[ALawPoker]

Play along with me.

Some guy comes to your house, holds a gun to your head, and tells you that you have to choose one of 3 girls. And the one you choose will be the girl that he takes your friend to visit and will tell her she has to have sex with him (at gunpoint if need be).

Girl A is ugly with low standards, girl B is average looking with average standards, and girl C is really hot and really prude. Your friend would love to bang C, would mildly enjoy B, and would not want to do A.

You have to pick one. There's no avoiding that. Let's say letting the guy shoot you isn't a good option either (as if it would be anyways), because somehow you know he will kill your friend and all the girls if you don't pick someone. Which girl do you choose?

The hot one right? Why not. That seems easy enough to conclude.

*You're* not the one raping someone. Your friend isn't the one raping someone. You're forced to pick A, B, or C, and they're all rape. So might as well pick the hot one.

But isn't choice C more harmful than choice B? Both situations are rape, so it's hard to look past that and I can see why it's easy to consider them the exact same thing. But they're not. Two unique situations are never the exact same thing. I think C (and A for that matter) is clearly more harmful than B (since I think the harm of having sex with someone you don't want to have sex with drastically outweighs the pleasure of banging someone you really want). With girl B, neither your friend nor the girl is grossly offended by the actual sexual experience. With girl C, +EV for your friend, but very much -EV for the girl. So to me, picking B is probably better most of the time, even though abstractly you support the idea of banging hot chics.

You're not a rapist. You're a good person. You would never force yourself on a girl if she didn't want it. But when you're faced with the decision of B vs. C (and choosing one is inevitable), I think a lot (maybe most) people will choose C. Hot chic, obviously you'll choose her over someone average.

But you'll only choose that way when you're not the one acting. If you were acting, you'd never have to think the consequences through, because the mistake would register as obvious.

When someone acts on your behalf (and can not change his mind), the consequences don't resonate as clearly and naturally as they would if you yourself were acting.

And you shouldn't expect things to be as clear. We evolved via face to face experience (our world was what's in front of us), so the right way to approach important decisions is mostly hardwired into us. If you were in the room, you'd make your sexual advances on girl B, and the idea of forcing yourself on girl C would never even cross your mind. You'll realize that banging B is a much better idea. It's not like you'll ever be in a room where girl A has her pants off and her legs open, girl B is smiling and flirtatious, and girl C is in a corner with her back to you, but you decide that making sexual advances on C is the better play. But when you choose girls for someone else to force themselves on, you might pick something that's clearly harmful just because you don't have enough information.

When we vote we do the same thing. It's not as clear to us what's best, because we're forced to consciously analyze things that we're better equipped to handle subconsciously.

Voting and regulation might work if we were omniscient (or in other words, it can work when you don't need it anyways). But since we're not omniscient and we can't consciously evaluate every input that contributes to our decision, it will just deflect decisions away from the most rational actor and it will always tend to screw things up.