Hi! I’m a mathematician. I specialize in creating logical arguments as well as finding and explaining the flaws thereof. The Black and White fallacy does not apply here. First, we need to keep in mind the principle of charity, whereby we try to figure out what was meant by our interlocutors when we argue with them, as far as we can by what they said. In this case, the argument here is not literally that all votes that are for someone other than Biden are instead counted for Trump (this premise would have a great many flaws far beyond the fallacy you gave) rather, it is a statement of the failures of certain voting strategies which are well-established mathematical facts. Specifically, if you prefer candidate A over candidate B, and all other candidates have a combined extremely small chance of winning, choosing not to vote for candidate A is effectively making candidate B’s victory more likely.
If you vote for anyone else other than Biden, it increases Trumps chance to win (due to a lower amount of total votes for Biden) since we are a 2 party system even though we pretend we aren’t. Is this not widely known? We know it’s not a literal vote for Trump, but it might as well be a theoretical one.
since we are a 2 party system even though we pretend we aren’t
De-jure we are a multi-party system. De-facto we are a 2 party system.
If you vote for anyone else other than Biden, it increases Trumps chance to win […] We know it’s not a literal vote for Trump, but it might as well be a theoretical one.
Without splitting any further hairs, yes; that’s essentially correct.
I agree that the person who you originally replied to is wrong (see my comment below) but you’re putting forth a bad argument. It is true that reasoning about and performing an action are different. However, this isn’t relevant to whether bringing up the fallacy in this context is valid. To the point: we are currently talking about and (ostensibly) reasoning whether a specific course of action is good or not. I think that it’s good to vote for Biden. I am overwhelmingly likely to vote for Biden. However, if I voted for Biden because I thought Trump was an actual robot, and therefore unnatural, and therefore bad I’d be committing the appeal to nature fallacy. Now, it just so happens that my counter-factual self would have stumbled upon the correct conclusion, but the fallacy would have been committed nonetheless.
My point was more about the fact that voting in our FPTP system, mathematically, is an act not subject to the same “black & white” fallacy label as a discussion about who is the best candidate, because it actually is a choice between the top two candidates, which is why splitting the vote has been an enduring strategy.
But your illustration about the Fallacy fallacy—that is to say that even if something were a fallacy, that doesn’t in itself mean it is untrue—is also a fair point.
Ideological purity is great from the privileged position you must be in. The real results of Stein voters in the last election is millions losing rights to bodily autonomy, children being forcibly separated from families, a Christian nationalism Supreme Court, and a president playing favorites during the worst pandemic in living memory. There may be some compromises needed to fix a broken system but third parties are not likely to do anything except split the vote and cause harm
Stein and Johnson had between 2 (FL) and 20 (MI) times the number of votes making up the margin between Trump and Clinton in FL, WI, MI, and PA. That would have made a difference.
Either way, no third party is viable under the current system and pretending otherwise is the luxury of people who won’t be targeted if the Trump administration is allowed back into power.
Cis white males don’t benefit from a Trump presidency either, they just don’t get fucked quite as much as everyone else. They’re still going to get poorer and suffer from reduced workers rights.
The only people who are truly safe are the ultra wealthy
If enough people vote third party, it’s supposed to pull the big two towards them to recapture those voters. If the Dems aren’t courting these voters, it’s their fault and an indication that they can’t be trusted to represent us. Instead, they ignored us completely and will continue down the same bullshit paths that brought us here. If we don’t vote third party, nothing will change because the Dems view us as suckers who will fall in line. That’s why they shamelessly did Bernie dirty. Biden and the Dems have been flopping around their hardon for Israel while it’s obviously splitting their base. It’s almost like they want to lose.
Having said all that, I may vote for Biden this time anyway because I told myself long ago that I would vote for the first prez who rescheduled or legalized cannabis.
i’m pretty sure it was the other way around. jill stein lost by fewer votes than hilary stole from the green party. the democrats spoiled the green revolution.
trump was carrying on the obama-era policy of child-separation, as biden continued after trump. biden also voted for most of the members of the court who overturned roe v wade. i don’t think biden is the guy for people who don’t like what trump did.
There were absolutely changes in the separation policies across administrations. While it’s not perfect, we are compliant with international law and it was Trump driving from the sidelines that killed an immigration reform bill earlier this year.
He could have only possibly have voted for 2 of the five in the majority in Dobbs. Any Democratic nominee to the court would be better for human rights and policy reform. Congressional majority beyond Sinema and Manchin could bring real court reform.
The point still is that the philosophical argument for third party ignores the reality of the current system and the real cost for not presenting a unified front with the current voting system. Republicans are working to lock in any systematic advantage they can so the odds are already skewed. Democratic governments, currently at the state and local levels, are the only ones addressing gerrymandering (CA) and ranked choice (MA) which could make third parties viable but right now they are a vanity vote that distracts from the real harm being caused by one party.
I haven’t voted for a Democrat for president since 2008, and no amount of mischaracterization of the material facts is going to change that. if Democrats want my vote, it’s not as though they don’t know what Jill Stein or Cornel West or Claudia de la Cruz are doing to earn it.
Sometimes it feels better to rage than to compromise but I’m guessing there is nothing I can say to change your mind. For those on the fence who may read this though: a third party will not win and not voting Democrat will cause real harm to any community that does not strictly adhere to Christian nationalism ideals.
Buddy, if you think Democrats are as Fascist as Republicans, you literally have no fucking clue what Fascism is.
If you aren’t worried about who will win in November, because you think they’re equally bad, you obviously are privileged enough not to be affected by the consequences of a Trump win.
Who is this pointing it out to? The major players are already very aware that it’s fucked but only one party is doing anything about that (ranked choice). If your voting block is so fickle then they will turn their focus to shoring up their core bases, ignoring yours. The other side sure isn’t interested in any improvement.
After 2016 there was no one saying “wow we should have talked more about basic income”, the existential threat to democracy was kind of the bigger deal there. Even after 2020, the slim majority in congress limited the progressive power and handed the decisions to the center right dems (Sinema and Manchin).
But sure, splitting the vote to dilute the pool further or hand a win over to the other side will sure move the needle.
You seem more reasonable then a lot of the other mouth breathers on lemmy. What policy decisions do you look for in a presidential candidate besides being anti genocide? I have yet to hear anyone from that camp speak on any other positions they care about, and it’s rather worrying.
Universal healthcare, college for all, raise the federal wage to a livable wage, guaranteed housing, massive increase in public transportation, 4-day work week with same pay, tax the rich at a 50% or greater tax rate, ban corporations from owning housing. These are just a start.
You can dislike Biden, but a vote for anyone else is a vote for Trump.
This is true because we are not a democracy. We only pretend to be one.
You’re a flawed democracy with an outdated election system. The FPTP one seat districts forces two party politics.
While that may be true, nothing will fix that in this upcoming election. Vote Biden, then set to work fixing our democracy.
Popping up every four years and complain about the two party system, only to disappear afterwards is never going to solve the problem.
I hate this line of thinking so much. Flawed democracies are still democracies. Democracy isn’t a word that means “fair elections”.
We’re a republic.
Which is a type of democracy.
It’s more like half a vote for trump, so they’re only half supporting a fascist dictator which is slightly better
You’re a broken record
This is fucking insidious.
I vote for anyone else, is in fact, a vote of that person.
Not in a two party system.
*not under first past the post / winner takes all voting, which leads to a two party system.
It’s a black and white fallacy. When the only thing that is being expressed is criticism or discontent.
Hi! I’m a mathematician. I specialize in creating logical arguments as well as finding and explaining the flaws thereof. The Black and White fallacy does not apply here. First, we need to keep in mind the principle of charity, whereby we try to figure out what was meant by our interlocutors when we argue with them, as far as we can by what they said. In this case, the argument here is not literally that all votes that are for someone other than Biden are instead counted for Trump (this premise would have a great many flaws far beyond the fallacy you gave) rather, it is a statement of the failures of certain voting strategies which are well-established mathematical facts. Specifically, if you prefer candidate A over candidate B, and all other candidates have a combined extremely small chance of winning, choosing not to vote for candidate A is effectively making candidate B’s victory more likely.
Hope that clears things up.
If you vote for anyone else other than Biden, it increases Trumps chance to win (due to a lower amount of total votes for Biden) since we are a 2 party system even though we pretend we aren’t. Is this not widely known? We know it’s not a literal vote for Trump, but it might as well be a theoretical one.
It is, in fact, widely known.
De-jure we are a multi-party system. De-facto we are a 2 party system.
Without splitting any further hairs, yes; that’s essentially correct.
It’s really an orange or grey thing.
The only “black and white” part of this is that Biden or trump WILL win the election.
It’s not black and white, but red and blue.
Fallacies apply to debate, not to actions like voting.
Fallacies can apply in any situation where reasoning and logic is used. In my experience, most successful actions are backed up by reasoning.
“Reasoning about” isn’t the same as “performing” an action.
I agree that the person who you originally replied to is wrong (see my comment below) but you’re putting forth a bad argument. It is true that reasoning about and performing an action are different. However, this isn’t relevant to whether bringing up the fallacy in this context is valid. To the point: we are currently talking about and (ostensibly) reasoning whether a specific course of action is good or not. I think that it’s good to vote for Biden. I am overwhelmingly likely to vote for Biden. However, if I voted for Biden because I thought Trump was an actual robot, and therefore unnatural, and therefore bad I’d be committing the appeal to nature fallacy. Now, it just so happens that my counter-factual self would have stumbled upon the correct conclusion, but the fallacy would have been committed nonetheless.
My point was more about the fact that voting in our FPTP system, mathematically, is an act not subject to the same “black & white” fallacy label as a discussion about who is the best candidate, because it actually is a choice between the top two candidates, which is why splitting the vote has been an enduring strategy.
But your illustration about the Fallacy fallacy—that is to say that even if something were a fallacy, that doesn’t in itself mean it is untrue—is also a fair point.
That’s not how voting works but whatever you need to say to feel better.
Ideological purity is great from the privileged position you must be in. The real results of Stein voters in the last election is millions losing rights to bodily autonomy, children being forcibly separated from families, a Christian nationalism Supreme Court, and a president playing favorites during the worst pandemic in living memory. There may be some compromises needed to fix a broken system but third parties are not likely to do anything except split the vote and cause harm
Give me a fucking break if you think Hillary Clinton losing is because of Jill Stein
Stein and Johnson had between 2 (FL) and 20 (MI) times the number of votes making up the margin between Trump and Clinton in FL, WI, MI, and PA. That would have made a difference.
Either way, no third party is viable under the current system and pretending otherwise is the luxury of people who won’t be targeted if the Trump administration is allowed back into power.
It is the luxury of the profoundly dense as well. Plenty of non-cis white males vote third party.
Cis white males don’t benefit from a Trump presidency either, they just don’t get fucked quite as much as everyone else. They’re still going to get poorer and suffer from reduced workers rights.
The only people who are truly safe are the ultra wealthy
If enough people vote third party, it’s supposed to pull the big two towards them to recapture those voters. If the Dems aren’t courting these voters, it’s their fault and an indication that they can’t be trusted to represent us. Instead, they ignored us completely and will continue down the same bullshit paths that brought us here. If we don’t vote third party, nothing will change because the Dems view us as suckers who will fall in line. That’s why they shamelessly did Bernie dirty. Biden and the Dems have been flopping around their hardon for Israel while it’s obviously splitting their base. It’s almost like they want to lose.
Having said all that, I may vote for Biden this time anyway because I told myself long ago that I would vote for the first prez who rescheduled or legalized cannabis.
i’m pretty sure it was the other way around. jill stein lost by fewer votes than hilary stole from the green party. the democrats spoiled the green revolution.
trump was carrying on the obama-era policy of child-separation, as biden continued after trump. biden also voted for most of the members of the court who overturned roe v wade. i don’t think biden is the guy for people who don’t like what trump did.
There were absolutely changes in the separation policies across administrations. While it’s not perfect, we are compliant with international law and it was Trump driving from the sidelines that killed an immigration reform bill earlier this year.
He could have only possibly have voted for 2 of the five in the majority in Dobbs. Any Democratic nominee to the court would be better for human rights and policy reform. Congressional majority beyond Sinema and Manchin could bring real court reform.
The point still is that the philosophical argument for third party ignores the reality of the current system and the real cost for not presenting a unified front with the current voting system. Republicans are working to lock in any systematic advantage they can so the odds are already skewed. Democratic governments, currently at the state and local levels, are the only ones addressing gerrymandering (CA) and ranked choice (MA) which could make third parties viable but right now they are a vanity vote that distracts from the real harm being caused by one party.
I haven’t voted for a Democrat for president since 2008, and no amount of mischaracterization of the material facts is going to change that. if Democrats want my vote, it’s not as though they don’t know what Jill Stein or Cornel West or Claudia de la Cruz are doing to earn it.
Sometimes it feels better to rage than to compromise but I’m guessing there is nothing I can say to change your mind. For those on the fence who may read this though: a third party will not win and not voting Democrat will cause real harm to any community that does not strictly adhere to Christian nationalism ideals.
Removed by mod
In what way? I’m not sure how someone could make the “both sides” argument this broadly with the current state of both parties but I’ll bite.
So you aren’t familiar with first past the post voting? Here’s a hint, it’s “how voting works” in this country.
The more people seen voting for alternative parties the more apparent the electoral systems failure will become.
But sure sit by and watch the groundhog day that is the american electoral system.
I can’t wait for those alternative parties to get <10% of the vote while fascists destroy the country and never give a shit who you voted for.
since democrats and republicans are both fascists, the only way to vote against fascism is to vote for a party other than them.
It seems like you don’t actually know what fascism is.
I certainly do.
Buddy, if you think Democrats are as Fascist as Republicans, you literally have no fucking clue what Fascism is.
If you aren’t worried about who will win in November, because you think they’re equally bad, you obviously are privileged enough not to be affected by the consequences of a Trump win.
Who is this pointing it out to? The major players are already very aware that it’s fucked but only one party is doing anything about that (ranked choice). If your voting block is so fickle then they will turn their focus to shoring up their core bases, ignoring yours. The other side sure isn’t interested in any improvement.
After 2016 there was no one saying “wow we should have talked more about basic income”, the existential threat to democracy was kind of the bigger deal there. Even after 2020, the slim majority in congress limited the progressive power and handed the decisions to the center right dems (Sinema and Manchin).
But sure, splitting the vote to dilute the pool further or hand a win over to the other side will sure move the needle.
So you voting for fascist cheeto or brain worms?
I’m voting third party as I have in the general for years. I’ve said this before.
Brain worms it is.
I’m sure your dislike of Biden will make up for Trump declaring himself dictator for life.
Having concerns is fine, but in a 2 party system, not voting for the lesser evil is same as voting for the greater evil.
Trump is even worse for the Palestinians and Ukraine so this is a red herring.
Biden better start working harder to earn more votes then.
By working harder you mean tell more people they have brain worms, right?
no, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
When people say that, they don’t mean it literally, but functionally it’s correct:
A vote for 3rd party is one less potential vote for D, which is functionally equivalent to one more vote for R.
You seem more reasonable then a lot of the other mouth breathers on lemmy. What policy decisions do you look for in a presidential candidate besides being anti genocide? I have yet to hear anyone from that camp speak on any other positions they care about, and it’s rather worrying.
Universal healthcare, college for all, raise the federal wage to a livable wage, guaranteed housing, massive increase in public transportation, 4-day work week with same pay, tax the rich at a 50% or greater tax rate, ban corporations from owning housing. These are just a start.
What candidate supports all those that has a viable chance of winning?
Winning? No this is all acedemic. So we can have a moral high ground while the world burns. Winning? Lol
viability is a myth. john kerry was supposedly viable.
Dr West is the closest but he won’t win. The United States is a very conservative country. Even Pelosi said we’re capitalists. I hate it here.
https://youtu.be/MR65ZhO6LGA
It’s how it works in a two party system.
If you think a 3rd party candidate has any hope of winning this year, you’re delusional.
I’m not sure you understand first past the post, and how it disenfranchises you