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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 2023

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What is your objection? That it’s a sort of lie, because you vote no when you really believe yes?

For me, every referendum has implicit questions baked in, such as ‘do you support the current government’, or here ‘do you support reparations, the woke stuff, the ‘yes’ side generally, etc’, and although it is not official, it is legitimate to vote on those.

My theory is that a lie is only a lie if the counterpart expects the truth, and the more he expects it, the more it is a lie. But in this case, other voters, and the government, expect you to answer based on those other questions too, so it’s not a lie (or rather, any answer would be a lie in some way, so any answer is morally fine).

What is your objection? That it’s a sort of lie, because you vote no when you really believe yes?

I mean, to some extent, but it's more that the causal chain invoked routes unavoidably through treating people as manipulable fools rather than rational actors. That's what Scott calls dehumanisation, and it's a Dark Art.

Doesn’t apply to my justification though. You’re a rational voter signaling to other rational actors, and the government, what policies you support more than others. Your opinion on the Voice itself aside, they will correctly infer that Mr No-voter likely isn't a big fan of reparations, wokism, and the Yes leaders.