h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As an aside (cos I'm about to go off and make my breakfast right now - pancakes ), I have to say that I'm extremely uncomfortable with the phrase 'sloppy thinking' - a phrase I see used around here on a fairly frequent basis. Again, it's something which I find dismissive and also condescending. I'd rather the phrase 'lazy thinking' were substituted, because lazy implies someone who can't be bothered, and I think we both agree on what we think about that.

People can be 'sloppy' in their thinking because they don't know any better, and that may not always be their fault so they shouldn't be penalised for it. They may not have had any training in how to think things through. That can change. They may not have had any training in how to debate and discuss. That can change too. They may be overly argumentative - in other words they let their emotions override their thinking. Another thing that can be changed with practice and a desire to do so. They may have some missing connections in the way their brain is wired that prevents them from articulating what they think - the aural equivalent of writers block. How many times have we heard someone say in all sincerity 'Oh, I know what I mean I just can't explain it'? They may feel embarrassed about they way they speak or articulate their words but have a strong desire to get their opnion across, resulting in a half-hearted attempt which apears to be 'sloppy thinking'.

I don't know exactly what it is you do for a living, although I'm interested to know, but you obviously have a very sharp mind. I do not. There are many around here who also have sharp minds, and many who also do not. Not having a sharp mind doesn't automatically mean a 'sloppy thinker'.

Sometimes people become emotional, and their thinking becomes less structured - you'll often see this on football web-sites - however politics is also a subject that can drive people to passions. (Though I can't see any of our current lot of politicians inspiring anything other than apathy.)

People frequently support political parties for non-political reasons, thus they become trapped when confronted on issues, their response then becomes personal.

Thus people who feel that none of the parties represent their desires decline to vote, and can become very emotional about it.

Good point about the difference between 'sloppy' and 'lazy' though I would view them as synonyms myself, and distinguish them from 'limited' thinking.

This, of course, is one of the good things about democracy - in the voting station we are all equal, Einstein and idiot. Democracy is here to protect the vulnerable, and this is one of the ways it does so.

I never said anything about penalising anyone. All I said is that coherent thinking has more credibility than lazy thinking.

I tend not to cut a lot of slack for lazy thinkers. I do cut a lot of slack for people who, for whatever reason, in your words 'don't have a sharp mind'. I cut no slack at all for those who claim that they do think things through, but who obviously don't.

Don't do yourself down, Gosho. You have argued your point very clearly, and you have forced me to be more precise in my language, and I thank you for that.

Ben

"I never said anything about penalising anyone"

'Penalised' was probably the wrong word to use. 'Not having a perjorative term used against them' is closer to the mark I think.

Ach, I reserve the right to call an edjit and edjit, though! Present company excepted, because there don't seem to be any edjits in this thread.

Ben

I dont know Acid Overdrive is, but I also had a conversation about the environment with you :P I'm glad we did and I think we both got a lot out of it. Thought I did get criticised almost immeditately in another thread for using the style of post I'd developed to communicate more effectively with you in that one. I don't think theres *a* method of communicating that can get to the bottom of how a person thinks, just a thought.


The only way a person could feel strongly, not vote and have acted true to their feelings were if they perceived the world to be such:

benefit of desried outcome * probability of desired outcome < benefit of some action that can be performed in 1/2hour instead of voting

That being said I don't think the way to respond to someone who didn't vote is to shut out their opinion. The only way you get exposed to new opinions is to talk to other people about theirs, challange your own and take the parts of both that make the most sense to you. I think that if you don't listen to someones opinion you do yourself a disservice. After you've heard it you might want to persuade them to act differently last time, or come up with reasoning that isn't a non-seqetius, or not repeated at you at increased volume (I'm still amazed how frequently that passes for debate) then thats your call, but not listening in the first place seems a little pointless.

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem" -- Eldridge Cleaver 1968.

The only valid reason I can think of for not voting is participating in the political process in some other way that is more likely to make the country in which you reside to be run the way you want, such as spending all of election day transporting people who would otherwise not make it to a polling place, so that thirty minutes of your time results in four or five votes being cast, instead of your one.

Cleaver didn't have elections in mind when he made the comment that opens this post, but all things social and political.

NBY

I'm a civil servant. None of the three clowns presently whoring their round the country are going to do me any good.

I'm out of the country on May 5th (and for the week and a bit proceeding it, thank god), and wasting everybody's time by spoiling a postal ballot would in my opinion be childish. It's exactly the sort of time and money wasting sh*t that really gets up my nose in my job so why inflict it on others.

Besides, there are other ways to change things besides voting for the least bad big-business whore in an election. I'm a union rep at my place of work, and try to do my best to protect all the people I work with, even the ones who won't join the Union. I spend my money in ways that are socially progressive (ie away from big outlets and with smaller, independant shops) and I try to be ecologically concious.

I consider allof these to be more useful than spoling my postal ballot.

And damn right I'm going to complain about WHOEVER gets in. They are all in the thrall of big business and the media and NONE of them really represent anything.

Though I would encourage people to vote, I'm not sure how simply voting (or spoiling a ballot paper) gives anyone more right to subsequently express opinions on the actions of the resulting government.

If someone votes for a fringe party which they absolutely know isn't going to get elected, that doesn't seem to me to be expressing an opinion any more strongly than if they spent half an hour walking down a street carrying an anti-government placard, (which itself could also be argued to be an action which they are only allowed to undertake due to the bravery of protesters in the past, some of whom ended up dying for their efforts).

Without any particular argument as to why spoiling a balot paper would cause more official reaction than a simple decline in voter numbers, I'd find it hard to treat the two as significantly different actions.
Though someone who spoils a ballot paper may well see themselves as a performing a symbolic action of special significance, if no-one else shares that view, then does it actually matter to anyone but the individual?

If someone else sees their own deliberate act of not voting as being symbolic (to them) of their distate for the choices offered, I'm not sure how I could try to convince them that spoiling a paper (or voting for a fringe candidate) *would* somehow have a greater effect on anyone else's opinion, even if I myself believed that it *should* do.

>>If someone else sees their own deliberate act of not voting as being symbolic (to them) of their distate for the choices offered, I'm not sure how I could try to convince them that spoiling a paper (or voting for a fringe candidate) *would* somehow have a greater effect on anyone else's opinion, even if I myself believed that it *should* do.

Spoiling a ballot vs not voting... Only one of those actions can be interpreted as apathy, as opposed to a specific choice of "none of the above."

Before the decision was made not to tally them, the news media used to include the number of write-in votes received by Mickey Mouse during US presidential elections.

NBY

NBY

>>"Only one of those actions can be interpreted as apathy, as opposed to a specific choice of "none of the above.""

Quite.
However, failng to vote at all can also be interpreted as an actual dissillusionment with the political process.
Spoiling a ballot paper could in some circumstances be interpreted as the inability to complete a ballot properly, unless separate statistics are collected about how many people actually wrote 'None of the above', and how many appear simply to have not voted according to the rules.

In practice, politicians who are honestly concerned about people's attitudes to voting in general are presumably disturbed by low turnout as well as by spoilt papers.
Politicians who don't particularly care but who think it is in theior interests to make the occasional noise about democracy will side with the honestly concerned in expressing their concern about lack of voter participation.
Politicians who are both cyncical and reckon that apathy or the expression of unfocussed disllusion don't do their interests any harm are presumably unconcerned by either low turnout *or* spoilt papers.

I can quite understand why individuals may think that one action is more significant than another, but I'm struggling to work out which influential groups actually rate spoilt papers as significantly more important than low turnout.
The media and politicians seem to talk (and presumably worry) rather more about overall turnout than the number of spoilt ballot papers (at least, they do in the UK).

I'm guessing that's because the amount of spoilt papers is relatively small compared with the number of people who just don't bother to turn out.
Presumably the politicians reckon that if they can get someone into the polling booth, there's a good chance of getting their vote too.

I've found some data about the numbers of rejected votes - ie spoilt papers plus those with unclear voting intentions for the 2004 elections in London. These constituted the election for the Mayor, the Constituency Assembly members, the London-wide Assembly members and the European elections. And all done on the same day.

The rejection rates were as follows:

Mayor - 2.96%
Assembly (Constituencies) - 6.17%
Assembly (London Wide) - 2.53%
European - 0.94%

I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from that, but the variation is interesting.