From: gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart)
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
Subject: Re: Boycotting Eric.
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:43:27 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Oct14.210402.11323@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> edp@math.zk3.dec.com (Eric Postpischil) writes:
>In article <1992Oct14.131631.4364@walter.cray.com>, sonic@cray.com
>(Curtis L. Swanson) writes:
>
>>Eric,
>>it seems to me that you equate 'not voting' with 'doing something else.'
>
>No, see my article entitled "Voting Analysis".

Actually, Curtis, Eric originally discussed that but has since chosen
to instead argue the "non-voting=message-transmission" point.

>>What a lot of people were saying back to you and the original poster was 
>>that 'not voting,' in and of itself, does nothing worthwhile.  You responded
>>saying that you can do many things other than vote which are worthwhile, 
>>which is totally correct and beside the original point.
>
>No, the point of saying you can do many things other than vote is not to
>prove that not voting is worthwhile but to disprove the argument that
>one should vote because otherwise one cannot control government.  Having
>disproved that, I stand by my analysis that shows for some people, it

That was not disproved, however, and the point seems to be now that
you contend that not voting sends a message to someone that has a
known, predictable interpretation to that someone.  That is false,
as many people have pointed out many times.  Having given you examples
of how not voting could be interpretted by others, such as government
should have been sufficient.  However, to reiterate, if there is an
election, and I am running against, for example, a second person, and
for some reason the subject chooses not to vote, how can I tell whether
the person has chosen not to vote because they dislike both of us or
neither of us.  How can I tell, for example, if the person was disinterested,
did not want to show support of either of us, or supported both and
could not choose?

>sometimes is a better choice not to vote.

If the choice is to vote only for someone you didn't want to vote for,
then that is true.  But the issue is not whether you should do something
bad, but rather that doing nothing is not doing something good.
>
>>However, while not voting does send a message, you cannot assume that it is
>>the message you detailed above.  I may have not voted because:
>>
>>I forgot.
>>I had an emergency.
>>I got sick.
>>I had an accident and was unable to get to the voting booth.
>>Etc, etc.
>>
>>Without me saying why I did not vote, nobody worth voting for could assume
>>any message from me.  They could only wonder.
>
>It is not true that they could only wonder.  I can demonstrate how a
>signal can be transmitted even in the presence of noise, even when noise
>outnumbers the signal by any finite ratio you care to name.
>
>>What is the point about X not having the 'authority' to govern you but
>>has the 
>>power to regardless?  You have said 'ethics' is the point.  But, if we
>>had
>>a government that actually only governed those people that voted for it
>>(down
>>to "the laws passed by this senator only applies to people who voted
>>for him"),
>>the USA would disintigrate much more quickly than if everybody (and I
>>mean
>>everybody) stopped voting.  In light of this, it would be unethical for
>>X to

This is irrelevant to his point.  The presence of a signal can be
guaranteed to convey nothing more than the presence of the signal.

You have stated that not voting is better than voting for someone
you don't want.

Others have said that not doing something you don't want doesn't help
accomplish something you do want

Of course, if not doing something you don't want is your goal, that's
okay.  But then you wouldn't be able compensate for the others that
do vote against your own preferences, and, having not communicated
to anyone why they should change anything, you can only sit and
hope.  But be warned that if you communicate this hope to anyone,
then you are taking action that can influence others' actions,
and as you've said, that is analogous to voting.

GMS
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa