[tolbiny]

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Conversely, by claiming voting is a waste of time, Boro doesn't gain when a person votes effectively

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WTF are you babbling about now? All borodog was claiming that the chances of altering an election with a single vote in a way that benefits you was very unlikley. Since it takes some finite amount of time to vote, and there are finite benfits to be gained a person could figure out if it was worth their time to vote or not. Once you realize that the denominator (chances of effecting the vote * amount of effort voting) is so large you know that your expected gain from altering the vote would have to also be massive to make it worthwhile.

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Then voting is a productive use of someone's time, because it produces gains and losses -- which contradicts the claim that voting is a waste of one's time.


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The fact that it produces losses does not contradict that its a waste of ones time, it confirms it. However a third party can gain from my loss, without it having been turned into a gain for me.