What's your opinion on "picking the lesser evil" (e.g. voting)?
On one hand, it can potentially prevent more harm to you relative to the "worst evil".
On the other hand, it legitimizes the power of the pickee over you, when you also despise it.
Discuss! #asknostr
It’s a humiliation ritual where you’re tricked or forced to pick someone you despise under the pretext of “lesser evil”
You’re presented several varieties of shit, and you must choose. Either way, you end up eating shit and one can argue that you ended eating shit on your own accord, hence the humiliation.
So I do not vote.
This but I still like to go vote to remind me of the ridiculousness of the process
Yeah why not? I you wish it, vote but ✨ironically✨
…If* you wish it…
Also I haven’t seen on the tl for a while nostr:npub1uc3mkt5sx5dnpqvduv77h4gx4202upxcy697vh8t9hxpaa5gzajsyqtwqq, how’s everything ?
Whatever the news tell me not to vote
The people that vote like that are responsible for the mess we're in
And they love to say they had no choice. It doesn't get this bad in one election cycle it happens over generations of doing the same thing and teaching your kids its the only way
I find the answer so difficult, I think it's better to use your vote to choose between the options.
My problem is more or less that there is no party whose program I agree with most of the time.
Besides, the programs are not set in stone; You don't know what you'll get after the elections
what are we voting for? let's break down the concepts of the vote
In general most votes are for a ruler
Would you want a ruler in your daily life?
It's not about wanting one, it's about facing the situation that's presented to you: everyone around is already going to pick a ruler
You pick evil. And evil picks you.
No way voting is going to change anything for the better you are not willing to fight for in real life situations.
Preserve your life energy. It's the most important thing you have.
I generally abstain unless I feel that one candidate is far worse than the other for some reason.
Freedom and safety (I mean avoiding war and genocide not busybody "for your protection" bullshit) for living humans is my criteria.
Voting is an act of violence. Against your brothers and sisters and above all yourself. 
Don't lend your voice to someone else. Speak your truth instead.
Anything to get Trudeau out tbh
I am mostly convinced tart I should not vote.
Choosing the lesser evil is still choosing evil and I do not wish to choose evil.
Don't legitimize it IMO, opt out entirely. Build a better system from the ground up 🤙
it doesn't make any difference, only the people who are undecided have any influence and probably you aren't living in the districts where that affects anything
it's a mathematical fallacy that voting matters, it's just a ceremony to bless the tyrant with "the mandate of heaven" via propaganda and bogus statistical analysis and unfair numbers
no amount of voting makes it legal to kill or steal, so what's it for exactly?
all elections are just auctions for the property of the minority
What if 1 candidate promised to make your life significantly worse?
Isn't there any scenario where voting is justifiable on pragmatic grounds?
if this candidate is popular among my neighbours i need new neighbours, what can i say
why would you settle around a bunch of groupthink assholes who are happy to see their meek neighbours being carted off or worse, shot in their houses by swat teams?
no, if it is popular then you are living in the wrong place, you can't change the minds of the assholes who are comfortable with violence being done around them against people they have allowed themselves to be conditioned to consider as subhuman
idk what to say, if you think "but think of the children" then you are saying we need a political solution to stop criminals from being criminals
no, what we need is to either move, or if we are on safe ground, push them out
That's pretty much everywhere on Earth, there is no safe haven. Politics always naturally selects lying sociopaths.
no, really not
everywhere in the densely populated areas, which make up some 0.001% of all land
everywhere from about 100km away from these places people are a lot different, they are interdependent and conservative and often, the further out, the more they value respecting their potentially helpful and protective neighbours
Good point
Voting doesn't legitimize government. They would still govern by force even if nobody voted.
It gives them "social legitimacy" if they can claim that millions voted for them. You might disagree with that or with wether or not that even matters.
They will still use that as propaganda and as theit main excuse.
It's a legitimate negotiation with the agressor.
The signal you send with not voting is not the same the general public and the politicians receive. Whatever your reasoning is, they interpret it as disinterest.
The thing about choosing lesser evil is that you are still choosing evil, thus actively participating in bringing evil to power. If you don't participate at all, you are demonstrating your preference for others to choose the favorite amount of evil in the population, which for liberty loving people is generally bigger evil than what we would have chosen.
If you have an option to vote for tolerably small evil, I'd do that. Otherwise I'd consider if the evil difference combined with my influence justifies expending the effort to actually check the proclamations and actions of all relevant parties and to actually casting the vote itself.
I'm on the same boat, this is the most reasonable take for me.
Not voting should be accompanied by tax avoidance, otherwise it's less effective.
So true. This is the inverse corollary of "no taxation without representation"
All you can do is the best you can, some improvement is better than none. Otherwise you’ve succumbed to nihilism
I'm honestly surprised that there is such an overwhelming preference for "not voting" in the replies. Very interesting.
I guess I expected that even anarchists might generally prefer to maximize their potential political impact within the existing system.
Despite my extreme dislike and distrust of politicians, I still vote. I know it probably doesn't mean anything, but I always try to vote a third party, or at least for a candidate that somewhat sits well at my conscience. Even though in the back of my brain, I think that most politicians are scumbags, and anyone wanting power probably shouldn't have it.
It's a weird juxtaposition to be in. I've fantasized about a law getting passed where, if enough percentage of the population doesn't vote or casts a vote of no confidence, then the entire election process is redone with new candidates. That way, not voting would be much more of a protest than it currently is. But I don't think that's going to happen in America.
I do vote on local laws, though, because those affect me much more directly.
The whole picking a lesser evil thing though I guess to answer that correct question much more directly is an argument that I find bullshit because a vote for a lesser evil is still for a vote for evil. In America, you can vote for whoever the fuck you want. So picking one of the two just because you don't like the other side, even though you know your side is just as bad, is dumb, especially when you can pick a third option.
I do a lot of write-in voting, even in local elections.
Voting for “none of the above” or an ethical but highly unlikely to win candidate seems to make more sense to me than not voting at all.
you think I'm gonna vote when the big games on
Myself don’t buy into ‘lesser evil” logic because that’s what the duopoly is pushing down our throats. We were conditioned to think that way and we then come up with reasons (excuses) why we would choose a convicted over a senile or vice-versa.
I've never voted in my life. I don't plan to give up my right to not be governed and taxed by a bunch of pedos.
🫡
You'll still be governed and taxed by pedos, regardless. Isn't there a scenario where it's justifiable to vote for the one that promises to tax you less?
No. We shouldn't be taxed at all! Once you vote, at all, you have given up your freedom, to be ruled and governed.
Participation in the shit show, legitimatizes the shit show.
Hard pass for me.
You are ignoring reality but reality does not ignore you. Regardless of wether you vote or not, you will pay taxes.
Ignorance is Bliss.
👇
There is no way to fix the system by partaking in it with the way it's currently constructed in law.
MAYBE, I'll vote when voting happens through the mobile emergency alert function and is recorded on a digital ledger, a blockchain, so I can actually see my vote is counted and counted correctly, MAYBE....
nostr:npub16r0tl8a39hhcrapa03559xahsjqj4s0y6t2n5gpdk64v06jtgekqdkz5pl you sound like you know not at all what he is attempting to call your attention to...
which means you dont know fully what you are talking about.
start with this:
is voting a privilege or a right?
I know what he's talking about and I agree, I don't vote myself.
You got the wrong impression. I like to argue for both sides, it either reinforces my existing opinion or it gives me more nuanced ones.
The underlying question is pragmatism vs principles and wether or not the answer should be the same everytime or case by case.
This is make believe used by bad people to justify their own bad behavior.
National elections are a complete waste of time. Even most local politics is. But if I vote it's local, and it's usually a no vote on tax increases.
Lowering your standards to endorse any evil, even in the name of conquering worse evil is a very dangerous game. The exact reason communism and genocide has occurred in the past.
I try to sway people's votes by telling them I don't vote but this is what I think: "...."
That way I can gauge what I think might happen.
For me, staying neutral is about predicting the future better & staying focused.
Thought experiment:
You have a constitutional law that says : any vote in parliament (or house or whatever) is subject to a 15% popular veto. Meaning any 15% of the population can strike down any law as an added condition for votes.
This would result in very limited government after a while. The obly things that would pass would be lateral adjustments that everyone thinks are needed.
From that point we extrapolate to the current situation where the population has a 0% veto on any vote. That means that government has the freedom to expand because they get to burden future governments with long term liabilities.
So what we can conclude is that voting does nothing but involving yourself in the political process via say : lobbying and representatives in both the bureaucracy and elected officials does ALOT with few ressources.
Involvement is thus a moral duty for Brave bitcoiners.
