@vnarek Right I have a 99% (apparently) between having someone who gropes women on stage vs someone makes fun of cripples. So its not that different.. should I really support one of two evil people just because they are the most popular ones? that still seems just as absurd.

Personally if i had one of three choices, one who wants to kill 100,000 people and has a 49% chance of winning, another wants to kill 90,000 and has a 49% chance of winning and another who wants to kill no one and has a 2% chance of winning, and my vote has the ability to raise whichever of these three I want by 0.0001% in odds, im going to pick the underdog

The point your missing is my influence on the vote is the same whether i pick the underdog or the majority likely winner.. since my contribution to the odds is the same, again, what is the logical motivation of picking the majority choice. Why is it more important to pick the person who is likely to win, even if you think he is evil, than trying to pick the one you want to win, and increase their odds from 1% to 1.00001%... seems no less or more useful than increasing someone with 49% chance of winning to 49.00001% chance of winning.

You havent actually told me why I should feel more compelled to vote for someone based on their odds of winning rather than who i want to win. What is the logical mechanic of that deal?

@freemo Yeah that number was just hypothetical I should have written that down. I mean, there is no effective chance of winning election for a third party. If you look at the president as a person, then no, but what if you take policies into account? Don't you lean nearer to one of them?

Yeah, your vote could save 10000 people. This is the reason why you should vote for realistic winners. Additionally, now you theoretically influenced some people who would vote and make third party 1,01%. This is 1,01% votes wich went to parties that are not able to win and could affect the end result of the voting.

Influence the vote yes, but not the influence on the winner if you know what I mean. Isn't this argument against voting in general? I vote to make change and I want to give my vote to someone who can use it. That's the reasoning I am going with.

Because if you want to make a change and you lean more towards one of the parties. So giving that party your vote will increase that parties chance to win and take you closer to the desired world. Voting a third party would not affect the election and if a party that you do not prefer wins in the end then voted against your own interests.

@vnarek Ok so lets break this down...

If you want to say things like "no effective chance" then I can also argue there is "no effective chance" my vote will make any difference in the election at all, ergo I shouldnt vote.

I'd rather say that my vote has two effects 1) it has a miniscule effect in increasing the chance of whoever I pick winning. The degree to which i effect their chance of winning is the same whether i vote for a main party or a third-party. Ergo there is no logical reason to favor a larger party.

2) My vote has the secondary effect of increasing the overall percentage of the party I pick and decreasing the percentage of votes for the ones I don't. That means it will exert an influence whereby in future votes people will have a high confidence that the party i voted for might win than they would otherwise consider. therefore even if I dont win I am contributing towards a transition away from the two-major parties and ultimately helping to do away with the "two party system" mentality (however invalid it may be)

Effect number 1 suggests there is no reason to favor a majority party, my influence in constant therefore i should pick who I like best.

number 2 suggests I should explicitly not pick one of the two major parties as I can have a more positive long term effect by picking a third-party, and therefore have a compound effect not only in increasing the odds of a third party winning this election but doing so even more in future elections.

the idea that my vote somehow would save 10000 people if i vote for "realistic winners" is only valid in the edge case where the vote is off by just 1. Since that is nearly impossible to happen the truth is In all likelyhood my vote will not save anyone, but it will ensure two evil parties retain control year after year with little opposition.

@vnarek Lets put this in other terms that might be more visceral for you...

You see three groups walking down the street carrying pitchforks and torches.. One group wants to lynch the 10 black men in your town, they got the rope, they are furious, its clear it will happen, the crowd has 49 people in it.

Another group of 49 different people are also a lynch mob.. they want to kill the 9 Jews in your town. They are just as intent

(both evil groups).. There is a third "mob" only 2 people. they are screaming and begging and pleading with the other two groups not to lynch anyone.

What do you do? Do you join the group lynching the Jews because it is the lesser of two evils and clearly one of the two mobs will get their way (they only have enough rope to lunch one of the groups).. and just help kill a bunch of people and tell yourself your saving one... or do you join the group of 2 people, tell them to stop, and even though ultimately you fail and one of the groups wins out and people get lunched anyway, at least you stood for what was right and your voice might influnce people in the future and cause them to look up to you as an example? At least you didnt help kill anyone.

@freemo I will only quickly comment on the "one vote does not make difference" yeah it doesn't, but pushing this kind of idea to vote third party can convince others to do that. Which could then result in more than 1 vote right? But because of electoral voting system of the U.S those votes will still go nowhere.

To your 2) point. It does so only for your current election base on https://www.quora.com/Could-a-third-party-candidate-ever-win-a-U-S-presidential-election?share=1 I am not an expert on U.S elections, do you know if this is true?

Now to your hypothesis.
So there is only those people left in the country? I would try to make that third party stronger if I could and I think that people would join that third party, but if there is no chance that this party is going to get those 51 people somewhere (because empirically this happened and no one gave a shit), then I would join to the lesser of two evil and tried to change the system from within. This hypothesis is more for running politics than for voters I would say. This situation reminds me of that black man who attended KKK rallies a little.

@vnarek These are the only people on society. Thoughyou could of course try to convince someone fro a lynch mob to join the third party, so your statement is still valid.

But are you really going to be ablle to convince people to join the third party if you go around admiting you yourself arent even going to vote third-party, I doubt it, especially if the bulk of people are influenced by the chane of a third party winning. so only way you'd effectively convince anyone is if you vote third party, when they see that they may switch sides. But they certainly wont if you just talk about how cool the third party is but wind up joining a lynch mob anyway.

@freemo Actually this is effectively what soc dems were doing this whole time and I would say it is effective. They are talking about third party and then going with primary parties to have a chance of winning. They are dismantling the lynch mob from inside. I can talk about racism and lynching not being good and still make an effort in killing the least people possible. Again, I am going with this absurd example for aguing purposes only, in reality these parties are not that extremist and I would lean with democrats more than republicans on the policies and beliefs.