80,000 Hours Podcast

How much does a vote matter? (Article)


Listen Later

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles.

In this one — How much does a vote matter? — I investigate the two key things that determine the impact of your vote:

• The chances of your vote changing an election’s outcome
• How much better some candidates are for the world as a whole, compared to others

I then discuss what I think are the best arguments against voting in important elections:

• If an election is competitive, that means other people disagree about which option is better, and you’re at some risk of voting for the worse candidate by mistake.
• While voting itself doesn’t take long, knowing enough to accurately pick which candidate is better for the world actually does take substantial effort — effort that could be better allocated elsewhere.

Finally, I look into the impact of donating to campaigns or working to ‘get out the vote’, which can be effective ways to generate additional votes for your preferred candidate.

If you want to check out the links, footnotes and figures in today’s article, you can find those here.

Get this episode by subscribing: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the linked transcript.

Producer: Keiran Harris.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

80,000 Hours PodcastBy Rob, Luisa, and the 80000 Hours team

  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7

4.7

294 ratings


More shows like 80,000 Hours Podcast

View all
EconTalk by Russ Roberts

EconTalk

4,246 Listeners

Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,351 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,399 Listeners

Future of Life Institute Podcast by Future of Life Institute

Future of Life Institute Podcast

108 Listeners

The Joe Walker Podcast by Joe Walker

The Joe Walker Podcast

122 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

90 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, The Center for Humane Technology

Your Undivided Attention

1,515 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

90 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

425 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,462 Listeners

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg by Spencer Greenberg

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

132 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

127 Listeners

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg by Turpentine

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg

144 Listeners

Statecraft by Santi Ruiz

Statecraft

37 Listeners

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) by Patrick McKenzie

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

122 Listeners