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TripleInterrobang  1yr ago (youtu.be)   2035 thread views

Voting for the lesser of two evils

youtu.be

In the past I have made video essay content about SSC/ACX articles. My most popular remains my summary of the concept of Moloch.

Today I've made something a little different. It is a video summarizing the arguments surrounding voting for the "lesser evil". If this interests you, give it a watch and let me know if I missed anything or if you agree/disagree.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=46gi-ODAjF0

Note that I do not make any money off this or other videos. I also apologize if I have broken a rule I didn't see by posting this.

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  1. I notice that 100% of what you've said both in your blurb here and in your blurb on YouTube avoids the appearance of partisanship, but the actual video is very clearly intended to get people to vote for Harris. This is disingenuous.

  2. You have zero mention of the issue that, hey, this situation sucks and that preferential voting would help avoid these kinds of dilemmas.

  3. You paper over the issue that while politicians do often keep their promises, a lot of things simply aren't on the ballot. You don't even acknowledge the possibility that for some people, not voting for either major party is in fact the correct choice because there's no difference on the relevant issues. (To give an example, I tried to single-issue vote on civil defence last election year here in Australia, but I couldn't, because all parties' civil defence policies were the empty string; I eventually gave up on that and voted on other, less-important issues, but like 80% of what I wanted simply wasn't available to vote for.)

  4. Your description of the case for not voting for the lesser evil as an excuse for "it feels bad" is to a fair extent a strawman (also your naïve first-order consequentialist point is greatly exploitable), and reeks of using Dark Arts to shame people into doing what you want i.e. voting for Harris.

Overall, this is get-out-the-vote propaganda masquerading as a fair look at the options, I'm disgusted, and my opinion of you is drastically lowered. This is the case even though I would mildly prefer that Harris won.

Heya. I'm sorry this video gave you such a negative reaction. Did you have an opinion of me before this video lowered it?

  1. I am open in the comments that, while the rest of my videos aim to be nonpartisan, I do have partisan motivations for this video. In the end, this was the factor that motivated me to make another video after a long hiatus. I can understand why you feel it is disingenuous but my intent was not to deceive. The actual arguments I believe to be nonpartisan, though the presentation and set-dressing is partisan.
  2. (And 3 also): The goal of the video was to address the philosophical question of whether it makes sense to vote for the "lesser of two evils". This is why I don't address either alternative voting systems or people that cannot decide on a "lesser evil". The assumption is that someone has identified one as the lesser evil, and must decide whether to and how to engage with the electoral system. Again, I know my presentation is partisan, but the arguments I present work exactly the same if you assume I support Trump.
  3. (This is actually 4 but I don't know how to get it to format it that way.) This is solely based on my observations of these kinds of debates as I don't have the data to examine true nonvoter motivations. I also agree that not everyone feels this way, though I think the assumption that people do most things because it is comfortable is generally true. The presentation of this point was intended to invite introspection: "am I doing what I am doing for a principled reason, or because it is the thing that makes me feel good". I don't assert that everyone is acting without principles. If you have some good alternate motivations I am interested to hear them, and I have been engaging with people in the comments so I can hear about them.

The only thing I can assert to defend against the label of "propaganda" is that I am making what I feel are sound and nonpartisan arguments (not attempting to mislead), but doing so with a partisan framing. I can openly say I am hoping to affect my audience, but I think all of my videos are like that. Even when I end a video, as I did with my last one, with a plea to consider the merits of both the "conservative" and "liberal" mindsets, I am doing so with the hope that I will have an effect on the viewer (reduce partisanship).

I am open in the comments that, while the rest of my videos aim to be nonpartisan, I do have partisan motivations for this video. In the end, this was the factor that motivated me to make another video after a long hiatus. I can understand why you feel it is disingenuous but my intent was not to deceive. The actual arguments I believe to be nonpartisan, though the presentation and set-dressing is partisan.

If you think that the general form of an argument is valid in a non-partisan way, but you also care about a particular partisan variant, it's almost always preferable to first - and spend the most time - to make a strong, general case, and then make a distinct follow-up with an appropriate title on how you think this applies to the partisan issue you care about. If you start with the partisan case, not only will people who disagree on politics shut you out from the start, there is even a high chance that they will conclude that the entire general argument is just yet another partisan ploy.

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