount, but I may be wrong (no sarcasm)