Voting vs Video Games

[Infected Mushroom]

my personal vote will never decide anything (not the candidate, let alone policy outcomes once he reaches the office), hence... from my point of view its certainly not worth keeping if it means throwing away something I actually enjoy

Thank you. Now, to reiterate an earlier post... why did you bother making a thread about this?

to generate very meaningful discussion

[Dakini]

In all seriousness, you live in Canada, a country where you can spoil a ballot. If you want to send a message that you don't like the political process, you can go to the polling station, get a ballot and spoil it. Then get them to give you another one and spoil that one too. Even that says more than just sitting at home and justifying your laziness with statements about how it's pointless.

Its not laziness, its simple efficiency

there is no gain to be made by wasting the time, showing up, just to spoil a ballot

I'm not interested in making pointless stands, I'm interested in maximising the utility of my free time

So you can use your free time to make the stupidest hypothetical scenarios ever on the internet?

Seriously, it's pretty obvious that you're just being lazy and trying too hard to justify it.

[Infected Mushroom]

Its not laziness, its simple efficiency

there is no gain to be made by wasting the time, showing up, just to spoil a ballot

I'm not interested in making pointless stands, I'm interested in maximising the utility of my free time

So you can use your free time to make the stupidest hypothetical scenarios ever on the internet?

Seriously, it's pretty obvious that you're just being lazy and trying too hard to justify it.

not from my point of view

[Dakini]

So you can use your free time to make the stupidest hypothetical scenarios ever on the internet?

Seriously, it's pretty obvious that you're just being lazy and trying too hard to justify it.

not from my point of view

From your point of view, your hypothetical here wasn't incredibly asinine though, so we all know what that's worth.

[New DeCapito]

So you can use your free time to make the stupidest hypothetical scenarios ever on the internet?

Seriously, it's pretty obvious that you're just being lazy and trying too hard to justify it.

not from my point of view

Has it ever occurred to you that your point of view is subjective?

[Ifreann]

What I mean is that your characterisation of a vote as meaningless unless it decides an election is false logic.

No its correct logic

I have no incentive to vote whatsoever and waste my time if its not going to meaningfully impact anything

But it will have an impact. Exactly as much impact as everyone else's vote. I'm sure your ego will be able to handle the revelation that you are not more important than all the other people of Canada. It is a nonsense to ever think that you personally will ever decide an election and a nonsense to evaluate the meaning of your vote on those terms.

[Infected Mushroom]

not from my point of view

From your point of view, your hypothetical here wasn't incredibly asinine though, so we all know what that's worth.

not so much...

[Infected Mushroom]

No its correct logic

I have no incentive to vote whatsoever and waste my time if its not going to meaningfully impact anything

But it will have an impact. Exactly as much impact as everyone else's vote. I'm sure your ego will be able to handle the revelation that you are not more important than all the other people of Canada. It is a nonsense to ever think that you personally will ever decide an election and a nonsense to evaluate the meaning of your vote on those terms.

no it makes perfect sense

there is no reason to show up to an election when my personal vote won't decide anything; the time would be better spent playing video games where I actually have a chance of achieving something meaningful and personal

[Unified Heartless States]

1. Which do you choose? Which is more important to you personally and why?

Video games, worlds fucked.

2. Is the right to vote as it applies to you personally overrated?

No, it's a good right. I, like many, have just become disillusioned by watching the same people make the same mistakes.

[New DeCapito]

But it will have an impact. Exactly as much impact as everyone else's vote. I'm sure your ego will be able to handle the revelation that you are not more important than all the other people of Canada. It is a nonsense to ever think that you personally will ever decide an election and a nonsense to evaluate the meaning of your vote on those terms.

no it makes perfect sense

there is no reason to show up to an election when my personal vote won't decide anything; the time would be better spent playing video games where I actually have a chance of achieving something meaningful and personal

On the contrary. Let me put it this way:
I have played roughly 3 weeks worth of Skyrim, in total. I have a very good character with max level armour and weapons. And for what purpose have I done this?
Unlike your vote, which is only partially useless, your gaming progress will make absolutely no difference to the world around you.

[Infected Mushroom]

no it makes perfect sense

there is no reason to show up to an election when my personal vote won't decide anything; the time would be better spent playing video games where I actually have a chance of achieving something meaningful and personal

On the contrary. Let me put it this way:
I have played roughly 3 weeks worth of Skyrim, in total. I have a very good character with max level armour and weapons. And for what purpose have I done this?
Unlike your vote, which is only partially useless, your gaming progress will make absolutely no difference to the world around you.

the video game itself is a part of the world around you, you've made a substantial and measurable difference

[Dakini]

No its correct logic

I have no incentive to vote whatsoever and waste my time if its not going to meaningfully impact anything

But it will have an impact. Exactly as much impact as everyone else's vote. I'm sure your ego will be able to handle the revelation that you are not more important than all the other people of Canada. It is a nonsense to ever think that you personally will ever decide an election and a nonsense to evaluate the meaning of your vote on those terms.

Incidentally, when I was looking at the votes from different ridings come in, I noticed a few that were decided by fewer than 100 votes (one that was decided by 10).

[Dakini]

From your point of view, your hypothetical here wasn't incredibly asinine though, so we all know what that's worth.

not so much...

Exactly. Not very much at all.

[New DeCapito]

On the contrary. Let me put it this way:
I have played roughly 3 weeks worth of Skyrim, in total. I have a very good character with max level armour and weapons. And for what purpose have I done this?
Unlike your vote, which is only partially useless, your gaming progress will make absolutely no difference to the world around you.

the video game itself is a part of the world around you, you've made a substantial and measurable difference

I find irony in the statement that you would like to use your time as efficiently as possible, but you would also like to get RSI in your hands instead of helping to decide who makes your county's rules.

[Ifreann]

No its correct logic

I have no incentive to vote whatsoever and waste my time if its not going to meaningfully impact anything

So by all means, don't vote. You didn't have to make a thread about it.
No, really. You don't need the hypothetical to disguise a blog.

I'd bet he didn't vote. I'd bet he made this thread because he didn't vote and because someone in his life told him he should have voted instead of playing Halo, or LoL, or Castlevania.

---

But it will have an impact. Exactly as much impact as everyone else's vote. I'm sure your ego will be able to handle the revelation that you are not more important than all the other people of Canada. It is a nonsense to ever think that you personally will ever decide an election and a nonsense to evaluate the meaning of your vote on those terms.

no it makes perfect sense

there is no reason to show up to an election when my personal vote won't decide anything;

Yes there is. To achieve something meaningful. To participate with the rest of the people of Canada in the making of a collective decision on who will be in your government. It is not your decision alone, Infected Mushroom. It is the decision of the entire Canadian electorate, of whom you are presumably one. One, equal to the others, not greater than any.

the time would be better spent playing video games where I actually have a chance of achieving something meaningful and personal

Personally entertaining, but completely meaningless.

[Valyrian Freeholds]

-moronic snip-.[/spoiler]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

If you forfeit voting you also forfeit the right to complain about the government, or to criticise it because you didn't vote.

[Sternberg]

You can only keep one, you lose the other one.

The right and ability to vote VS the right and ability to play video games

Tomorrow you will wake up and you will retain one set of rights while losing the other set.

Either you will become a person who can continue to show up once or twice every year to write a ballot in your free time (but who can no longer play any video games for the rest of their life)... or you will remain a person who can continue to enjoy playing video games for the rest of their life (but who can no longer show up once or twice every year to write a ballot in their free time)

1. Which do you choose? Which is more important to you personally and why?

2. Is the right to vote as it applies to you personally overrated?

(as a clarifier, you don't know whether or not every other person on the planet is also faced with the same dilemma. It is a possibility that you are the only one with this dilemma, it is also a possibility that some/all other people on the planet also have to make this choice; factor that into your decision as you will)

Assume that whatever you choose is irreversible and irrevocable, it operates by magic.

Erm .... what's the point behind this hypothetical (extremely tenuous as it is) scenario, OP?

I don't know how things are done in your home nation, but down here in Australia, anyone who''s over 18 and on the electoral role HAS to vote. Because the AEC and State/Federal Parliaments try to schedule the elections on days that won't force clashes with other people's work-weeks, that means they usually would vote on a Saturday or Sunday. The only way one would be able to (legally) get out of it is by in-advance voting (provided you can adequately justify it).

1. Which do you choose? Which is more important to you personally and why?

Hmm, to drop one of my hobbies in order to be able to retain some part (albeit, a small on on an individual level, but a large one cumulatively) in being involved in the parliamentary process, or to lose said capability and retain said hobby?

... Eh? Not really upping the stakes here, aren't we? Or are we completely missing the point behind elections to begin with?

2. Is the right to vote as it applies to you personally overrated?

I'm not going to bore you with a long paragraph behind my personal reasoning, so here's the short version to save everyone's time: regardless of my personal feelings on a candidate or a party's policies, I'll take hitting the 'pause' button over letting a dud or outright bad three-year term in Canberra go by.

[New DeCapito]

Do you know how much time it takes to look at your candidates' websites, decide who to vote for, drive to a balloting place, and cast a vote?
At my estimate, one hour. Three thousand, six hundred seconds. That you would rather stay at home borders on hilarity.

[Little Hostenia]

On the contrary. Let me put it this way:
I have played roughly 3 weeks worth of Skyrim, in total. I have a very good character with max level armour and weapons. And for what purpose have I done this?
Unlike your vote, which is only partially useless, your gaming progress will make absolutely no difference to the world around you.

the video game itself is a part of the world around you, you've made a substantial and measurable difference

As much as I'd like to believe this, I know it isn't true. It's fun, but ultimately Skyrim is...is fun. That's about it.

[Socialist Tera]

Voting, I still have board games, card games, comics and tabletop games.

[Infected Mushroom]

the video game itself is a part of the world around you, you've made a substantial and measurable difference

I find irony in the statement that you would like to use your time as efficiently as possible, but you would also like to get RSI in your hands instead of helping to decide who makes your county's rules.

I like to get items, develop skills, and get better ranks

[Infected Mushroom]

the video game itself is a part of the world around you, you've made a substantial and measurable difference

As much as I'd like to believe this, I know it isn't true. It's fun, but ultimately Skyrim is...is fun. That's about it.

the fact that you had fun means you've already achieved something

[Ifreann]

I find irony in the statement that you would like to use your time as efficiently as possible, but you would also like to get RSI in your hands instead of helping to decide who makes your county's rules.

I like to get items, develop skills, and get better ranks

If meaning is deciding the course of national politics, then accomplishing things in video games is less meaningful than voting.

[Infected Mushroom]

I like to get items, develop skills, and get better ranks

If meaning is deciding the course of national politics, then accomplishing things in video games is less meaningful than voting.

but voting will never allow you to personally decide the course of national politics

whether or not your one vote is in or out, it makes no difference in the ultimate determination

in a video game, you put in the work, you will get the results if you practice enough

[Herrebrugh]

-moronic snip-.[/spoiler]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

If you forfeit voting you also forfeit the right to complain about the government, or to criticise it because you didn't vote.

That's stupid. There are plenty of reasons not to vote. Just because you choose not to, doesn't mean you don't get to complain about what the government of your country does.

Though, "I won't vote because I'd rather game" is a pretty stupid reason...