Voting is Pointless because I have a strong-interest in Democracy

[Idaho]

Next to each candidate on the ballot paper should be the words "and the status quo". The very act of voting is giving approval to the process and structure of our political system.

Am I just bitter because my voice isn't heard? Joking aside, no. I am a middle aged, middle class white man who earns well over the average salary. I am catered for very well by the status quo. I am not some downtrodden minority.

The technology of our political system is the problem. We could develop greater democracy. We could be innovative. But this would threaten the professional political class and creates uncertainty for their economic backers. Any change faces resistance of this most powerful alliance.

But the world is ours! It is not the elite's!

[Husar]

So it's all about Britain not having a pirate party?

As for the "technology", mayhaps, but apart from monetary concerns there are also downsides to more direct democracy such as lynch mobs and other guilty until proven innocent ideas being very popular.

Take our non-nuclear route for example, that one was not based on corporate interest of the elites, it was only decided after a lot of people demonstrated and demanded it. In fact Merkel had originally promised that the reactors could run for another decade or so and then turned around in the face of public opinion. The energy companies were not happy about that at all, but had to swallow it. It might have even cost some jobs in that sector, although the whole renewables sector also creates many jobs. Either way, at least here I do not really believe that the people have no power, they just have to make use of it.
We have one state where the greens have a majority IIRC, so even the two "established" parties are not all that established and can be challenged at the voting booth. And IMO that should happen more often as it is a wake up call for them to listen more to the people. However, if all the people who do not like the established parties do not vote at all, this becomes far less likely to happen.

And that is why I find it relatively important to vote, to bring more dynamic into the political system, to show politicians that the people will not tolerate corruption etc. and will vote for another party or a completely new one if the established parties keep selling out. However, that only works if the people are actually educated (I was in a publich school and certainly not brainwashed by the government there) and put in at least a little bit of effort to change things. The worst voters are the ones who vote for parties out of habit or don't vote at all. They both contribute to the status quo.

And this is also why I do not like FPTP, because it is stacked against all the smaller parties as can be seen in the USA. Here it makes sense to vote for them as they might at least get into a coalition or in the worst case prevent a government formation if the established parties refuse to work with them. But either way we have the means to show that we do not like what is currently happening in the government while the citizens of the USA can only vote for two sides of the same coin. The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.

Of course living in a nation state also means that you may not agree with the majority but I heard nation states are the greatest thing ever, so we can't change that.

[Pannonian]

And this is also why I do not like FPTP, because it is stacked against all the smaller parties as can be seen in the USA. Here it makes sense to vote for them as they might at least get into a coalition or in the worst case prevent a government formation if the established parties refuse to work with them. But either way we have the means to show that we do not like what is currently happening in the government while the citizens of the USA can only vote for two sides of the same coin. The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.

Reg Keys, General Election 2005, Sedgefield

An independent candidate does not get elected, but he gets his say on election day as does every other candidate, and every other candidate has to stand there and listen to him have his say.

[Montmorency]

The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.

We might speak of the "potential energy" of a mobilized public, but the problem is that mobilization is of a typically highly-diffuse group that shares as its only uniting factor common citizenship in a certain state, and is almost always fueled by rage or panic, toward short-term (and perhaps short-sighted) solutions, is probably not as noble a goal as it might seem.

Reflexive reactions associated with anger or fear are of course evolutionarily advantageous, engaging us to swerve out of oncoming traffic or avoid a falling object, at this point in our history we must acknowledge that its usefulness has run out. We must, if possible, modify our physiology in such a way as to change this response, such that immediate danger can be recognized accurately and quickly, but without the concomitant sensitization, sensory neglect, and contextual collapse/convergence. This will make our actions what could be called "better-considered" for longer periods of time during stressful situations. The downside would likely be considerably-increased metabolic expense, but at this point I think a few more humans starving to death under extreme conditions would be a small price to pay for cognitive efficiency.

But the world is ours! It is not the elite's!

I'm not sure I like this story of some generic masses being compartmentalized away from "the elites". To be extreme, we might consider the "masses" to be their own guards at a free-range labor camp.

Elites are not distinct from the masses, then, but rather hold concentrated resources of various sorts that make them relatively influential within the camp. What you seek is to homogenize their influence, but it's difficult to see how this could be achieved without homogenizing individual resources, presumably every single day or every few hours, and that's a pretty huge and well-known can of worms.

Ultimately though, any moralistic - or morally-grounded - argument for a particular sort of governance is doomed to be short-lived and inconsistent with itself. My stance on the inadequacy of current power politics and wealth politics is simply that "elites" are still large and diffuse as a group, in some ways even more diffuse than the masses (really, as pointed out, Masses - Elites), and yet bent toward a narrower set of goals and priorities, leading to ineffective and uncoordinated governance of any sort.

What must be done, I believe, is for an absolute technocracy to assume power over all governance in the entire world, to establish and affirm certain overarching goals and priorities as part of this governance, and oversee the fruition of its own meta-goal (e.g. post-humanism). The one way I can think of to safeguard such an arrangement - never mind reaching the point in the first place - would be to fund the development of an army of robotic overseers, which for the duration of the process toward the meta-goal would ensure that the technocrats, being individually replaced from time to time as all humans must be, "stay on task", so to speak.

Now, the problem of reaching the opening of this stage: perhaps voting has its part to play in the process, in which a short-term swing towards the left-wing (so we must work to manage any nascent transition from rightist hegemony to leftist hegemony) will allow the democratic instantiation of an ever-more centralized state, in which the new leftist governments would allow the appropriate technocrats scope and resources to operate.

Yes, it seems a conspiracy would be necessary at some point, but hopefully the interval outside relative openness should be short enough - a few years - that the program could not be stopped if and once discovered.

[Husar]

Reg Keys, General Election 2005, Sedgefield

An independent candidate does not get elected, but he gets his say on election day as does every other candidate, and every other candidate has to stand there and listen to him have his say.

Apparently the UK uses FPTP in a different way than the US does, as in you use it for the election of single MPs but it's not the deciding factor for the ruling party, otherwise I do not understand why you have coalitions on a national level.
I don't think you can merge two MPs to get one who represents both MPs' views so that's a bit different. Why does hardly anyone in the US vote for parties other than the Republicans or the Democrats? Do 98% of the country love either of those two parties that much?

We might speak of the "potential energy" of a mobilized public, but the problem is that mobilization is of a typically highly-diffuse group that shares as its only uniting factor common citizenship in a certain state, and is almost always fueled by rage or panic, toward short-term (and perhaps short-sighted) solutions, is probably not as noble a goal as it might seem.

Reflexive reactions associated with anger or fear are of course evolutionarily advantageous, engaging us to swerve out of oncoming traffic or avoid a falling object, at this point in our history we must acknowledge that its usefulness has run out. We must, if possible, modify our physiology in such a way as to change this response, such that immediate danger can be recognized accurately and quickly, but without the concomitant sensitization, sensory neglect, and contextual collapse/convergence. This will make our actions what could be called "better-considered" for longer periods of time during stressful situations. The downside would likely be considerably-increased metabolic expense, but at this point I think a few more humans starving to death under extreme conditions would be a small price to pay for cognitive efficiency.

Yes, I think a good way to achieve that is a good education.

[The Lurker Below]

Why does hardly anyone in the US vote for parties other than the Republicans or the Democrats? Do 98% of the country love either of those two parties that much?

We're taught in school that if we don't have the answer on a multiple guess test to always choose C. Adding more than two options to the election ballot would confuse us too much, we'd all choose C, and the parties would break down into fisticuffs over whose name gets into the C slot.

[Montmorency]

Yes, I think a good way to achieve that is a good education.

Why/how?

[Fisherking]

It is not very interesting to vote when you see the choice as only the possible lesser of two evils or when you see all the mainstream parties as standing for the status quo.

If someone is taken down by the media it is usually because they are not from the in group. They are presented as weird and marginalized. It doesn’t mean they were good, it just means they didn’t go along with the agenda. This requires not coordinated conspiracy. Merely what is good for the corporate or overall business interests of the organizations involved.

You want more people to vote? Add None of the Above to the ballot and enforce it by not allowing those candidates to run again if defeated in a follow one election.

[Furunculus]

i live in an area that will never elect a tory (or labour for that matter), so you'd think i'd be fuming at my 'wasted vote' under FPTP.

however, since i quite like adversarial politics and parties that adopt country-wide electoral positions, i find myself quite content with the result.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I encourage everyone not to vote. The fewer people that I can get to vote, the more my individual vote matters.

[Papewaio]

I encourage everyone not to vote. The fewer people that I can get to vote, the more my individual vote matters.

You could appy that to owning guns too...

[Husar]

I encourage everyone not to vote. The fewer people that I can get to vote, the more my individual vote matters.

So you want to make people feel disenfranchised and at the same time tell them to get armed. Are you looking forward to that civil war?

[Pannonian]

Next to each candidate on the ballot paper should be the words "and the status quo". The very act of voting is giving approval to the process and structure of our political system.

Am I just bitter because my voice isn't heard? Joking aside, no. I am a middle aged, middle class white man who earns well over the average salary. I am catered for very well by the status quo. I am not some downtrodden minority.

The technology of our political system is the problem. We could develop greater democracy. We could be innovative. But this would threaten the professional political class and creates uncertainty for their economic backers. Any change faces resistance of this most powerful alliance.

But the world is ours! It is not the elite's!

So hop over to your local council's meetings and give of your time and effort to improve things at a local level. You won't be deciding on where this million or that million of tax money will be spent, but you can help make £100 or so be used more efficiently, saving a few pennies on each person affected so that the money can be spread to help that one or two people more. When they hold fetes and the like, do your bit to make them work and to help people enjoy them. I greatly admire the Woman's Institutes for the efforts they've made to build their Jerusalem on England's green and pleasant land, and I take their attitude as one to aspire to.