Independent thinker valuing discussions grounded in reason, not emotions.

Open to reconsider my views in light of good-faith counter-arguments but also willing to defend what’s right, even when it’s unpopular. My goal is to engage in dialogue that seeks truth rather than scoring points.

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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: August 25th, 2024

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  • As a non-US citizen, I’m getting the impression that a big number of left-wing voters are voting for Kamala not because she’s so great, but because she’s not Trump. Similarly, a ton of republicans are voting for Trump because they consider it a vote for the party, not for the candidate, and they sure are not going to vote for a democrat because (insert stereotypical grievances about liberals.)

    To me, it seem reasonable to assume, that given the chance, there would be a ton of people on both sides that would rather give their vote to almost anyone else but either of these two, but they don’t because they know that a 3rd party can’t win and this would just risk the greater or two evils winning.

    Why I referenced the prisoner’s dilemma is because I mostly see this as a coordination problem. What if instead of tactical voting, everyone just voted for the candidate they actually consider the best one? It’s not at all obvious to me that this would still mean that either of the two main candidates would win. This could very well give rise to a 3rd party.

    Also, to return to my original point; it doesn’t seem immoral to me to vote for 3rd party even if that causes Trump to win by one vote. You did the right thing, rest of the people didn’t. If everyone acted like you, it seems to be that this would, in fact, lead to him not winning.




  • I think a good measure of whether something is moral is to imagine everyone doing it and consider if it would make the world a better or worse place.

    In the U.S., most people probably don’t vote for a third party because they assume no one else will, so they worry their vote will be wasted. It’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma: if you vote and no one else does, you lose, but if everyone voted, everyone would benefit.

    So, if someone does choose to vote third party, was it the right thing to do? Well, what if every voter acted this way? There’s a good chance the third party could win, and while it’s debatable, it’s reasonable to assume they might be a better choice than the other two.

    Ranked-choice voting would solve this issue, by the way.







  • That’s a bit loaded question. By AI I assume you’re refering to GenAI/LLMs rather than AI broadly.

    • I use it to correct my spelling on longer posts and I find that it improves the clarity and helps my point come across better.
    • I use Dall-E to create pictures I never could have before, because despite my interest in drawing, I just never bothered to learn it myself. GenAI enables me to skip the learning and go straight to creating.
    • I like that it can simulate famous people and allows me to ask ‘them’ questions that I never could in real life. For example, yesterday I spent a good while chatting with ‘Sam Harris’ about the morality of lying and the edge cases where it might be justified. I find discussions like this genuinely enjoyable and insightful.
    • I also like using the voice mode where I can just talk with it. As a non-native english speaker, I find it to be good practise to help me improve my spelling pronunciation.