What a bunch of self righteous pussies

[Aeson]

How do we assess the credibility of a political opinion?

Not by who voted ...

[Aeson]

Opinions often take the form of judgments based on evidence. Some people are more credible than others, and we should give their opinions on certain subjects more weight. For example, if a particle physicist and Donald Trump both have the same evidence that a new particle exists and present the same arguments in favor of said particle, we should give the physicist's opinion more weight--despite the content being identical--because the physicist's credibility means the argument is more likely to be valid. That is, if DT alone presents the argument, it's very possible there are a lot of counter-arguments he and we aren't considering which render his argument invalid. But if the physicist presents the same argument, it's reasonable for us to conclude that they've considered, rejected, or at least taken into account those counter-arguments.

All you are doing is agreeing with me that those who judge based on non-content are ignorant. Since if they weren't ignorant of whatever aspect of particle physics is being discussed they would be able to form their own judgement of the issue. (Not to mention that ~100% of those who take the particle physicist's word on it are going to, if they ever address the matter, display ignorance of what the particle physicist actually was saying.)

[Proteus_MST]

If somebody voted third party then does their opinion matter? Their vote had just as much of an impact on the election as the non-vote of a non-voter

Even if they voted for a third party candidate, they still cast their vote.
Yes, he chances for any third party to win in the US presidential elections are extremly low (maybe even below 1%), but they are still different from 0 ... in contrast to the chances of having any influence on the election when you don't vote at all, which are exactly 0.

[loinburger]

Just like it makes sense to play the lottery because it gives you a non-zero chance of becoming a millionaire

The difference being that it's more expensive to vote than it is to play the lottery - in the latter case you're only wasting a dollar, in the former case you're taking time off work to spend an hour standing in line at the polls in order to waste your vote

[Proteus_MST]

Just like it makes sense to play the lottery because it gives you a non-zero chance of becoming a millionaire

Those people who won the lottery surely are glad that the small chance of actually winning didn't dissuade them from taking part in it

[giblets]

If you don't play the lottery, you don't have the right to complain about being poor

[Ming]

The difference being that it's more expensive to vote than it is to play the lottery - in the latter case you're only wasting a dollar, in the former case you're taking time off work to spend an hour standing in line at the polls in order to waste your vote

Polls are open before and after work. Most polling stations are close to where you live. It shouldn't be a big expense to vote. It didn't cost me anything.

[Proteus_MST]

If you don't play the lottery, you don't have the right to complain about being poor

At least you don't have any right to complain about never winning in the lottery, if you don't play in it

[rah]

Polls are open before and after work. Most polling stations are close to where you live. It shouldn't be a big expense to vote. It didn't cost me anything.

Yeah I went after work and it only cost me about 10 minutes. If it hadn't been for the page of judge retentions it would have been a lot less

[Jon Miller]

Some people had to wait in line for hours.

We are lucky to live in Illinois.

JM

[loinburger]

I waited in line for about ninety minutes. Fortunately my work is flexible enough that I was able to vote mid-day, as I can only assume that the lines got longer after most people got off work.

[Dauphin]

How many people is a polling station supposed to serve? I don't get how such long queues can be possible so regularly - why aren't there more polling stations or voting booths to reduce the strain?

[Dauphin]

Not playing the lottery is a win (especially for the poor); they'll be the cost of the tickets richer.

[loinburger]

How many people is a polling station supposed to serve? I don't get how such long queues can be possible so regularly - why aren't there more polling stations or voting booths to reduce the strain?

I live in a Democratic district in a Republican state, so it makes sense for the state to make it more difficult for me to vote by undersupplying my polling station.

And because I'm a Democrat in a Republican state and because we have an electoral college, it doesn't make sense for me to spend ninety minutes voting for the President (I may as well vote for a third party candidate for all the good it will do). I would have almost certainly abstained from voting were it not for local referendums and **** like that (raising everybody's property taxes )

Note: it's mostly my own damned fault that I had to wait in line for so long - I'd forgotten to request an absentee ballot until it was too late. Some states make you jump through a ridiculous number of hoops in order to get an absentee ballot, however. (In Idaho you just need to register to vote and then mail/fax in a "request for an absentee ballot" form - no need to prove that you're going to be out of the district on election day or anything like that)

[Berzerker]

Opinions often take the form of judgments based on evidence. Some people are more credible than others, and we should give their opinions on certain subjects more weight. For example, if a particle physicist and Donald Trump both have the same evidence that a new particle exists and present the same arguments in favor of said particle, we should give the physicist's opinion more weight--despite the content being identical--because the physicist's credibility means the argument is more likely to be valid.

In your analogy are Trump voters the physicists?

How do we assess the credibility of a political opinion? Well, maybe we should give more weight to people who've studied political science or something, but I think it can be argued that having voted is at least marginally correlated with investment in and knowledge of current politics. So we can use that as part of a heuristic for judging the credibility of someone's opinions about politics. Obviously, though, it's not the only signal we have.

I dont think the argument was about credibility, the complaints of non-voters are unwelcome because "they didn't get off their arses" to vote. As for credibility, non-voters are more credible than voters - they didn't have a horse in the race. I'd look for objectivity among non-voters before wading thru the cesspool of partisan sniping surrounding the 2 parties. If Trump messed up and somebody complained would your first thought be to find out if the complaint came from a non-voter or voter? Mine would be: 'Hillary supporter?' And I didn't even vote for Trump (or Hillary).