[carrier_lost]

"why would anyone pay attention to the papers when it seems completely remote and irrelevant to people's lives?"

Local elections directly affect people. Local boards and councils set tax rates and allocate money to schools, police, fire and other public services. Local elections often are covered extensively by local newspapers. Yet voter turnout often is quite low. Why?

[SapphireSun]

I live in Boston and I don't see much local coverage unless I look for it explicitly. Unless I subscribe to a local paper I don't really see much of their reporting. I did see some local papers with great stories in grocery store, but they were positioned poorly. It took me literally years of going to that store before I noticed them. Secondly, I feel powerless as my elected officials are basically doing what I already want them to do. A little while ago, I got a newsletter from my state senator with a photo of her hanging out in a marijuana greenhouse wearing a bunny suit. I didn't know how to respond for a moment and started laughing. It's a pretty dumb thing, and I'm certainly not one of the overly oppressed people in this country, but it felt like a crack in the door where my representatives were pushing for more civic freedom and tamping down on calls for repression and state violence.

I think people get more interested if there are ways for them to have an effect on outcomes or if they can see people they know doing things. I'm sort of embarrassed, but I joined an organization pushing for instant runoff voting in MA thanks to a friend convincing me to try it out (and I want it to happen!), but I hadn't heard from them since that introduction. Without a friend there, it's difficult for me to work up the courage to go time and time again as I'm kind of introverted.

[noobermin]

So, in other words, it doesn't quite have more to do with what affects you as you claim in your earlier comment, but it has to do with what is accessible and available? Or some linear combination of the two?

[SapphireSun]

I think it has something to do primarily with things feeling like you can have an effect on them. Accessibility and policy both matter. This is something I'm still figuring out like everyone else, but I think pure disinterest and laziness is not good explanation in light of the energy that can be seen in other political campaigns throughout history, like the new deal.

[crdb]

> Yet voter turnout often is quite low. Why?

The idea is that only the knowledgeable vote. If you do not feel confident that you have a good grasp on political issues, your vote dilutes the signal sent by those less ignorant.

Encouraging ignorant voters to vote is often the visible part of the propaganda iceberg, the kind of politics we have increasingly witnessed in most of the Western world in the last two decades and that used to be the preserve of third world dictatorships.

You then see elections via mud-slinging and highly visible non-issues taking on most of the mindshare, and the media is captured by interest groups who need it to hijack a larger percentage of the vote. It is harmful to the fabric of society as all sides of the political debate become vote harvesting machines and the citizenry is radicalised and encouraged not to reason about issues [1] [2].

"A free society gives its citizens the right to vote but that right should come with the responsibility to not abuse that right by voting ignorantly." [3]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1qffh9/vot...

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/ - "the research [...] found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. [...] during this same period students’ self-reported narcissism has reached new heights"

[3] https://www.quora.com/Is-this-reason-for-not-voting-valid-or...

[SapphireSun]

The mobilization of the ignorant doesn't really matter. If they vote randomly and both sides are equally mobilized, the ignorant votes cancel out and the biased (hopefully knowledgable) participants actually determine policy. This becomes harmful when particular factions are mobilized in isolation.... thus US politics.

[ew6082]

The culture of outrage we see in TV news is carefully crafted to capture and cultivate these votes.

[ouid]

Central to the character of ignorance is the ignorance of it.

[ouid]

There is an opportunity cost associated with becoming informed about local government. If that is greater than the value of your vote, which it almost certainly is, then it's not rational to keep up with local news.

Government is also often as convoluted as possible, artificially increasing the cost. I just don't see how this argument makes sense.

[mistermann]

> I just don't see how this argument makes sense.

Perhaps in that the alternative is even worse, but then that's not a great argument either, in part because even if people are paying attention, I don't think most people have the intelligence to understand the complexity of the world, especially when the government is lying to them.

[Spooky23]

People are lazy.

I saw firsthand the affect that engagement has. A group of self interested people were going to build a library in a way that was bad for the community. We mobilized a small group of neighbors and were able to get a much better outcome.

[pdkl95]

This (mostly) isn't laziness. Voter turnout is falling because people are increasingly disaffected.

As people realize the majority does not rule[1], they are choosing to not waste their time. When someone has spent the last 30+ years watching politicians sell their future so so business and the rich can concentrate even more wealth, why should they bother participating in Democracy Theater?

Call these people lazy at your own risk. Far too many people are sitting right at the homeless/hungry threshold that can trigger rebellions/uprisings. We are dangerously close a critical mass of people deciding that "The Hamptons are not a defensible position."[3]

[1] Actual policy changes correlate well with the preferences of the economic elite[2]. The average citizen's preferences have almost no correlation to the same policy changes.

[2] http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fil...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK0jeJ8wxg

[solotronics]

This is dangerously close to what I perceive to be a french revolution type situation. Whatever problems we have now are much better than mob rule. Considering an automation and AI future likely many of the people here would be targeted by these disaffected masses. Can tech keep people connected and on the right path without it backfiring? We're going to find out!

[Spooky23]

I'm talking local politics not national. Your local alderman is voting for stupid parking rules or not paying for park maintenance because people are lazy and disinterested.

I don't say that with any malice. I'm among the ranks of the lazy too unless I'm pissed off about something! Try sitting through a city council or school board meeting -- it's awful.

[jancsika]

> As people realize the majority does not rule[1], they are choosing to not waste their time.

That points to a particularly brittle concept of democracy that needs to change.

Voters shouldn't have to gain a national consensus to feel like their party or idea actually matters.

[mistermann]

Does the concept have to change, or the democracy? From where I sit, no one's party or idea does matter, it is all theater.

> We are dangerously close a critical mass of people deciding that "The Hamptons are not a defensible position.

I think this may be right, but the question is, will the US military shoot its own citizens? If a few things go the wrong way in the next decade or two, I think we're going to find out. Rather than stocking up on more guns and ammo, I think enthusiasts should make sure they have helmets, body armor, and some sort of a means of communication.

[pdkl95]

> will the US military shoot its own citizens?

There is actually evidence[1] that they wouldn't. Soldiers tend to actually take things like their oath to defend the constitution seriously. They also tend to get actual training... unlike the police, who already shoot a disgusting number of people each year.

Stocking up on guns is a somewhat[2] outdated tactic, and everybody loses if this turns into a shooting war. We are far too interdependent; loss of even "insignificant" amounts of infrastructure can easily have a "trigger effect"[3] that cascades across the remaining infrastructure.

> party

That's a significant part of the problem. We need to learn to avoid tribalism/factionalism asap. Most people can discuss specific issues, but when a group identification becomes part of the foundation for your identity, disagreement becomes an insult. We're seeing a lot of this now, unfortunately.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10752635#10753894

[2] individual circumstances will vary

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKELMR6wACw

[mistermann]

> We need to learn to avoid tribalism/factionalism asap.

100% agree, but good luck when a multibillion dollar media machine pushes exactly that. Most of the "enlightened" people I know get their news from The Daily Show and comparable sources.

[jancsika]

> Does the concept have to change, or the democracy? From where I sit, no one's party or idea does matter, it is all theater.

I was responding to what I thought was a conception of democracy as "majority rules", which is a simplistic and dangerous notion of democracy.

What you are describing is something I do not understand. For example, how is Education Secretary Betsy Devos' advocacy for for-profit charter schools and vouchers not a direct representation of the ideas held by a large majority in her party?

[Spooky23]

Soldiers tend to follow orders. And the crazy gun people are also loading up on body armor.

That doesn't really matter, organized soldiers always slaughter an untrained rabble. The armed wacko thing is all about intimidating the police and their fellow citizen in a time of disorder.

[mistermann]

> The armed wacko thing is all about intimidating the police and their fellow citizen in a time of disorder.

How do you know? I'm not an armed wacko, but I am generally of the belief that the US government primarily serves corporate interests and the upper class and that democracy is mostly theater.

[projektir]

Calling people lazy is pretty lazy. :)

Generally, there's a reason people don't do things you expect them to do: they may be occupied with something else, don't see the point, etc.

[cortesoft]

Because as an individual, my vote doesn't matter. I know we like to tell ourselves that our vote counts, and voting is important, but mathematically, it just doesn't (again, as an individual)

Elections in cities are never decided by exactly one vote; if they were, they would certainly go to a court and the court would decide anyway.

That means that I know whether I choose to go to the polls or not, it won't affect the outcome. Now, of course, if a whole demographic realizes this and doesn't vote, it does swing the election. However, when I am sitting at home deciding whether to vote or not, I am not deciding for a whole demographic; I am just deciding whether I as an individual will vote.

I might get downvoted, because the idea that our individual vote doesn't really matter goes against everything we are taught in democracies. We REALLY want to believe our vote matters, and as a whole, it DOES. We want everyone to vote, it allows our democracy to function. So we tell ourselves little lies that our vote AS AN INDIVIDUAL matters.

Deep down, though, we know it doesn't, so many people decide to stay home.

[somethingsimple]

I'm sorry but I don't buy it. The problem is that a lot of people think like that, so they don't do anything. It's sort of self-fulfilling.

It's like people who say that their individual choices won't help fight climate change, so they won't change their habits. A lot of people do that, then nothing happens and the problem just gets worse.