Comment by cortesoft
11 hours ago
Yes, the Paradox of Voting is the exact same situation [1]. My decision to vote is not rational, but I know if all the rational people don't vote that is bad, and so I focus on the other parts of voting, like civic pride and the little sticker that says "I voted"
> It may be you don't believe in democracy at all, and that's fair, but consumer action is the only way you can affect business decisions, by joining the decision-cohort you agree with more. Joining the opposite cohort because it's less work represents that you're okay with things continuing in that direction.
I actually believe even less in 'voting with your wallet' than in actual voting, for all the same reasons except the cost of 'voting' in this case is even higher (choosing an individually suboptimal option with my wallet hurts me directly even more than the cost of voting in an election does... e.g. choosing to pay more to avoid major corporations costs me every time I shop) I personally think the only way to avoid companies destroying the common good for profit is to price in the destruction to make it explicit (e.g. carbon taxes, pollution taxes, etc).
You have to use something more like updateless decision theory rather than EDT or CDT: consider the similarity of your thought processes and decisionmaking to all the other people in a similar situation and act so as to further your goals given that a substantial fraction of similar people will ultimately make the same decision as you.
If I ever decide that it is no longer worth voting then I will probably leave the country under the expectation that other people like me giving up on voting are doing it for roughly the same reasons.
> choosing an individually suboptimal option with my wallet hurts me
That may be true, particularly in the short term, but you might be hurting everyone else including yourself in the long term. Opening your wallet sends a signal to the receiving business to keep doing what they're doing, even if we all know it's bad.
There's also a cultural aspect to consider. It's normalized to not think of anything other than cost. That's why we have CAFOs, toxic plastic children's toys, landfills full of junk, etc... Pricing in the destruction might help, but at some point our culture needs to change. Outside of the occasional voting, we're all pretty powerless to enact top-down change like taxes and regulations, but we can all build culture.
> Opening your wallet sends a signal to the receiving business to keep doing what they're doing, even if we all know it's bad.
That is exactly my point, though. The signal from my personal transactions isn't going to be enough to change anything. It will be drowned out by everyone else.
Of course, you are right that if enough people closed their wallet, then the business would have to change. However, that is STILL true even if I keep my wallet open. If N people stopping their shopping at a store would cause it to close/change its practices, then surely N-1 people stopping their shopping would also cause it to change. I could still keep shopping their, get the benefits while they last, and then switch once it finally goes out of business.
Of course, you might reasonably say, "Well, if everyone thought like you, then the change would never happen!" True, but my decision does not change anyone else's decision. The other people won't even know my choice, it isn't going to make other people boycott.
You could argue that people will listen to what I say, and I could influence them. That is true, but that is again independent of whether I actually 'vote with my wallet' or not. The influence I have on other people is the same whether I tell them not to shop there and I also don't shop there, or if I tell them not to shop there but secretly shop there myself.
Obviously there is some other morality at play here, but it isn't as simple as invoking the direct signal I am sending by choosing to shop somewhere or not.
Agreed, it's not simple to make change, and I wasn't suggesting that. I'm just promoting doing something instead of waiting for top-down solutions, which, even if they materialize, still aren't as cool as bottom-up culture change IMHO.
Is it effective? Probably not in the short term, at least for the intended purposes, but secondary effects like personal growth, satisfaction, and social dynamics might be realized.
It is pretty paradoxical and got me thinking. I don't know how to measure the value of my vote. I feel like the immediate value is less than the effort, but on the other hand, I don't think it's so simple. As you said, if no "rational" people vote, that's catastrophic and so I'm helping to maintain a larger system. Maybe a culture. Movements can have collective power no individual can have, but they can't exist without individuals. It's hard to measure the value or effects of a culture as they are often not clearly visible or direct. The effects can play out over a long time too.
About voting with your wallet, I agree that it'd be best if companies actually had to pay for those externalities you mentioned. If you have spare money to spend, you can view not choosing the cheapest option as supporting or donating. That's what I sometimes do when e.g. buying locally instead of ordering from somewhere far for cheaper. I can get local faster and it's more convenient, so there's lazyness, but thinking about it as supporting helps me rationalize it further (and it is true). I don't think it really hurts me more than buying something else that I don't strictly need. I see indirect value in trying to uphold things I like.
It's not paradoxical and the attitude expressed by GP that it's not "rational" is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to rationality getting a bad name.
Cooperation to the detriment of the individual in the animal world is exactly the same phenomenon in a much simpler system. That is widely and repeatedly evolved so we know for a fact that the game theory works out in a vacuum (ie without human cultural factors).
Any high trust cultural behavior is similar.
Animal cooperation proves that game theory is universal, but it does not prove it works in a vacuum for humans.
- Biology gives us the instinct to cooperate and the capacity for empathy.
- Capitalism provides the mechanism to scale that cooperation to millions of strangers.
- Institutions (laws/culture) provide the rules that prevent the "vacuum" from devolving into a state where the strongest exploit the weakest (which is actually what happens in nature when policing fails).
Therefore, in a capitalistic society, cooperation to the detriment of the individual (e.g., paying taxes, following labor safety rules) is not just a biological imperative; it is a social contract enforced by culture to allow the complex system to function. Without the cultural layer, the biological layer alone is insufficient to sustain a modern economy.
What happened to being part of a community?
I do not think this should be analysed from the perspective of an individual but from the perspective of being part of a collective.
Individually we are pathetic naked monkeys, collectively we are mighty
> My decision to vote is not rational
And I think this is great. Often our convictions aren't, and those are what make us interesting! I also think it's interesting how/why we rationalize our irrational behaviors! For example, I generally feel the same way as you about voting, but I don't like living as (in my mind, at least) a defeatist. Also, I feel that if I didn't vote then I have no right to complain or have an opinion about the things I didn't vote on. So I go vote for those reasons.
I mean, I do actually vote in every election, for the same reasons you are talking about. There are social reasons I do it, and there is something communal and bonding about the process of elections.
But it isn't because my individual vote actually matters.