Thinking we are in a computer simulation is like level 4 thinking.

We're all just energy incarnate, and whatever platform we are experiencing it on (God's creation, an alien's dream, a computer simulation, random physical material consciousness coincidence) doesn't really matter (pun absolutely intended)

Realizing this would be like level 5.

Not giving a **** is the highest level, also known as nirvana.

Aesah always does seem to be one level ahead

The inability to prove we aren't in a simulation doesn't do much to show that we are in a simulation.

But I was talking about being in a computer simulation that's within a computer simulation. It's possible that we are already in a computer simulation thats within a computer simulation though.

I did not vote in the presidential election because I do not believe it is an efficient use of my time to spend hours of my time doing something that has a 99.9999999% chance of being completely meaningless. The most common counterargument I receive is "but if everyone thought that way, then democracy wouldn't work". That is simply not a valid argument because it is talking about a situation that doesn't exist. In fact, the argument that "they won't let you have tiramisu in the afterlife if you don't vote" is more meaningful to me because the probability of that is theoretically higher than 0% while I can empirically determine from my social media that the probability of the first situation is LITERALLY 0%.

I love tiramisu.

~~~~~~~~~~

Out of the myriad of issues in this election, the most important one to me is the racism/sexism. I'm more extremist than most in that I don't believe equality for blacks/women/etc. is progressing nearly fast enough. I like to use the analogy of the frog in the boiling pot- if you slowly bring the heat up, the frog will die. If you crank it quickly, yes, it will momentarily be more painful for the frog, but that's what you need to do to make it realize "hey, this is totally not OK" and save it's life. In that sense, maybe Trump bringing the heat would be good for the underprivileged in the long run- also this should go without saying, but obviously it might not be, I'm not a fk'ing prophet.

(apparently studies show the frog thing is a myth but that's not the point)

~~~~~~~~~~

As you can tell I'm relatively disinterested in politics, but there is one thing I feel strongly about. The WORST reason to vote- worse than fanatical partisanship- is if your candidate's tax plan would make YOU personally richer. First off the selfishness is questionable on an ethical level. The real tragedy here though is the lack of understanding of expected value- your EV is less than 1 cent per hour here.

Go walk around downtown and look for coins.

I mean does it really matter who the next president is? We're just living in a computer simulation anyway.

Your argument for not voting is so bad, so flawed, it's not even wrong

because it's you 11t, i'm actually really curious why you think so

That being said if you don't want to vote because you are lazy or uninformed, there's nothing wrong with not voting.

LOL, 11t ladies and gentlemen!

I have some comments on taxes Aesah, but only if you allow the risk of this thread going full politand. If not, I will stick with haiku.

Aesah likes to think
This makes the thread very good
Laugh out loud voting

OK let me put it this way. I asked a bunch of people whether they would rather have $10 million or decide the next president. Every single person picked the $10 million.

Then, I defined X to be the chance that your vote affects anything at all, which is unknown but fixed. When I asked "would you rather have X chance to decide the next president or have X chance to get $10 million", most people still chose the $10 million but not all of them.

But somehow, when you effectively get to make this choice in real life between going to the polls or going and buying a Powerball ticket, everyone mysteriously goes to the polls (no, it's not really a mystery to me. I understand voting makes you fools feel good about yourselves for standing up in what you believe in, etc.)

Also yes, I obviously understand there are other issues besides the president to vote on, but then again, the Powerball is at $236 million which is a lot more than $10 million and- this is a big one!- the chance I win the Powerball with a single ticket is actually way, way, way, way higher than me affecting the election.

Avaritia I think I ****ed myself enough without additional tax input, I appreciate you treading with caution! Also very nice Haiku. My only suggestion is that the last line would be better as "el oh el voting" though.

Oh by the way the part about the frog in boiling water is unrelated to my decision to not vote- just think its interesting to think about. Just thought I should clarify this in case anyone thinks I'm not voting because I can't figure out which candidate would be better because that is certainly not the case- give me $236 million and I'll be happy electing Kim Kardashian.

Decide the next president, and sell your choice for 100 mil ldo

Turns out I have 3 quick picks for tomorrow's power ball drawing.

Bush "officially" won FL in 2000 by 537 votes and therefore the election (due to the Electoral College consequences). If you look at the various media recounts, one had Gore winning by 3 votes.

'Lectoral College
system Gore wins by 3 votes
Voting schmo-ting, Ha!

pot, meet kettle.

I'm sad I didn't pick this obv correct answer, though you could certainly get more.

I think my bottom would be around $500K. That is if we can pick ANYONE as president.

If it's a decision between the current situation, i'd sell for about $350. Not a joke, just stating the fact that to get me to care enough would be a few hundred dollars.

Oh snap look who went and polititarded a thread!

But how much did you lose?

Agorophob you are telling me you'd rather decide the next president than have $236 million? If not then are you telling me to meet you, the kettle?

(by the way I feel like I need to clarify that OBVIOUSLY when I say "decide the next president" that you can't sell or benefit from it more than the general public)

From a 100% purely selfless "I want to dedicate my life to serving humanity and do not require any personal entertainment/gratification" PoV, it would DEFINITELY still be more beneficial to the world of me to buy a Powerball ticket and donate even 1% of the winnings than to go to the polls

The issue is this: your argument against voting is fundamentally nihilistic. If you reject concepts like duty, responsibility, ethics, and purpose then yes your individual vote is pointless because its unit value is so small it is irrelevant. However, I'm guessing you do believe in those concepts.

Think of it like this: every action could potentially be binned into two areas

1. The right thing to do
2. The wrong thing to do

Wrt to voting there's two steps

1. The physical act of voting
2. Being informed

If you accept the existence of ethics then you have a moral obligation to inform yourself and vote. Now how high is this obligation? It is subjective, your argument is that it's so small that it's irrelevant. I'd argue that your duty isn't to society, but it is to yourself and how immoral voting is, is in proportion to how much you respect the ethics of representative government and the people who have given alot more (in just and unjust wars, representative government isn't perfect it's just better than many alternatives) than a few minutes of their time.

did we already establish why this is fact?

Im not trying to go down that rabbit hole, just making the clearest argument I can given what he's said and that I'm on the phone.

Voting or !voting is the same thing from an ethics POV. Choosing not to vote for any reason is ethically justifiable.

Aesah should feel completely righteous in his decision, either way.

Nice try conservative to suppress minority turnout!

11t, without getting too deep into the semantics of practical ethics/morality, if Action A is a thousand times more beneficial to the world than Action B is, then do you really feel OK arguing that Action A is more immoral than Action B?

Again sure you could say that Action A is "immoral" depending on how you choose to define it, but I consider that extremely silly.