Democrats: Do you want the war to end?

[DVaut1]

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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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Boro claimed alot more than that; he claimed it was worth his time to influence others' voting behavior. And yet he also claimed those voters were wasting their time. This is contradictory on its face.

Imagine the people in question really were engaging in a time wasting activity; imagine they were going out to some field to dig holes, then fill them back up again. This is an obvious waste of time. I don't see how Boro can claim that while the act of digging holes and filling them back up again is an obvious waste of time, influencing diggers as to what manner they choose to dig-and-fill is 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.

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If the behavior in question is producing gains and losses, or if the behavior is minimizing losses experienced by someone, somewhere -- then it's not a waste of time. QED.

This is obvious; you can't say voting is categorically unproductive, then say influencing voters is worthwhile. It's a transparent contradiction that really can't be resolved.