So Would YOU Reverse A Presidential Election

Utilitarianism or Rawls or whatever > Democracy

There’s no way to calculate the expected utility of that decision, so it’d be pretty silly imo but I’m sure a lot of people will have some big feelings about it regardless.

Utilirarianism has bad consequences

Still good to see DS back in Plato mode

Are you saying it would be silly to use that power? in this election?

My answer by the way would be that I would not use that power if I was unsure of who was "better" to the point where the fact that the electorate was disagreeing with me actually swung my opinion. Sort of like the sports betting concept or the guy who is willing to bet that the jack of diamonds will spit cider in your eye.

No, because I actually believe in democracy, and that means being willing to take an L sometimes. This goes regardless of the candidate, except in the rare case where the election of someone (say, Hitler) destroys democracy itself. I do not believe this is the case with the upcoming election, despite years of propagandizing by state media.

I am not a hardcore utilitarian. But as long as I have you I would like to see if you agree with me about a short TV segment that bothered me awhile back. It was about China. And how their standard of living had risen dramatically for the average citizen over the last ten or fifteen years, But the piece then went on to mention the authoritarism that remained there even as they partially embraced capitalism. Someone asked why should the average citizen not be happy with the tradeoff. A nicer life but little freedom of speech, self rule etc. The reply was something like "People are not dogs. There is more to life than a nicer house, air-conditioning, better medical care, and a flat screen TV. Not giving up your right to a free press, voting etc etc is more important."

Those last words angered me. Because it is only a small proportion of the population that actually feels that way OR SHOULD. Average citizens main goal is a pleasant life for their family and to give that up for esoteric freedoms is not noble in my book. Agree or disagree?

Plato was a monarchist and would most certainly push the button.

Not sure if DS was hinting or aware but basically everyone would hit the button.

Sounds like you want a magic wand, not a button, but I like the way you think

My threshold is right around Trump vs Harris so yeah I would say so. Only based on the stipulation that no one would ever find out and there are absolutely no negative consequences that could come about from simply making the swap alone.

Anyone that wouldn’t do it in principle is probably not acting very ethically. Remember that this would be a one time reversal, nobody would know about it, and any principles of democracy the system has in place would still be there. If you can prevent someone who has tried to destroy democracy from taking power given those stipulations, you should probably do it.

I mean just imagine instead it was Trump vs Giga Hitler Who Promises to Nuke the World and Kill All Blacks/Jews. I would still absolutely 100% make the switch in favor of Giga Hit— I mean Trump. And then swap in whoever you think the greatest statesman of all time is, you’d be silly to let Giga Hitler win over principles that won’t even matter once he wins.

I think post #6 and post #11 were both particularly good even though they disagreed. Because they were both well written and both realized that their answer was highly correlated to their opinion of Trump. Frankly I wrote the OP because I was getting irritated by the cognitive dissonance of some regarding their opinion of democracy and their opinion of Trump. But so far no one seems to be exhibiting that dissonance. Meanwhile I have a problem. How do I take the action that post 11warrants without being accused of homophobia?

I meant it would be next to impossible to weigh the sacrifice of a true democratic vote vs the expected utility of altering it, specifically as it relates to this election.

How could anyone possibly weight the infinite probabilities of each possible outcome to make an educated choice vs the very finite subjugation of a democratic vote?

How could you have data in something so subjective? I don’t get this whole line of inquiry tbh..

You’re going to subvert democracy on a hunch?

Tl, dr

You can’t be sure, so you can’t use the power.

It’s written into the hypothetical that the change of the democratic choice will not factor in at all, so whatever stipulations you have to make should be sufficient to overcome these objections. That is unless I misunderstand the hypothetical.

Not who you wanted the answer from, but it is rather intriguing to me that these so called esoteric freedoms and economic success are so often found hand-in-hand.

I actually think it's a very interesting but I can't give such a straight answer.

1) I dont think it's for anyone to say what someone else should prefer. I understand why many prefer it but the trouble is they have to impose it on people who dont prefer it. You may say they all should prefer it but I'd say that's meaningless. It simply seems to be a fact about humans that we are moral creatures with many who highly value freedoms/etc for ourselves and others.

2) A strong argument for your case is that democracy is not doing well and we may well be losing the argument. Not least I have to say because people keep voting for least worst - democracy wont survive that imo. I also claim democracy loses it's morality if people dont vote broadly for what they want so why not just settle for the tv etc.

3) The strongest argument against your case is that they may prefer the current situation but there's no check on authoratarianism. When it reaches the point that they dont prefer it then it's too late and nothing they can do about without a revolution. It's one of your hated slippery slopes but it's a real nasty one because there's no option to get off.

I was referring to plato the philosopher. The question of what we would they do might better be put to socrates.

I woouldn't push the button except in very extreme circumstances. It would be harder to resist if it came with a nice dinner but then at least I would know it was wrong.

Socrates would play devil's advocate with himself until concluding that there is no right answer and then go with his gut.

It's very hard to quantify it exactly but it's not necessarily hard to determine if qualitatively utility would increase or not if you act, depending on your value preferences.

You should read Capitalism and freedom by Friedman, it answers your conundrum.

Yes normal people goals are about a good quality of life. Problem is you don't reach it without a good portion of what we consider "democratic freedoms".

China proved you can copy the success of capitalist societies fairly quickly if an autoritarian, technochratic leadership is determined to do so, but only till around what economists already called the "middle income trap" (which is a big problem even for countries that reach that level more "normally", because they also often do so without the same actual freedoms we have, or we had, in the west).

Copying what succesfully brings you from 1k to 10k of per capita GDP is fairly easy (it wasn't obvious that was even the case, but China proved that, Vietnam as well). The rest isn't without individual freedoms because among other things you lose the best and the brightest (who do care disproportionately about those freedoms) to other countries and they are those who invariably carry the rest of society forward.

After the banal copying of what's demonstrably "obviously useful" has been done, you are left with individual and company level innovation, driven by greed, curiosity and a desire to change things toward your goals.

If the best and the brightest are very capped in what they can pursue, and know the government will come knocking potentially taking everything away from them, or at least their power to affect change, if they are too succesful, they will stop growing too much and will stay content with enough money to live comfortably, or leave to a place where they can express their full potential and if they manage it's all theirs.

As suggested in the OP this is another case of where you draw the line.

Moat reasonable people are button pushing to prevent Hitler 2.0. I’d need more information on what Trump (and Harris for that matter) will actually do rather than what he blathers on about to push the button on him v Harris, and all I have is what he did last time.

Trump vs a Bernie equivalent or better (from my perspective) would be a tougher call for me. But then I’m not American and that adds another element to the morality of overriding democracy.

Who has cognitive dissonance?

personally, I would overturn the election, even if it was Trump versus Mitt Romney. The value at issue being preserved is whether or not it’s worth it to overturn democracy because of the danger of a certain candidate. My threshold would be Trump because he actually attempted to overturn the last election. whether it would be Romney or Harris or Biden, as long as it’s someone that would respect democracy then I think I would overturn it. (that is of the mainstream political figures)

but again for me, Trump would probably be the minimum level threshold of someone who I would want to protect the American system from in this way. Also, if it wasn’t for the stipulation that nobody would ever find out and there would be no negative consequences from overturning it, I probably would not support over returning it simply because the principal were trying to preserve by overturning. It is democracy.