Will Joe Biden be the next president?

[Jon]

@Isaac, you still don't understand. I cannot accept something that fails basic logic.

Let me be clear what I agree with and what I don't. Let us take the last election. If 5 million Trump voters decided to not vote, then Hillary would get in power. I agree with that, and so will you.

But how does that mean that I should decide to vote when I only have the power of 1 vote, which won't influence the outcome regardless of what anybody else does?

Check out the potential election impact of millions of people's individual decisions not to vote, then let me know if it makes a difference.

Millions of people making that decision may have an impact, I am not disputing that. And it may also have no impact too. But I only have one vote. You keep making the same mistake and are not thinking about it.

Lets change tack and see what we agree on.

Let me see if I can state what you think and you can tell me if this is accurate or not: "If everybody had your attitude towards not voting, then it has the potential to sway an election, if the the non-voters voted in a way, on average, that was the opposite of the current prevailing votes."

If you are unclear on the second part of that quote, I am happy to clarify it for you.

Perhaps you can try to state what you think I think. It might clear up the confusion!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

yet that is to ignore probability.

Vehemently disagree. You are merely looking at the probability of the wrong event. To remove yourself from the statistical population being sampled by voting means that you are placing yourself into a different category. You voted by not voting. This is in the category of "not to decide is to decide." EVERY CHOICE in voting - including not voting - is a vote. Just a vote for something different than the words on the ballot.

You are making this choice by reason of your belief that it doesn't matter. There are those who don't vote because they feel they can't decide. There are those who don't vote because they feel they don't understand the issues. You know how ALL of those show up, Jon? NULL. You are turning yourself into a NULL in the database of political votes.

Let's LOOK at 12 Angry Men as a perfect good case for your point. I am INTIMATELY familiar with that work. In High School, I took a "Speech" class to learn about public speaking. It included a segment on acting and I signed up to help with the school's play. I ended up being cast as Juror #10 in that play. (He's the bigot.) Yes, it took Juror #8 to cause people to actually look at the evidence and question its true meaning. His vote swayed the others as piece by piece, he disassembled the arguments before them.

But why was there a need for him to do that? Because EVERYONE ELSE had a "complacency" argument. Juror #10 was a bigot. He was thinking about the defendant as a member of a minority group rather than as a person. The banker tended to accept authority. He accepted the arguments because of their origin. The old man (I forget his number) was confused by the arguments and needed someone to bring clarity. Many of the others just didn't want to exert their brainpower to actually THINK about the issues. In that venue, everyone HAD to vote. You either voted Guilty or Not Guilty. If there had been a third option, "I don't care," the first vote would not have been 11-1, it would have been maybe 3-1 and 8 abstentions.

You say your vote doesn't matter. OK, I'll let you slide for a moment on that. BUT... does the subject of the vote matter? A voting event doesn't occur in a vacuum. Granted, the vacuum might be in some of the voters' heads - but the event is not without context. If it is a millage renewal for the school board or the sewage department, probably an easy decision. Voting for elected officials who will run your county, state, or nation? BIG choice. If that choice isn't important enough, then go ahead and be a voting non-entity. But according to the typical scope of voting events, the larger the number of eligible voters, the more important that event is likely to be. Which by your standards means that people shouldn't vote for who runs their country because that is the one where you vote gets most closely lost in the statistics. And that is a total logical inversion.

By playing the statistics card, you are ignoring the context of the event, and that is what actually makes you a dangerous voter.

 

[Isaac]

Let me see if I can state what you think and you can tell me if this is accurate or not: "If everybody had your attitude towards not voting, then it has the potential to sway an election, if the the non-voters voted in a way, on average, that was the opposite of the current prevailing votes."

You got it! That's what I've been saying since many posts ago. Like 37 posts ago in #404, where I said:

More like this: About 92 million eligible voters don't vote - and each one of them uses your reasoning, the oft-repeated excuse for not voting. None of them individually made the difference, but 92 million of them certainly did.

Or again, in post #409:

I've just suggested that the large blocks of people (millions) not voting, they probably use your logic in order not to do so. And that is consequential. Because it's no longer one - it's 92 million

Here is some math for you: Out of people who don't vote in the US, a large majority of them lean Democrat. Out of people who don't vote in the US, Some 38 percent of the respondents said they stayed home from the polls because they believe that their votes don’t matter

See it now? Nobody is saying that an individual vote matters. I'm just pointing out what happens when millions of people think that.

 

[Jon]

If I don't vote, it is not voting for the one candidate or the other. We can use semantics to say I am voting for something else, but whatever we decide to call it, the name doesn't matter. The maths do.

Nothing wrong with showing up as a NULL.

In The 12 Angry Men, the 11 angry men were all wrong and the 1 had truth on his side. Just like with this argument here. I wasn't referring to their voting aspect, I was referring to the fact that all may be against you, but truth is all that matters.

Which by your standards means that people shouldn't vote for who runs their country because that is the one where you vote gets most closely lost in the statistics. And that is a total logical inversion.

This is where you are misinterpreting what I am saying. I am not saying people shouldn't vote for who runs their country. Notice people is plural. I am saying it is irrational for the individual to vote. It is a paradox.

If by not voting I have become a dangerous voter, you mean that my vote would have made a difference, which it doesn't

Let me ask you a simple question Doc. Just a Yes or No is fine. Do you know anyone, out of 100's of millions of voters, in all your lifetime, in any country in the world, where their individual decision to vote altered the outcome of the national election?

My argument is that your individual vote makes no difference. History and reality prove my point. It doesn't prove your point. You can ignore this empirical reality as much as you like, but facts are facts.

 

[Jon]

Thanks for that @Isaac. Now what do you think I think? You missed that part.

Yes, I am aware that voter apathy tends towards the left.

 

[Isaac]

Now what do you think I think? You missed that part.

That an individual vote makes no statistical difference basically.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In my lifetime, no. But in 1820, the USA presidency vote was so close that it had to be decided by the senate. (This was before some constitutional amendments to handle that case.) There, you could say that somewhere, someone's vote failed to make enough of a difference.

Now I'll toss statistics back at you, Jon. How do you expect me to know then answer to your "100s of millions of voters" question in a country with secret balloting and the fact that I don't have room in my cell phone's contact list for that many people?

 

[Jon]

That an individual vote makes no statistical difference basically.

Yes, correct. So do we both agree with one another?

 

[Isaac]

Yes, correct. So do we both agree with one another?

I think so.

 

[Jon]

I just looked up that 1820 case and correct me if I am wrong, but you are not looking at individual voters, members of the public. Instead, you are looking at aggregated electoral votes. I may have used the wrong terms, but you know what I am referring to. If so, then it was not decided by an individual vote from a member of the public.

You don't have to refer to friends. You only have to look at the aggregated figures. Then you can work backwards and realise that no one vote has ever altered the outcome of a single national election in Western civilisation. Go back 1,000 years where numbers were way smaller and only a few people were allowed to vote, and maybe it did happen.

 

[Jon]

So will you vote?

 

[Isaac]

So will you vote?

Me? Yes.

 

[Jon]

My view, without trying to start debate off again, is that going to the voting booth is a bit like watching a movie. I enjoy watching a movie, even though I know the characters are not real. Going to the voting booth is the same, because it is an illusion that your vote will make any difference. But you can still enjoy the process, because it feels like you are making a difference.

 

[Isaac]

My view, without trying to start debate off again, is that going to the voting booth is a bit like watching a movie. I enjoy watching a movie, even though I know the characters are not real. Going to the voting booth is the same, because it is an illusion that your vote will make any difference. But you can still enjoy the process, because it feels like you are making a difference.

My view would be a little bit similar with one added feature: I know that my action is part of a larger group of people, and only by all making that decision can we make a difference together.

 

[Jon]

I do not disagree with that. The voting thing is a real paradox that I find it difficult to get my head around. On an individual level, it is irrational to vote. That is my conviction. Yet you need groups of people to vote.

Let me link to some for and against arguments on this matter. Some may be interested in this.

Against voting: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Qeq7EmkNGFRq4yaFr/voting-is-not-rational-usually

For voting: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2010/11/01/why_it_can_be_r/

For the "for voting" argument in the link above, they state this:

But here’s the good news. If your vote is decisive, it will make a difference for 300 million people. If you think your preferred candidate could bring the equivalent of a $50 improvement in the quality of life to the average American–not an implausible hope, given the size of the Federal budget and the impact of decisions in foreign policy, health, the courts, and other areas–you’re now buying a $1.5 billion lottery ticket. With this payoff, a 1 in 10 million chance of being decisive isn’t bad odds.

I disagree with that, for many reasons. Firstly, you cannot predict the future accurately. Secondly, one half of the people will disagree with the other half of the people over which side could bring a $50 improvement in the quality of life. They can't both be true. Thirdly, you will make a difference for 300 million people, but half of those people won't want the difference you made, because it goes against their beliefs, such as abortion, gun control and so on.

Just some food for thought, so that rather than just taking conventional wisdom at face value, you can see there are other viewpoints based on rational thinking.

 

[pbaldy]

You voted by not voting.

Reminded me of lyrics from Rush/Freewill:

If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

 

[Steve R.]

As an associated thought concerning "logic" and "truth", one of the token lefties on Fox news made some very subtle comments that you have to listen to and parse very very carefully. Marie Harf, in response an open-ended general question on why the mayors of a some cities have failed to quell the rioting, explained that there was a rise in vigilantism. Well, that was an idiotic response as there would be no vigilantism if the mayors had stopped the rioting. No to also mention that if the police are not there to protect you, exactly how do you protect yourself and/or business.

Another question concerned the the political divide between Biden/Trump; again the question was open-ended designed to explore how the candidates could come togther. Marie Harf's response, unfortunately, was the worn-out tired old assertion that the Trump campaign was inciting divisiveness and hatred. Marie, was silent on the fact that it has been Biden who has explicitly labeled the Trump campaign as promoting racism and hatred. The Democrats (falsely) claim that they want to bring the country togther, yet as Marie (falsely) responded, blame must be assigned to Republicans since it is the Republicans who are obvioulsy not working to bring the country together.

 

[Isaac]

I should add a note too: Through all of this discussion, if I were a scheming person who believed the ends always justified the means, and then being Republican (mostly), I would strongly encourage the wide dissemination of the principle you have explained--knowing that it would help my side.
But, even though voter suppression might equal conservative victory, I'd much rather that people really do participate, and our side wins them over rather than excludes them and creates a smaller elite group of participants.
With one glaring exception: I am totally fine if people in rather extreme situations don't vote. I believe that widespread participation, as an over-arching goal, does have its limits. I don't want people to vote who I don't think have a strong ability to thing rationally and reasonably. Can I give one example? Sure: Some states want to lower their voting age to 16. No thank you! (When I was very young, someone somewhere ran a cartoon my dad put up on the wall: something like, "If the voting age is lowered", with a picture of Big Bird being elected president. It gets the point across.
If a person is currently the victim of extreme circumstances, it increases the possibility that their choices will reflect nothing other than some immediate material gratification, or even worse... (not really blaming them for that, just saying) ... Rather than based on what really seems best direction for the country in something other than the immediate term. I'm guessing that the statements I've just made will be seen as some to be very mean & wrong, but really they are just logical....and I think a lot of people feel this way but wouldn't speak up to say it.
This is why while I think voter participation is great, I draw a line at campaigns that have no limit to it....Grabbing homeless people, kids, or gang members and busing them to voting locations doesn't excite me, even in my most generous minded moments.

 

[Steve R.]

But, even though voter suppression might equal conservative victory, I'd much rather that people really do participate, and our side wins them over rather than excludes them and creates a smaller elite group of participants.(emphasis added)

My apologies, I just have a visceral reaction to the term "voter suppression". I realize that you are simply using that term and not advocating that it exists.

• If so-called voter suppression actually existed, Obama would never have won the Presidency. Hillary would never have received more popular votes than Trump. The Democrats would never have taken control of the US House of Representatives. (Anyway who are these powerful mysterious fiendish people secretly "suppressing the vote"? )
• It is the responsibility of the individual to get out and vote. If that individual somehow finds it "too difficult" to get out and vote (such as being infirm), then friends, relatives, and community organizations can assist that person. Specifically, the Democrats, instead of hysterically screaming "voter suppression" can rent vehicles to bus people to the registration/voting booth. Furthermore, the Democrats have the ability to solve this issue, without going to court and filing obstructionist lawsuits. The Democrats don't want a solution, they want chaos in the election process.
• The Democrats, while frantically falsely howling "voter suppression", have been very successful at improperly increasing the ability of people to vote, whether they are eligible to vote or not. Democrats obstruct attempts to clean-up the voter roles, Democrats obstruct voter verification, and make it easy to automatically register to vote without appropriate verification. The Democrats have been increasing voter "eligibility" (even if potentially fraudulent), so there can be no "voter suppression".

 

[Jon]

Politics is a very dirty business. Both sides will justify what they do, saying the means justify the ends.

Historically, when rioting takes hold, States that have proximity to the rioting area shift political leaning further to the right. The research shows this. Given the amount of rioting going on in America right now, it would not surprise me if The Donald makes some significant inroads into Biden's lead. The bookies have Trump with a 33% chance of winning, so they have already probably factored that in. But things can change fast when everything is so volatile. I think Trump will release news of an impending vaccine release, just before polling. The problem is, the Democrats are trying to get as many votes in as early as possible before the debates, so this reduces Trumps wiggle-room to have late news making a big influence.