Also, seems kind of scary that this implies a future where so many people are in prison that their vote could actually tip the balance ?
I’ve never understood this. What’re they gonna do? Vote to make crimes legal?
That title needs a lot of editing. It does end in a question mark, but it’s structured like a statement. Even if it is a question, it appears that your asking if it seems that way way to you. How is anyone else supposed to know how it seems to you?
1 vote on its own doesn’t matter, however, the collective vote of undesirables in a country with the highest incarceration rate on earth could really fuck shit up for the elites who seek to control the population.
The US criminal justice system has never been for rehabilitation. No sane person thinks jail makes someone less likely to commit crimes.
It worked out for my brother and I’ve always been surprised by that.
That’s good to hear. I hope he’s doing well.
But that’s what’s often missed regarding statistics. It’s true for a large group of people but can’t say anything about the individual.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I believe recidivism is a real problem and that my brother got on the straight and narrow perhaps just as much inspite of his 4 years in prison as because of.
Oh yes, I got that you knew that. I was speaking about the others, sorry that I didn’t make that clear enough.
Given how little one vote matters, we have a much more serious problem here: why should any individual vote?
For any one person, the chance that even one election in their lifetime will have its outcome altered by their vote is vanishingly small.
Therefore, in terms of practical effect, each individual always faces this awareness: that whether and how they vote is purely symbolic in its effect
It’s the nature of democracy that one vote equals 1/N of the population. That is not flaw with the individual. It just means that for his vote to actually means something, it has to be part of a social memetic arrangements and not cast in the abstract.
Of course with first past the post, the electoral colege, gerrymandering all conspiring to further devalue and skew the value of one vote, democratic voting becomes increasingly meaningless. This is not a flaw of the individual but of the system itself being corrupt.
And then we have yet another layer of disenfranchisement, which is republicanism, in which voters do not directly vote for their interest but vote for an agent which will have a long term in which to “interpret” whatever the electorate really meant by voting for him. He will do so in a space where the constantly fluctuating social memetic arrangements that got him elected are not really under his control and are only loosely, and shortly affected by his action.
This is because the control of the fluctuating social memetic arrangement is in the hand of the actual social elite, the people who own or have seized the megaphone of power and who grossly compete and collude. Largely to maintain the arrangement, usually in an uneasy peace with their immediate competitors. These people are not just politicials but media moguls, celebrities and other billionaires.
Any solution to this problem must look to the system as a whole and create incentives to the individual that will enable him to at least have his 1/N power over the state of things. Free of the influence of the actual social elite who fill his heads with ideas that benefit them rather than the individual. And in a way where individual can act collectively for their interests.
What could go wrong with giving a democratic government the power to strip voting rights from those people they deem unsuitable to vote on how they are governed? /s
“/s”…? You just lost the right to vote.
When you also can escalate certain crimes (like cannabis) to target portions of the population it gets pretty dystopian already.
One vote might not matter much, but 4.6 million votes can swing elections. It’s really fucking weird how that country calls itself a democracy when it does this, allows rampant gerrymandering, have a very uneven vote weight depending on where you live, and, just as icing on the cake, allows slavery in some specific instances.
It’s not strange at all when you consider your own phrasing: calls itself a democracy.
Plenty of places do that. Doesn’t make it so.
Doesn’t the US also have the largest population of prisoners in the entire world too?
Currently China, per capita El Salvador. US scores second most population wise (3rd most populous country, so it’s not that unreasonable?) and 5th per capita (No excuse).
The US appears to have been slowly going down a little bit, some times when it feels like it, more so if you’re white, with a big drop during Covid.
Interesting. I can imagine China’s high rate of incarceration is due to the CCCP and El Salvador is due to the cartels. Wonder how many of those in prison in the US are there for pretty drug crimes though…
What is the CCCP? You mean Communist Party of China?
Oops, too many Cs haha! Yess, the CCP /CPC
Not just voting but having that blot on the record FOREVER puts a scarlet letter on their forehead. Good luck getting a good job and having a future when you’ve been in prison a few years for a nonviolent drug crime that should’ve been solved with a few weeks/months of inpatient rehab. Our entire criminal justice system in the US just breeds more crime and generational cyclical poverty. Hooray.
Giving hoe little one vote matters…
Stop using this dumb mindset. Also there is more than 1 felon.
“one vote matters little” makes my blood boil, and I hope for it to never change as I get older.
It doesn’t matter though. We vote for the least bad option every 4-5 years and call that “democracy”.
I hate it when people say that I’m “throwing my vote away by voting for a 3rd party”. If everyone voted for the person they actually liked, rather than the person who’s likely to beat the other large party, maybe we’d see some better choices.
I don’t know what you are talking about. I am assuming you are talking about the USA.
Why would both be considered bad, but one least bad than the other? Having only two major parties makes for little choices, but why you think its never a good choice?
From what I can grasp from here in Europe, the current president Biden is not bad at all.
I live in Europe, even with more parties it’s still a matter of “least bad” usually - like here in Sweden I find it really hard to find a party that is anti-religion, anti-monarchy and pro-science and education but also not lenient on violent gang crime and open borders. I also disagree greatly with the current unfair rent control system and the high income taxes (with no property, land or inheritance taxes), but there is literally no party that covers even just those 3-4 issues in the same way (and there are like 5 or 6 viable parties!).
I think the bigger issue with Biden is that there’s just no change at all - no attempt to solve the biggest day-to-day issues of heatlhcare, housing and education. And from the point of view of Europe, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has been terrible, directly subsidising industry to move to the US, right when Europe is struggling with the Russian gas crisis and the pipelines were bombed, etc.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has been terrible, directly subsidising industry to move to the US, right when Europe is struggling
but, isn’t that good for Americans? And isn’t Biden the President of America?
There are already enough potential voters who have been imprisoned, not the future, such that they could tip the balance. If you’re not sure if this is case, just look at how hard the GOP acts to block reinstatement of voting rights for ex felons.
given how little one vote matters
Man what a shit way to think.
Unfortunately it is the honest way. One individual vote has no effect in a pool of millions.
That’s not the point. If everyone believes their one vote doesn’t matter then yes, continue on with this futile thinking as it will surely not make a difference.
Ideally, it is one divided by population. In practice, because of the electoral college, and because money is speech are corporation are people, it is still way way less than 0.000’000’003
It also seems very undemocratic. The idea of democracy is that everyone can vote
True. But the US was founded by the rich, white elite for the rich, white elite.
Always fun to remember that the US threw off the shackles of oppression due to a 3% tax rate.
the point was to reform them into civic minded individuals ?
That was never the point.
Because they aren’t getting rid of one vote, but tens of thousands.
There are a lot of Republican states that are Republican mainly due to voter suppression.
It’s win/win for them. Thousands of fewer (likely mostly) Democratic leaning voters, and thousands of additional people counted in their census.
