The soul is threatened by modern life. And if an emotional problem presents itself, the real issue may not be some single trauma or troubled relationship. Maybe the issue is a life set up in such a way that soul is neglected habitually. Culture is a factor in rape, but the precise nature of the … Continue reading →

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March 31, 2023 9:13 pm

Aside from murder, the crimes of rape and sexual assault occur with less regularity than any other for of violent crime. In 2021, there were approximately 144,240 reported cases of rape in the United States of America. There are more than 106,010 reported cases of sexual assault. Only about half the victims of rape or … Continue reading →

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March 28, 2023 9:30 pm

In many ways similar to ecstatic destructiveness is the chronic dedication of a person’s whole life to hate and destructiveness. Not a momentary state as in ecstasis, it has nevertheless the function of taking hold of the whole person, of unifying him in the worship of one goal: to destroy. This state is a permanent idolatry of the god of destruction; his devotee has, as it were, given over his life to him. As rationalizations give way to perceptions of victimization, of woman’s feelings about herself, her spouse, and her situation change. These feelings are imbedded in a cultural, political, and interactional structure. Initially, abuse is contrary to a woman’s cultural expectations of behavior between intimates, and therefore engenders feelings of betrayal, however, is balanced by the husband’s efforts to explain his behavior, and by the woman’s reluctance to abandon faith. Additionally, the political dominance of men within and outside the family mediate women’s ability to question the validity of their husband’s actions. At the interpersonal level, psychological abuse accompanying violence often invokes feelings of guilt and shame in the battered victim. Men define violence as a response to their wive’s inadequacies or provocations, which leads battered women to feel that they have failed. Such character assaults are devastating, and create long-lasting feelings of inferiority. The emotional career of battered women consists of movement from guilt, shame, and depression to fear and despair, to anger, exhilaration, and confusion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Women who escape violent relationships must deal with strong, sometimes conflicting, feelings in attempting to build new lives for themselves free of violence. The kind of response women receive when they seek help largely determines the effects these feelings have on subsequent decisions. The process of victimization is not synonymous with experiencing violent attacks from a spouse. Rationalizing the violence inhibits a sense of outrage and efforts to escape abuse. Only after rationalizations are rejected, through the impact of one or more catalysts, does the victimization process begin. When previously rationalized violence is reinterpreted as dangerous, unjustified assault, battered women actively seek alternatives. The success of their efforts to seek help depends on available resources, external supports, reactions of husbands and children, and their own adaptation to the situation. Victimization includes not only cognitive interpretations, but feelings and physiological responses. Creating a satisfying, peaceful environment after being battered involves emotional confusion and ambiguity, as well as enormous practical and economic obstacles. It may take years of struggle and aborted attempts before a battered woman is able to establish a safe and stable lifestyle; for some, this goal is never achieved. The victimization process which we have described refers to the interpretations of a specific violent events within a particular relationship. It is important t emphasize that this victimization is limited to those violent events and does not encompass a more global perspective on the woman’s life. #RadolphHarris 2 of 20

Individuals working with battered women have pointed out the importance of helping battered women to distinguish between being a victim of an assault and assuming the identity of the victim. The first involves rejecting the responsibility for being beaten; the second involves giving up the responsibility for one’s life. The role of victim is contradictory to the assertive and creative action necessary to establish a life free of violence To accomplish the latter goal, women must quickly overcome the feelings of helplessness and self-pity that accompany victimization. They must confidently assume responsibility for making decisions and working towards the goals they set, and reject identification with the role of victim. It is well established that sexual assault has a significant effect on the daily thoughts and behaviours of American women. Let us begin with a sampling of the statistical evidence. Eight one percent of women reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. In 2020, 298,626 women were sexually assaulted or raped. It is estimated that some sort of sexually assaultive action is present in every ten violent crimes involving a female victim. As disconcerting as these numbers are, they do not tell the whole story. Women clearly live in fear of being raped and this preoccupation has a profound effect on their overall sense of personal security. Anxiety about being raped serves as the most direct and formidable predictor of a women’s overall fear of criminal victimization. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

The first- and secondhand accounts of real-life sexual assaults go a long way to shape this perceived vulnerability. These are the stories of women who suffer long-lasting physical and psychological traumas, and they produce a broad-reaching impact. For this reason, the personal and societal impact of rape may exceed even that of murder. We as a society have slowly come to respect this orientation and have thus assigned a special status to violence sex crimes. The criminal law has evolved from a limited treatment of sexual misconduct to a much more broad legal orientation. Early common law included only rape (forced heterosexual penetrations) and sodomy (consensual homosexual conduct) under the heading of sex crimes. This conservative treatment prevailed well into the 1960s. For example, the Model Penal Code (American Law Institute, 1962) restricted the definition of rape to those acts of violent sexual penetration between male offender and female victim who were not presently married. Contemporary criminal codes take on a more gender and relationship neutral tone and this include an expansive list of offense, ranging from forced sexual intercourse to forms of sexual touching that are devoid of violence. The present discussion turns to a contemporary source for an up-to-date legal definition of violent sex crimes. Most jurisdictions delineate three generic offenses categories: rape, statutory rape, and sexual assault. An individual is guilty of rape if he or she specifically intends to achieve nonconsensual sexual penetration against another by force of the threatened use of force. This definition subsumes all form of sexual penetration regardless of its duration or degree. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Statutory rape encompasses all forms of sexual penetration committed against an individual under the specific age of consent (id est minors). The specific age of consent varies across jurisdiction, but the vast majority of states invoke a standard between 16 and 18 years of age. This age-graded offense is considered a strict liability offense and thus does not require that the mens reus (guilt mind) element of “intentional force” be present. Sexual assault is a broader offense category that covers all forms of forceful or coercive unwanted sexual contact. Indeed, if the Earth had been created as a paradise where man would not be bound by the stubbornness of material reality, his reasons might have been a sufficient condition to create the proper environment for his unimpeded growth, with enough for all to ear, and, simultaneously, the possibility of freedom. However, to speak in terms of the biblical myth, mans was expelled from Paradise and cannot return. He was saddled with the curse of the conflict between himself and nature. The World was not made for man; he is thrown into it, and only by his own activity and reason can he create a World which is conductive to his full development, which is his human home. His rulers themselves were executors of historical necessity, even though they were often evil men who followed their whims and failed to execute their historical task. Irrationality and personal evil became decisive factors only in those periods when the external conditions were such that they would have permitted human progress and when this progress was impeded by the character deformation of the rulers—and the ruled. Nevertheless, there have always been visionaries who clearly recognized the goals for man’s social and individual evolution. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

The Lord  Jesus spoke in general terms about the dangers which would encompass His people at the time of end, and Paul wrote to the Thessalonians more fully about the apostasy and the wicked deceptions of the lawless one in the last days, but the passage in Timothy is the only one which explicitly shows the special cause of the peril of the Church in it closing days on Earth, and how the wicked spirit of Satan would break in upon her members and by deception beguile some away from their purity of faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit, in this brief message given to Paul, describes the character and work of the evil spirits so that we might recognize (1) their existence, and (2) their efforts directed towards believer to deceive them and draw them away from the path of simple faith in Christ—all that is included in “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). That the character of the spirits is described in 1 Timothy 1-3 and not the men they sometimes use in the work of deception, may be understood from the Greek original. (Pember says that verse 2 refers to the character of the deceiving spirits and should be read thus: “…direct teaching of unclean spirits, who, though bearing a brand on their own conscience—as a criminal is disfigured—would pretend to sanctity [id est, holiness] to gain credence for their lies…”) The peril of the Church at the close of the age is therefore from supernatural beings who are “hypocrites”—who pretend to be what they are not—who give “teaching” which appear to make for greater holiness by producing ascetic severity to the “flesh,” but who themselves are wicked and unclean and bring those they deceive into contact with the foulness of their own presence. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Through loneliness, many people find out that they do not need drugs anymore to keep themselves going. However, anyone who takes drugs may need guidance and really to find one’s self before it is too late; everybody is better than they think they are. They could do it if they really want to. All it takes is a little understanding in one’s self and willpower and also guidance to lead such a person to take a good look at one’s self, and ask one’s self does one really need these drugs to get where one wants to be? I do not think so. People face childbirth, child illness, at the moment of decision concerning one’s belief, or lack of it, in the divine. And then more frequently, with similar impact strangely enough, yet with less intensity, during the “little” moments of our existence—knowing, for a feeling moment, that differences exist without the need for making comparisons, knowing our own touchings of the other. All this we can only know alone. Some of us can express them, as you have, some of us keep them locked in our hearts. And this is even more painful, because it is only with the occasional comings out of our loneliness that we can be with it at all—even if this means just our knowing it ourselves. It is like the to-and-fro of living. There must be this movement, for one moment alone would be incompatible with life, physical or otherwise. It is necessary to repeat that first of all you must understandhow wrong negative emotions are, how unless they are, and then you must understand that they cannot exist without identification. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

It will take you a long time to realize this, but when you have done so, you must try to divide your negative emotions into three categories. First, the more or less ordinary everyday negative emotions which happen often, and are always connected with identification. Certainly, you must observe them and you must already have a certain control over the expression of them. Then you must start dealing with them by trying not to identify, by avoiding identification as often as you can, not only in relation to these emotions but in relation to everything. If you create in yourself the capacity of not identifying, that will affect these emotions and you will notice how they begin to disappear. The second category do not appear every day. They are the more difficult, more complicated emotions depending on some mental process—suspicion, hurt feelings and many things like that. They are more difficult to conquer. You can deal with them by creating a right mental attitude, by thinking—not at the time when you are in the negative emotion, but in between, when you are quite. Try to find the right attitude, the right point of view, and make it permanent. If you create right thinking, that will take all power from these negative emotions. Then there is a third category, much more intense, much more difficult, and very rare. Against them you can do nothing. These two methods—struggle with identification and creating right attitudes—do not help. When such emotions come you can do only one thing: you must try to remember yourself; to remember yourself with the help of the emotions. That will change them after some time. However, for this you have to be prepared; it is quite a special thing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

There is a class of offenses sometimes called acts of malice or spite. These often imply arrogance, disdain, and deep hostility, as when a middle-class person yawns directly before others in a slow and elaborate manner. Maliciously offensive acts give the following impression: they are easily controllable; their significance can be and is appreciated by the offender; the offender would not modify one’s conduct at the time even if given a second chance, and seems to have no reason for the act other than what one can convey by it to those one offends. Quite similar to malicious offenses are “contingent” ones, which have the same qualities as spiteful acts except that the offender has reasons for his act outside of the occasion and its participants. Here we have the individual who inconsiderably laughs out loud over something one is reading, not out of malice, but because one is genuinely amused. The more “legitimate” the offender’s reasons, of course, the more these contingent offenses are viewed as fully excusable, and the less intentionality is imputed to them. Malicious acts represent some kind of extreme of intentionality. At the other extreme, that of complete unintentionality, is the delict of the individua perceived as having an organic brain injury: one’s offense is not controllable by one, sometimes one cannot and hence does not appreciate its significance, and one may not be amenable to correction. Somewhere in between these extremes is the individual who offends because one is accustomed to a different idiom and structure of involvement from the ones sanctioned by those in the situation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

 One’s offensive act is one that one controls; one might be willing to alter one’s conduct if one appreciated its current significance, and of such appreciation one is fully capable. There is also the case of the withdrawn individual who could, if one wished, withdraw from one’s withdrawal, and who, in that sense, controls one’s act. One may not appreciate the significance of one’s act for others, since one has no interest in discovering it, although presumably one could discover it if one wanted to; and one is not currently amenable to changing one’s conduct. Then, of course, there is the individual who is too preoccupied, too nervous, or too self-conscious to fit in, the basis of one’s uneasiness being one that others consider temporary, natural, and understandable. Such an individual can appreciated the difficulty one is causing and may well do so; indeed, one mat actively desire to correct one’s conduct but be unable to do so at the moment. The creature release known as a “tic” is an example, this misconduct sometimes evoking pity and contempt for the tiqueur’s incapacity to sustain the image that one’s other means self-control claim for one. A similar instance is the individual whose repertoire of clothing  provides dress that is either too formal or too informal for the occasion one must attend, thus forcing one to be out of place. Finally, there is the individual who accidentally and uncharacteristically intrudes upon a situation in which one cannot fit, thereby committing an offense one wishes one had not committed and would have been fully capable of avoiding had one know in advance what was to happen. Note that in all these examples with witness would be just in conceiving of the offender as someone who was alienated from the gathering and its rulings, although there is some realization that in no two cases are the bases for alienation the same. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Because the significance of an offense is dependent on whether or not the act was intentional, and because so many different kinds of intentionality and unintentionally exist, we can see that an offense as such tells us very little about the offender. All those who exhibit alienation from a gathering may share nothing but their alienation. With this understanding, then, one can proceed carefully to try to list some of the things that a situational impropriety can tell us about the person who commits it, aside from the fact that one is in some sense alienated from the gathering. What this amounts to is an isolation of the types of social unit, other than social occasions, that can be the object of alienation. We study ourselves not from the point of view od what we are but of what we may become, so that when we have studied certain things sufficiently, we work to change them. Sufficiently serious study, in itself, produces some change, but all the results of this change may be spoiled by certain negative emotions. If you start this work to change yourself without conquering negative emotions, one side of you will work and another side will spoil your work, so that after a time, you may find yourself in a worse state than before. It has already happened several times to people who wished to keep their negative emotions that continuation of this work become impossible for them. There were moments when they realized the danger of their negative emotions but they failed to make sufficient efforts during those moments and the negative emotions became stronger. It has been explained already that a right attitude towards negative emotions destroys most of them. If we are to avoid spoiling the result of our work, it is important that we learn to cultivate this attitude from the beginning. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

When the World is in the process of assimilating molecular manufacturing, years from now, it would be best if people were ready and if the World situation favored peaceful, cooperative applications. Balanced international progress would be better than dominance by any nation. Cooperative development would be better than technological rivalry. A focus on civilian goals would be better than a focus on military goals. A well-informed public supporting sound policies would be better than a startled public supporting half-baked schemes. All these goals will be best served if politicians are not forced to act like idiots—that is, if the state of public opinion permits them to make the right decisions, and perhaps even make bad decision politically costly. The basic objective is straightforward: a World in which as many people as possible have a basic understanding of what is happening, a picture of how it can lead to a better future, and a broad understanding of what to do (and not to do) to reach that future. The outlines of a beneficial scenario would then look something like this: Environmental groups and agencies have thought through the issues raised by nanotechnology, and know what applications they want to promote and what abuses they want to prevent. Likewise, medical associations, associations of retired persons, and the Social Security Administration have thought through the issues raised by dramatically improved medical care and economic productivity, and are ready with policy recommendations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Business groups have done likewise with economic issues, and business watchdog groups are ready to expose policies that merely serve special interests. Labor groups have considered the impact of a deep, global economic restructuring on the jobs and income of their members, and have proposals for cushioning the shock without holding down productivity. Religious leaders have considered the moral dimensions of many applications, and are ready with advice. Military analysts and arms-control analysts have done the painstaking work of thinking through strategic scenarios, and have developed an agreed-on core of policies for maintaining stability. International committees and agencies have made the new technologies a focus of discussion and planning, and backed by a healthy climate of opinion, they make international cooperation work. Overall, supported by a framework of sensible public opinion and sensible politics, the complex process of adapting to change is working rather well. In field after field, group after group has put in the hard work needed to come up with polices that would advance their real interests without wrecking someone else’s interest. This is possibly more often that most would have expected, because molecular manufacturing makes possible so many beneficial-sum choices. There are still big battles, but there is also a large core of agreement. In this time of transition, some people are actively involved in developing and guiding the technologies, but most people act as citizens, consumers, workers, friends, and family members. They shape what happens in the broader World by their votes, contributions, and purchases. They shape what happens in their families and communities by what they say, what they do, and specially be the educational investments they have made or supported. By their choices, they determine what nanotechnology means for daily life. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The basic direction of change in the media since at least 1970, when the de-massification of the airwaves was foreshadowed, has been toward the breakup of mass audiences into segments and subgroup, each receiving a different configuration of programs and messages. Along with this has come a vast expansion of the sheer amount of imagery transmitted by television in the form of both new and entertainment. There is a reason for this image-explosion. Humans, of course, have always exchanged symbolic images of reality. That is what language is all about. It is what knowledge is based on. However, different societies require either more or less symbolic exchange. The transition to a knowledge-based economy sharply increases the demand for communication and swamps the old image-delivery systems. Advanced economies require a labor force with high levels of symbolic sophistication. This work forces needs instant and largely free access to all sorts of information hitherto considered irrelevant to its productivity. It needs workers who can quickly adapt to, and even anticipate, repeated changes in work methods, organizations, and daily life. The very best workers are Worldly, alert to new ideas and fashions, customer preferences, economic and political changes, aware of competitive pressures, cultural shifts, and many other things previously regarded as pertinent only to managerial elites. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

This wide-scan knowledge does not come out of classrooms or from technical manuals alone, but from exposure to a constant barrage of news delivered by TV, newspapers, magazine, and radio. It also comes indirectly from “entertainment”—much of which unintentionally delivers information about new life styles, interpersonal relationships, social problems, and even foreign customs and markets. Some shows, like All American, which stars the actress Monet Mazur, deliberately build drama or comedy around current news and current events. However, even when this is not the case, television shows, sometimes despite themselves, convey images of reality. It is true that the intentional content of a television show—the plot and the behavior of the principal characters—often paints a false picture of social reality. However, there is in all television programs and commercials, as well as in movies, an additional layer of what we might call “inadvertent content.” This consists of background detail—landscape, cars, street scenes, architecture, telephones, answering machines, as well as barely noticed behavior, like the banter between a waitress and a customer as the hero seats himself at a lunch counter. In contrast with the intended content, the inadvertent detail frequently provides a quite accurate picture of quotidian reality. Moreover, even the tritest “police shows” picture current fads and fashions, and express popular attitudes toward pleasures of the flesh, religion, money, and politics. None of this is ignored or forgotten by the viewer. It is filed away in the mind, forming part of a person’s general bank of knowledge about the World. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Thus, good and bad alike, it influences the bag of assumptions brought to the Workplace. (Ironically, much of the worker’s image of the World, which increasingly affects economic productivity, is thus absorbed during “leisure” hours.) For this reason, “mere entertainment” is no longer “mere.” The new economy is tightly tied not only to formal knowledge and technical skills but even to popular culture and the expanding market for imagery. This seething market is not only growing, but is simultaneously being restructured. Its very categories are re-forming. For better or worse, the old lines between show business and politics, leisure and work, news and entertainment, are all crashing, and we are exposed to a hurricane of often fragmented, kaleidoscopic images. The foundation of a democratic government is that it respects the will of the people as expressed through the ballot box. Unfortunately, these lofty ideals are not so easily implemented. Strategic issues arise in voting, jut as in any other multiperson game. Voters will often has an incentive to misrepresent their true preferences. Neither majority rule nor any other voting scheme can solve this problem, for there does not exist any one perfect system for aggregating up individuals’ preferences into a will of the people. What this means is that the structure of the game matters. For example, when Congress has to choose between many competing bills, the order in which votes are taken can have a great influence on the final outcome. We begin by looking at the voting process more carefully, figuring out just when an individual’s vote matters. Recent presidential elections have emphasized the importance of the selection of the vice resident. This person will be just a heartbeat away from the residency. However, most candidates for president spurn the suggestion of the second sport on the ticket, and most vice presidents do not seem to enjoy the experience. The prospect of twiddling one’s thumbs for four or eight years, waiting for the boss to die, is hardly a fit occupation for anyone. (No doubt they console themselves by thinking of the even worse plight of Britain’s Prince Charles.) John Nance Garner, FDR’s first VP, expressed this succinctly: “The vice-presidency ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spirt.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Only one clause of the Constitution of the United States of America specifies any actual activity for the vice president. Article I, Section 3.4 says: “The Vice-President of the United States of America shall be President of the Senate, but shall have n vote, unless they be equally divided.” The presiding is “ceremony, idle ceremony,” and most of the time the vice present delegates this responsibility to a rotation of junior senators chosen by the senate majority leader. Is the tiebreaking vote important, or is it just more ceremony? At first glance, both logic and evidence seem to support the ceremonial viewpoint. The vice president’s vote just does not seem important. The change of a tie vote is small. The most favourable circumstances for  tie arise when each senator is just as likely to vote one way as the other, and an even number of senators vote. The result will be roughly one tie vote in twelve. Of course senators’ votes are far from random. Only when the two parties are roughly equal or when there is an especially divisive issues that splits some of the party lines does the vice president’s vote get counted. The most active tiebreaking vice president was our first, John Adams. He cast 29 tiebreaking votes during his eight years. This is not surprising, since his Senate consisted of only 20 members, and a tie was almost three times more likely than it is today, with our 100-member Senate. In fact, over the first 200 years, there have been only 222 occasions for the vice president to vote. More recently, Richard Nixon, under Eisenhower, was the most active vice president, casting a total of 8 tiebreaking votes—out of 1,229 decisions reached by the Senate during the period 1953-61. This fall in tiebreaking votes also reflects the fact that the two-party system is much more entrenched, so that fewer issues are likely to cross party lines. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

However, this ceremonial picture of the vice president’s vote is misleading. More important than how often the vice president votes is the impact of the vote. Measured correctly, the vice president’s vote I roughly equal in important to tht of any senator. One reason that the vice president’s vote matters is that it tends to decide only the most important and divisive issues. For example, George Bush, as vice president, voted to save both the administration’s chemical weapons program (twice) and the MX missile program. This suggest that we should look more closely at just when it is that a vote matters. A vote can have one of two effects. It can be instrumental in determining the outcome, or it can be a “voice” that influences the margin of victory or defeat without altering the outcome. In a decision-making body like the Senate, the first aspect is the more important one. To demonstrate the importance of the vice president’s current position, imagine tht the vice president is given a regular vote as President of the Senate. When does this have any additional impact? For important issues, all 100 senators will try to be present. (Or senators on opposite sides of the issue will try to pair off their absences.) If the 100 senators are split 51-49 or more lopsidedly, then the outcome is the same no matter which way the vice president votes. The only time the outcome hinges on the vice president’s 101^st vote is when the Senate is split 50-50, just the same as now, when the vice president has only a tiebreaking vote. We recognize that our account of a vice president’s voting power leaves out aspects of reality. Some of these imply less power for the vice president; others, more. Much of a senator’s power comes from the work in committees, in which the vice president does not partake. On the other hand, the vice president has the veto power of the president on his side. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Our illustration of the vice president’s vote leads to an important moral of wider applicability: anyone’s vote affects the outcome only when it creates or breaks a tie. Think how important your own vote is in different contexts. How influential can you be in a presidential election? Your town’s mayoral election? You club’s secretarial selection? As with the Senate, the change that the rest f the electorate reaches a tie, leaving you decisive, is at a maximum when each voter is just as likely to vote on one way as the other. Mathematical calculation shows that the chances of a tie are proportional to the square root of the number of voters: increasing the electorate a millionfold reduces the chances of a tie by a factor of a thousand. In the Senate, with 100 voters, we saw that the chance of  tie in the most favorable circumstances was 1 in 12. In a presidential election with 100 million voters, it drops to 1 in 12,000. Because of the electoral college system, there is a greater chance that you will be decisive in affecting the electoral votes in your state. However, the fact that the population is rarely split so evenly works the other way, and even a slight advantage for one candidate or the other reduces the chances of a tie drastically. So you might take 1 in 12,000 as an optimistic estimate of your influence in presidential election. Considering these odds, is it worth your while to vote? To explore this question, let us take a concrete example. Suppose one candidate, Mr. Soft Heart, has promised to raise the minimum wage from $13.50 to $15.00, and the other, Mr. Hard Head, is opposed to any increase. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

If you hold a minimum-wage job when the wage rises, Mr. Heart will mean $3,000 more a year in your pocket than Mr. Head. Over the four years, this will amount to $12,000. However, the chance that your vote will bring this is only 1 in 12,000. The expected advantage to you from your vote is only a dollar. It is not worth your while to vote if to do so is your must sacrifice even 20 minutes of paid working time. Surveys find that most people value their leisure time at about half their wage rate. Therefore voting is not worth 40 minutes of your leisure time. Even if you are unlikely to change the outcome, you can still add your voice to the crowd. However, will it be heard? While it is clear that 100 million to 0 is a landslide, there is no apparent line where the change in one vote causes a landslide to become a simple victory. And yet if enough people change their vote, the landslide in the other direction. This absence of a “bright line” dates back to the Greek philosopher Zeno, who tells the paradox in terms of creating a mound from grains can turn a non-mound into a mound. And yet, enough grains will turn a molehill into a mountain. A vote is much like a grain of sand. It is hard to imagine how one additional vote will change anyone’s perception of the outcomes. (Even though any single individual’s opinion of the outcome is ever so slightly changes, a small impact on a large number of people may still add up to something.” What this tells us is that calculations of personal gains and costs cannot be decisive in motivating people to vote. For the proper functioning of democracy, however, it is very important that people do so. That is why we need social conditioning. From civics classes in elementary school to election-eve appeals to one’s patriotic duty, societies work to get out the vote—even if individual voters do not have any major impact on the election. The theory of statistics tells us that if the vote from a random sample of 10,000 give one candidate a 5 percent edge (5,250 or more voters), then there is a less than one-in-a-million chance the outcomes will be reversed, even if 100 million people vote. If the vote is closer we have to continue expanding the survey size. While this process could greatly reduce the cost of voting, the potential for abuse is also great. The selection of a random voter is subject to a nightmare of problems. Where patriotic duty is found insufficient, people are sometimes legally required to vote, as is the case in several countries, including Australia. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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March 27, 2023 9:16 am