Freedomain Radio

On Voting

Reasons to vote:  There's a 1 in a billion chance you'll change the winner from thieving bloodthirsty tosser to slightly more thieving but slightly less bloodthirsty tosser (or vice versa).

Reasons not to vote:  It takes up time, you have to give the govt your personal details, it feels dirty (and not in a nice way).

(this part above was written by one memeber of ASC forum)

On Pascal's Wager

Reasons to believe in God: heaven or hell, 72 virgins, other funny stuff.

Reasons not believe (or not to accept Pascal's Wager): saving time not going to church or praying, or fighting for imaginary friend etc. Not including that there could be countless gods so how to choose properly.

So basically, voting is false just like Pascal's Wager is false. The only difference is that politicians exist and gods are imaginary.

Any thoughts? (am I at least original of noticing this similarity, lol?)

MaikUniversum:

The only difference is that politicians exist and gods are imaginary.

I think this is a very funny, and important comparison.  I don't know if it's original or not, but it is the first time I've seen it, so congratulations!

On this point I quoted though, I'd like to point out that "politician" is just a concept, man-made, and only "existing" within the minds of men.  If you were to point at a "politician" and say "politician" in an attempt to describe it to an alien, you'd have to go into a very indepth conceptual explanation before he understood what you meant.  As an object that exists, each politician is his own individual self, a member of the concept "human beings", which is a superior* concept to the "politician".

So in reality, there is even less of a difference because politicians and gods are both imaginary**!

*I'm not sure if superior is the right word here, but I mean that the concept "human beings" is more representative of objective qualities among similar objects, whereas "politician" is a concept wholly born out of subjective judgements.

**Imaginary in the sense of both being created out of the imagination of men.

I don't really see the parallel, but I also don't have a major problem with voting. I just don't do it. 

Though I agree that Pascal's Wager is nonsense.

BobC:

I don't really see the parallel, but I also don't have a major problem with voting. I just don't do it. 

Though I agree that Pascal's Wager is nonsense.

Pascal's wager basically says (you already know of course, but just for the sake of clarity) that you'd better believe in gods "just incase". What if there is a god? You don't wanna go to HELL do you? DO YOU? >insert finger pointing and fist shaking< So why risk it by not believing?

So applying that to voting might be something like... You'd better vote "just incase". What if some "crazy guy" gets in because you didn't vote? What if he has a bunch of "crazy policies" that makes the poor explode or sumthin'. You don't want the poor to go to HELL do you? DO YOU? >insert finger pointing and fist shaking< So why risk not voting?

This is the core argument that I almost always hear for voting (though sometimes it can be changed to a positive about the guy who has the "crazy policies" that are good but even then there is still the implication, if it isn't said outright, about how bad everything COULD possibly be if the "other guy" was elected).

I think that perhaps the core parallel, aside from the language (imperfect and, at least in my version, sloppy though it may be) is that the argument is based on the same sort emotional blackmail, playing on the fears that have been inflicted upon you to make you conform.

"Hey, X arbitrary thing might just happen if you don't do Y arbitrary thing, you never know, so you'd better do it just to be on the safe side."

Putting the argument in more general terms like that makes me realize (just now in fact) how much that shit has been used to inflict anxieties upon me throughout my life.

l've a lot of anxiety around being early to appointments, like by half an hour to an hour. My parents would use this Pascal's Wager argument to justify sitting around in a waiting room or in the parking lot for an extra 45 minutes. Putting that into the frame work of Pascal's Wager is quite helpful in realizing how ridiculous things that like are.

What an odd thing to get out of your post. I hope what I said makes sense and thanks for asking that.