{"id":208,"date":"2013-05-22T20:16:45","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T20:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morganredfield.com\/blog\/?p=208"},"modified":"2022-03-22T01:10:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T01:10:51","slug":"voting-and-the-prisoners-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morganredfield.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/voting-and-the-prisoners-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting and the Prisoner’s Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Voting is important to me. It\u2019s something that I do every time elections roll around, and it\u2019s something that I take a lot of pride in. I wouldn’t say that I\u2019m the most political guy in the world, but I definitely have strong opinions about the best direction for my country to go. I want to make sure that those opinions get counted and have an effect.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I\u2019m so bothered by people who don\u2019t vote, especially if those people agree with me. People\u2019s excuses for not voting are as numerous as the non-voters themselves, but they usually fall into a few different categories. There are the people who don\u2019t vote because they\u2019re too lazy. Some don\u2019t vote because they just don\u2019t care (or claim not to, they sure complain about the government a lot for people who don\u2019t care). Others don\u2019t vote because they say it\u2019s not worth it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that last group that I want to address here. I’ve recently been in a few different conversations with people who feel that their vote has such a small impact that it\u2019s not worth the time it takes to get informed and actually cast their ballot. The people I’ve met who think this way tend to be economists and computer scientists, so it\u2019s not like they\u2019re ignorant about the situation. From their perspective, they\u2019re probably making the right choice. However, that choice is predicated on the fact that many other people with similar views will be voting.<\/p>\n

Voting is the Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma<\/a> played at scale. There are huge groups of people who can either defect (not vote) or cooperate (vote). Assume for simplicity that each issue is divided on party lines and each party is the same size. In that case, each individual voter is playing the prisoner\u2019s dilemma with people of their own party.<\/p>\n

If the person defects and doesn’t vote, they get the extra time and energy they would have spent on voting to use for other things. If everyone defects, then the bill\/politician\/whatever that they wanted gets voted down by the other party.<\/p>\n

So when people who share my political ideas say they don\u2019t vote, I get upset. I don\u2019t much mind that my vote is then that much more important. What I do mind is that those people are making it less likely that the world turns out how I want it.<\/p>\n

This is a bit different than the popular idea that voting is a civic duty, and that everyone should vote. Basically I\u2019m saying that I only want people who agree with me to vote. I\u2019m still working on how to reconcile that with my general belief in the process of democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voting is important to me. It\u2019s something that I do every time elections roll around, and it\u2019s something that I take a lot of pride in. I wouldn’t say that I\u2019m the most political guy in the world, but I definitely have strong opinions about the best direction for my country to go. I want … Continue reading “Voting and the Prisoner’s Dilemma”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,20],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-economics","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nVoting and the Prisoner's Dilemma - Theory and Practice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/morganredfield.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/voting-and-the-prisoners-dilemma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Voting and the Prisoner's Dilemma - Theory and Practice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Voting is important to me. 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