{"id":1966,"date":"2024-10-29T08:46:38","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T16:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/?p=1966"},"modified":"2024-10-29T08:46:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T16:46:38","slug":"criteria-for-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/10\/29\/criteria-for-voting\/","title":{"rendered":"Criteria for Voting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve seen plenty of people recently ranting about how presidential candidate X is obviously terrible because of their position on Y. It’s often the case that if I were voting solely on Y, I’d agree that candidate X is terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see patterns suggesting that those people tend to choose X first, and then choose one or more Y’s that fit an opponent of X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to push back on these patterns, and explain why I expect to be confused as to how scared I should be by the upcoming election results, by focusing on issues based on how important I’d think they were if I didn’t know who would be running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most important issues are at least an order of magnitude more important than typical issues, so I ought to base my vote on the most important issues if at all possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

AI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Governmental response to AI seems quite likely to be the most important political issue of the century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alas, it’s hard to figure out either what policies we want or what politicians are likely to implement them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This LessWrong post<\/a> is a mostly good attempt at analyzing AI-relevant factors of Trump and Harris’ plans, although it sometimes goes astray with pro-Harris biases (e.g. treating Project 2025 as if it were Trump’s plan). It’s creates a slight presumption that Harris is better than Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s another summary<\/a>, which is more careful to focus only on candidates’ statements about AI, concluding:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Well, that contradicts my above expectations quite a bit. Kennedy is completely aware of the actual problem and what is necessary to solve it. By far the best candidate.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

War with China<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A close second for top issue of the decade is the looming war over Taiwan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s unclear whether any candidate takes seriously Beijing’s commitment to gain control over Taiwan by whatever force is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have little ability to predict who would lose the most in a war between the US and China, but I consider it unlikely that any side will achieve significant benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump’s skill as a bully provides him with some sense about when to avoid picking a fight with someone who’s too strong. He’s a xenophobic nationalist who doesn’t care much about what happens to foreigners, so he’s less likely than most politicians to go to war to protect Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Democrats, probably including Harris, adopt a more deontological approach to international relations, fighting evil without calculating the odds. As far as I can tell, they’re committing to military engagement, while imagining that sanctions will deter Beijing from triggering the use of that military commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Trump seems less likely to escalate a conflict against a major power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennedy and Oliver seem to have better anti-war track records than either Trump or Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rule of Law \/ Respect for Contracts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Basic respect for rules is always an important foundation for cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may be approaching an era where it’s unusually important, in that there’s a chance that human welfare will depend on whether we can make credible contracts with minds that are much more capable than ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats have a mediocre track record here. I don’t have good information as to how Harris compares to the average Democrat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has a wildly varied track record regarding the rule of law. His judicial appointments seem to have above average respect for the rule of law (I’m guessing that a good deal of this is due to law schools holding conservatives to higher standards). OTOH, he has a terrible track record for many decisions over which he has more direct control. E.g. he rejects basic principles such as an obligation to pay his bills<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve heard a good deal of negative things about Kennedy’s attitude toward litigation, which lead me to suspect he’s the worst candidate on this issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Libertarian Party normally prioritizes support for the rule of law, so I’m guessing Oliver is the top choice on this issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I’m not going to tell you which candidate to vote for. My research has been too hasty to be thorough. I’m voting in a state that is not at all a swing state, so I’ve devoted less thought to it than I would if I voted in Pennsylvania. I’m sure I haven’t achieved an ideal level of objectivity. I’ve made many claims that will offend someone, and I’m not willing to spend much time defending them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m mainly trying to steer you away from bad reasoning. In particular, away from partisan choices about what criteria to use, and toward focusing on the most important issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I hadn’t gone through the thought processes needed to write this post, I would be dismissing Kennedy as obviously an evil member of the outgroup. Now my choice feels a bit harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P.S. I will block comments that merely provide a few counter-examples to my generalizations. I know there are exceptions to most of my generalizations. I’ll probably block anything that sounds too much like ingroup versus outgroup propaganda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve seen plenty of people recently ranting about how presidential candidate X is obviously terrible because of their position on Y. It’s often the case that if I were voting solely on Y, I’d agree that candidate X is terrible. I see patterns suggesting that those people tend to choose X first, and then choose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p80O1l-vI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1968,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}