[badatshipping]

You are right that large-scale things happen as the cumulative effect of many small things, but the difference is that in your example the smoker is responsible for all of those cigarettes, whereas I only get one single vote.

Incidentally, I do vote; I just don't do so thinking my individual vote matters. It matters that lots of people all vote, but this reinforces my original point that some kind of structural incentive or policy is needed to get lots of people to all do something.