Continuing from our last post, Your Vote and the Prisoner's Dilemma ...
Your vote may not decide the outcome, but your vote does pay. When you vote for your first preference, you send the correct market signal. But when you "hedge" your vote to "beat" your least choice, you send a market signal in support of something you don't want, thus it's a wasted vote.
So we could restate your thesis, Bill, as saying that voting is a huge, multiplayer Prisoner’s Dilemma. For each individual voter, the cost of voting (getting informed on the issues and candidates, time to drive to the polls and stand in line, gas money) does indeed exceed the probably economic benefit from influencing the election, considering the small probability of a single vote making a difference.
Voting third-party, however, is not "rational ignorance." It's an educated choice. A choice that can change the entire game! "Hedging" your vote however, can only result in what you don't want.
The “Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma” is the Prisoner’s Dilemma played over and over again ... It was actually proven mathematically that the individual supposedly-rational choice is *not* the optimal strategy.
There is no single optimal strategy because of the variety of possible other strategies by other players. But it has been proven that any optimal strategy (assuming a few easy-to-satisfy conditions about the other players) starts with and relies heavily on the “cooperation” choice, in which you explictly [sic] reject the individual “selfish” choice (referred to as “defection” in the literature).
Right. So again I would say that, since there isn't an optimal strategy, you should vote for your first preference. It's the only way to send a market signal that accurately describes your choice. Relying on a voting bloc (the "cooperation" choice), is a no-win situation. There simply isn't a way you can be assured cooperation, considering more than 130 million individuals vote!
This then leaves your first preference, as your most logical vote.
So the supposedly rational choice for an individual is not really the correct choice when examined from the group perspective. All the supposedly rational individual choices end up damaging the group.
This also illustrates that such situations can often tolerate a bit of “free riding” from individuals who take the choice that’s bad for the group. But too many such, and the whole system breaks down. I think that’s a fairly good parallel for the voting situation we find ourselves in.
Maybe I'm not sure what he's getting at here, but this reeks of collectivism to me. If I understand correctly, in voting for Barr instead of McCain, I somehow "end up damaging the group." Really?
How can my one (mathematically insignificant) vote, based on my educated preferred choice, damage America?
I could come up with a list of 1,000 ways voting for McCain could damage America, but for the life of me, I can't find the harm in voting for the guy who would best represent me.
Is the individual only valuable as far as he submits to the collective? Progressives believe this, but I sure don't. It's absurd.
Our republican form of government was designed to constrain the power of the State. We do this by voting our conscience, not in submission to a group. If conservatives and libertarians have fallen into this collectivist trap ... We're doomed!
Voting is not independent of market forces. Individuals making their own decisions in the market place has resulted in greater wealth, choice, "income distribution," and every other outcome you can think up. Individuals making their own decisions in the voting booth too, would result in the best possible outcome for everyone.
Could it cause "gridlock?" Sure. But that's the best thing that could ever happen for the cause of liberty. Because "gridlock" constrains the power of the State!
I love you man. You blog so I don’t have to.
I am definitely not a believer in “hold your nose” voting, and the once or twice I’ve done it in my lifetime, I always ended up regretting it. I’ve voted for a lot of Libertarian candidates over they years. I met Harry Browne that way, and I used to fix his home computer network for him (he lived a few miles from my house).
OK, that makes sense to me.
I was directed to your comment as a reference dispelling my argument that you’re better off voting your preference (even if that means third-party), than you are to “hold your nose” and vote for your second preference in order to “beat” the third guy.
“Maybe I’m not sure what he’s getting at here, but this reeks of collectivism to me. If I understand correctly, in voting for Barr instead of McCain, I somehow ‘end up damaging the group.’ Really?”
No, and I don’t think my comments say anything close to that. The free riding problem is just a way of saying that if too many people say “Screw this, it’s not worth voting”, then the process is captured by those with a higher self-interest in the outcome, and those people tend to be collectivists. So this is actually recommending standing up to the collectivists by taking the time to get out and vote for your preferred candidate.