[EM] (no subject)

[peter barath]

Admitting that I didn'f fully follow the topic:

I think my selfish incentives are enough to make me
vote. Maybe I have also altruistic incentives but they
are surplus. Also, my selfish incentives in great part
have ethical and community nature, but still selfish.

How can a selfish motive have ethical nature? Simple.
If I don't steal an exotic fruit from the supermarket,
my motives have ethical nature, but some of them
selfish: I don't want to be punished.

So, what are my costs about the voting? Five minute
walk to the place, five minute vote, and five minute
walk back. (And consider that I like to walk, sometimes
I do it just for recreation.)

Knowing about politics I don't count as a cost. Even
if I didn't have the right to vote, I would know about
politics to make decisions about my life, to not look
dumb when conversating, and from simple curiosity, which
means something like hoping to utilize knowledge maybe
somewhere, some time, in some field (but it's not as
much a decision, as an instinct, evolution-made - not
all of those work well, for example, our instinctous
carbohydrate craving can make us less healthy, but
curiosity is still okayy).

So let's make the cost a dollar (this is not a very high
GDP per capita country - Hungary).

Let's see the plus side.

In my country a million voter minus already would somehow
endanger democracy. Let's suppose it's a 0.1 probability
of a fascist dictatorship which kills me or makes my
life as miserable as death with a 0.1 probability. So
roughly my voting makes my life 0.00000001 safer. Question
is wheter my life is worth a hundred million dollars.
I'm not sure. It's also important to note that in such
magnitudes utility can not be considered as a linear
function of money. (For Bill Gates, a million dollar
plus doesn't mean nearly as much as for me would.)

As a matter of fact, my voting or not voting makes more
than one vote plus or minus because other people tend
in this respect more to follow than to counterfollow
my example.

Since voting is considered as an ethical act, I vote to
make my reputation better. I could maybe lie in this
respect, but lying also has high costs. My family members
know when I'm coming and going, I can be caught if something
interesting happens in my voting place and I don't know about.

This can be considered like this: for some extent I also
protect other people from a fascist dictatorship, and they
also protect me. So we have an agreement to vote. But my
keeping of the agreement is not fully altruistic because
others know what I do.

Also, if something interesting happens in my voting place,
it's good for me, I can talk about it, I can get some
attention in the company, which is such a hard thing to do.

Even if nothing particular happens, voting is a little
bit fun.

Maybe I forgot something, I don't know. Just one more note:

Since the previus elections Hungarian Parlament created a law
to make cheating less probable. By this, in every constituency,
only one voting place is able to get votes from people who don't
vote in their own dwelling place. In these places, some people
waited for six hours in line to vote.

I don't know what I would have done in this situation. Probably
would have wait for my turn. Why? Would have this been able
to explain by purely selfish motives? Maybe. Becaus if I do
my thing in such circumstances, it makes me look even better
before others. The probability of something interesting happens
grows. And not only something to talk about: it can be an
interesting experience. What people say in this situation?
How the authorities react? Taking part is sometimes valueable
because media often lie about events. If you are there, you
have chance to know.

Peter Barath

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