[ExI] Conscientious objections

[Max More]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:47 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:33 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki
> <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am human. My desires don't come into existence through the act of
> > voting, therefore failure to vote does not remove me from the moral
> > calculus ("right to object").
>
> Your hypocrisy - refusing to take effective action to register your
> objection - does come into existence that way.  This hypocrisy
> removes the validity of your objection.
>

How is voting "effective action"? You must know that it is, in fact,
completely ineffective. To pretend that it is effective as more than an
(invisible) act of signaling, you have to make some extreme assumptions
(the race depends on the outcome in one state, and that outcome depends on
YOUR vote).

There are many kinds of (much more effective) action than voting.

I confess, I did vote in a general election once (back in England). I
washed my hands immediately after. I won't do it again unless my views are
well represented by a third party that has some significant change of
winning.

Accusing Rafal (and, by extension, me) of hypocrisy really seems a bit
excessive. Voting is far from the only way to register one's objection. In
addition, you are logically wrong to say that hypocrisy invalidates an
objection.

--Max


-- 
Max More, PhD
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
480/905-1906 ext 113
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