Comments
Mesapholis t1_irea4on wrote
The problem is, you can't tell that to uninformed people. They'll react insulted and feel attacked in their personal rights and vote possibly worse out of spite.
Jimmicky t1_ireafm6 wrote
I think participants in society have an obligation to be Informed as well as an obligation to vote.
Of course I live somewhere where voting actually is a legal obligation and I’ve seen how much that’s improved our political discourse and participation compared to places with optional voting.
So from a utilitarian standpoint I just can’t see any way to support non compulsory voting.
We possess obligations to the others in our society being a somewhat informed voter is one of them.
koloquial t1_ireb6cw wrote
What’s the penalty for not voting chez toi
bumharmony t1_irebnb8 wrote
The problem is that voting is about opinions and political philosophy about knowledge. Ofcourse ”politics” is merely a petty little play as we know it. It has no equivalent in philosophy.
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Jimmicky t1_irecsob wrote
Officially? It’s a fine. Not a big one - it’s like a hundred n fifty dollaridoos. Really the penalty for not voting is getting a worse society-a less structurally sound hospital in OPs tortured analogy
TheMan5991 t1_iredhl9 wrote
Perhaps the hospital company has an obligation to provide brick-laying lessons to everyone. You don’t need to be an expert brick layer, you just need to know the basics. Their will always be differences of opinion on what shape the hospital should be in. Some people will want the walls to have 90° angles. Others will want 30°. Some may even want curved walls. But as long everyone knows how to lay a brick, the hospital will stand.
SilasTheSavage OP t1_ireh4g9 wrote
I also say, in the conclusion, that it is up to the individual to judge.
SilasTheSavage OP t1_irehbso wrote
Yes, I do think there is an obligation to be an informed voter, if you vote, but it is implausible to me that you ought to vote no matter what.
SilasTheSavage OP t1_irehkls wrote
Yes that is true, and I think a good idea. But if you know, yourself, that you are below average in bricklaying, or even just average, it might be best to let the people who are best vote.
koloquial t1_irekss5 wrote
Making voting mandatory may not have the effect you think it does.
If someone is voting to avoid the pénalité, they probably haven’t done much due diligence.
TheBlankestBoi t1_irept4b wrote
This misses the point of democracy. Democracy isn’t about building a hospital to the standards of architects, it’s about building a hospital to the standards of the people at the hospital, even if that design isn’t what architects want.
TheBlankestBoi t1_ireq4f5 wrote
Arent most states with compulsory voting like, dictatorships with a thin veil of democracy? Like, I know Egypt is an example.
TheBlankestBoi t1_ireqg4u wrote
Have you considered that not everyone wants to build a hospital?
DoctaMario t1_iret7rz wrote
Part of the problem, at least here in the US, is how campaigns are run. It can be difficult to be well informed on what a candidate is really about, especially in the heat of a mud flinging campaign.
But regardless of all that, democracy as we've practiced it in the US doesn't work anymore, at least beyond the local level. People get a sense of accomplishment from voting but there is too often a disconnect between what people vote for and what the candidates actually do, and so in that respect, I think democracy, the representative kind anyway, is broken.
Jimmicky t1_irfnqm3 wrote
Oh plenty of our voters certainly aren’t living up to their moral obligations.
But the fact remains that mandatory voting has a hugely positive effect on government
Jimmicky t1_irfo34g wrote
It takes only a cursory glance at the American political landscape to see that the price of low voting percentage is very high indeed.
TheRoadsMustRoll t1_irje4ei wrote
>uninformed people should not vote.
you're setting aside Big Number Theory.
i.e. in the guessing game at a rural fair where contestants make guesses at the weight of a large bull most of the contestants have no sophistication in gauging the weight of the animal. if only a few contestants enter guesses the amalgam of entries ranges far from the actual weight. but if there are a lot of entries the range gets a lot closer and many guesses are within a few pounds of the actual weight.
in politics there are no right answers but if large groups of people weigh in they will at least be submitting the amalgam of their societal flavor to the pot. since they are unlikely to vote for a person they don't like their votes aren't just going to be random.
you're also setting aside the chance to learn and the opportunity to push political debates onto substantive grounds. i place my vote. my guy or gal does their thing. either i got ripped off or they represented me well. next time i'll remember that outcome and vote accordingly. politicians will also be reacting to the votes: people in their district liked "this" or "that" so maybe they'll focus on those things to win those votes. but if i don't vote and politicians never hear me then we'll all be leaves in the wind; ruled by elitists and despots.
imo.
iiioiia t1_irw6voh wrote
>Of course I live somewhere where voting actually is a legal obligation and I’ve seen how much that’s improved our political discourse and participation compared to places with optional voting.
Could you possibly expand on this a bit?
iiioiia t1_irw7u06 wrote
The design of democracy itself is a hidden item in the third rail of politics.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail_(politics)
Notice how it doesn't even make the list on Wikipedia.
Notice (ha!) how rarely it gets mentioned in social media conversations.
Jimmicky t1_irxfbba wrote
Well firstly it means voting has to be easy.
We’d never get voter id laws/similar designed to suppress certain segments of the populaces access to voting. The government can be sued by an individual/group that felt it was more difficult for them to vote, so they make damn sure that doesn’t happen. Poling places are plentiful. Even in the most remote parts of the desert they’ll send out vans to set up mobile polling places. If you’re working on Election Day your employer is required to give you an extra paid break just for voting. They send election commission staff into hospitals, etc.
everyone gets heard.
Consequently we get far far fewer of the fringe extremists in our politics than we see in the international news. Hard focussing on a radically obsessed fringe won’t get you into office (well, it might get a group 1 senate seat, but not HoRs seats).
Mobs chanting to hang the vice pres would never happen here - the kind of aggressive and divisive politics needed to start that nonsense doesn’t work when everyone has to vote.
the politicians have to play it safe.
Their base alone is not enough, they need to appeal to outsiders too.
iiioiia t1_irxtb91 wrote
> Consequently we get far far fewer of the fringe extremists in our politics than we see in the international news.
This is what I am curious about: how is it that mandatory voting causes people to be less extreme, improve the political discourse, etc? Perhaps (or perhaps not) there happens to be a correlation, but what is the/any causality based on?
Jimmicky t1_irxybhf wrote
When only a select few vote, it’s safe (and indeed effective) to completely ignore the wants/needs of the non- voters.
This leads to extremism- the easiest way to get more for your chosen few is to take more from the groups you don’t care about. This creates a feedback loop where you’re now incentivised to make it harder for those groups to vote (since you know they already dislike you) which means fewer of them vote and they become more ignorable and more ripe for you to squeeze in favor of your chosen. It also means you can focus for support from a group that represents a smaller and smaller percentage of the populace, because all that actually matters is what percentage of the voters they are.
Alienating the more moderate parts of your original base doesn’t matter - they’ll just drop off the rolls (or be cleared off by you) hell your vote percent might actually improve.
When the populace and the voters are always the same demographic this kind of thing can’t work.
It’s pretty straightforward math.
Extremism profits from making the demographics of voters heavily skewed from the demographics of the populace. Why would you allow that to happen when it’s simple to prevent with mandatory voting?
iiioiia t1_iry0it1 wrote
I'm not saying you are wrong, but this seems like little more than a personal theory.
Jimmicky t1_iry7qzq wrote
It’s more of a basic observation from watching how things‘ve spiralled the same in multiple countries that have voluntary voting vs how that’s been avoided in places with compulsory voting It’s also the most common opinion in my country so at minimum it’s a cultural opinion rather than a personal one
SilasTheSavage OP t1_ire9lgh wrote
Reposted this, because I had a question in the title. In this post I argue that there is not an obligation to vote, and that uninformed people should not vote. I do this by arguing from an analogy of building a hospital. I defend the analogy, and try to draw out implications of it.