Re:Court rules climate change “duty of care” to future gener...
by ALittleLight on Friday May 28, 2021 @08:44PM
(#27322146)
I don't think voting is a very good idea. I live my ideals by not voting for anyone.
Voting makes sense if you're trying to decide where to eat dinner in a group of five. It doesn't make sense to pick leaders to represent you in incomprehensibly complicated sets of unknown decisions.
Using the last election as an example, take Trump and Biden, and just consider one single choice, like their respective positions on the Iran nuclear deal. If I wanted to make an intelligent choice between Trump and Biden on this issue it seems like I'd have to know what they were likely to do regarding the Iran nuclear deal, and I don't trust either of them to tell me. I'd have to actually know what a good solution to the Iran nuclear deal is - but that seems like a question for intelligence analysts and geopolitical strategists to discuss likely implications of various choices. I'd have to weigh the morality of sanctions that hurt Iranian citizens versus the increased risk of regional or global nuclear war - which seems almost impossible to do. I'd have to be able to put the importance of the Iran nuclear deal into context against the broader set of foreign and domestic issues facing the would be President known and unknown to come up with something like "I like Trump's position on Iran but Biden has a better position on X, Y, and Z, and together those things are more important..."
It doesn't strike me as believable that most or even more than a negligible amount of voters are making informed choices like that. I think mostly people just vote the way their friends and family do, or vote for the person they like better, or vote based on the political and rhetorical games, or for the taller person, etc.
Voting makes sense if you're trying to decide where to eat dinner in a group of five. It doesn't make sense to pick leaders to represent you in incomprehensibly complicated sets of unknown decisions.
Using the last election as an example, take Trump and Biden, and just consider one single choice, like their respective positions on the Iran nuclear deal. If I wanted to make an intelligent choice between Trump and Biden on this issue it seems like I'd have to know what they were likely to do regarding the Iran nuclear deal, and I don't trust either of them to tell me. I'd have to actually know what a good solution to the Iran nuclear deal is - but that seems like a question for intelligence analysts and geopolitical strategists to discuss likely implications of various choices. I'd have to weigh the morality of sanctions that hurt Iranian citizens versus the increased risk of regional or global nuclear war - which seems almost impossible to do. I'd have to be able to put the importance of the Iran nuclear deal into context against the broader set of foreign and domestic issues facing the would be President known and unknown to come up with something like "I like Trump's position on Iran but Biden has a better position on X, Y, and Z, and together those things are more important..."
It doesn't strike me as believable that most or even more than a negligible amount of voters are making informed choices like that. I think mostly people just vote the way their friends and family do, or vote for the person they like better, or vote based on the political and rhetorical games, or for the taller person, etc.