you know what also causes low turn #vote out?
"everything sucks and then you die, waah" #psyop from fake #leftists
serving #Israel's #genocide by helping the #GOP win
it may seem unfair of me to accuse you of this
but imagine if you did this hard working effort to justify helplessness and pessimism, and you didn't even realize the only effect of your mindless #cynicism bullshit
that would be the more insulting accusation
The #TrolleyProblem is not abstract. There is absolutely an IRL version of it: #voting.
So, every couple years #leftists argue about whether or not to vote for the lesser of two evils.
They have a lever ( #vote ), and if they pull the lever then fewer people die. If they do nothing, more people die.
There are two basic moral foundations for this decision:
- Deontological: actions are morally good or bad, not consequences.
- Utilitarian: outcomes determine the moral value of actions.
I'm not going to get into the pros and cons of each. Instead, I'm going to address the psychological aspect of it.
People who align to Deontological ethics (which is a significant, if not outright majority, of those on the #left) view things in terms of purity and taint.
The action affects the moral weight of the person. So the person is viewed as a good or bad person depending upon whether their actions and behaviors are judged as morally righteous by the standards of their political alignment.
People who align to Utilitarian ethics don't give a shit about any of that. Furthermore they consider _not acting_ to be a morally culpable choice. There is no difference between the original position of the lever.
Now, there are some who would argue for not voting for a utilitarian reason. The argument is basically that not voting forces the parties to court your vote, and thus moving them closer to your position.
I don't think this is true in modern democracies, because politicians already do not support policies that the vast majority of their voters support.
But, I will grant it. If you are to take this to be the case, then here is your cost function:
sum(t=0, T-1, discount(t, (harm_worse(t)-harm_lesser(t))) < (p x sum(t=T, infinity, discount(t, (harm_lesser(t)-harm_better(t))))
This is basically saying that you have to be willing to pay the harm caused the the worse evil as the price for the gains after your inflection point.
Which, points to the deontological argument in favor of voting for the lesser evil: you are buying a good future by paying with lives and bodies that (likely) are not your own. You are throwing someone under the bus for your moral purity.
Personally?
I personally think that the only reason evil is allowed to exist in our world at all is because good people are so afraid of "being bad" that they constantly abdicate the reins of power to evil people. Those #evil people exploit it.
Edit: This post was inspired by a conversation here: hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/116…
If you aren't already following @mekkaokereke, I do recommend his feed.
👴🏻Even if Hitler was the Dem candidate, and someone even worse(tm) was the GOP candidate, you'd have to vote for Hitler! Vote Blue, no matter who! Just do it!👩🏿But... why would Hitler be the Dem candidate?
👴🏻Because I voted for him! In the primary!
👩🏿Couldn't you just... not vote for Hitler?
👴🏻No!
