alt Hacker News> It has more to do with the psychology of the person who talks about others that "don't vote in their self-interest". That person, invariably, thinks of others as robots that should do what he wants them to do […]
There are examples where "what he wants them to do" can actually be for them to vote to help themselves.
For example, people voting to give themselves, their family, and their friends better access to health care; instead many people prevent themselves from getting better health care because if they did that would mean other people (and specifically the 'wrong kind' of other people) would also get it:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
So people are screwing themselves/family to screw other folks over. They are actively harming themselves out of spite.
Replies
>There are examples where "what he wants them to do" can actually be for them to vote to help themselves.
This simply isn't the case. It presupposes that you should know what the other person wants. You don't... and even when you know it (because they've told you), you ignore it because it's not what you would prefer that they want. It's a really simply concept, but you're probably incapable of conceiving of it. Other people in the world around you are props that the universe invented so the world could be as you envision it.
>For example, people voting to give themselves, their family, and their friends better access to health care;
I don't want "better access to health care". I know what you mean by that phrase, but I do not want this. My brain doesn't work like yours, I do not have the same preferences or desires that you do. I am not "voting against my interests", it's just that my interests are alien to you. I understand your preferences quite well (to a degree, at least) and I acknowledge that those are different than my own. You, though, can't acknowledge the same of me... the best you can come up with is that I'm somehow mistaken, confused, or brainwashed. Even this comment is likely incomprehensible.
>So people are screwing themselves/family to screw other folks over.
My family wouldn't be better off from this... we're not cattle for the farmer to provide health care for. It is not harming me or mine, we're up to the challenge.
The core problem is a difference in values. You value your own health over causing people you dislike to suffer. They value causing people they dislike to suffer over their own health. Which choice is "better" is subjective. I'd say that deliberately increasing the suffering of others is bad, especially if it increases the total amount of suffering in the world, but that too is a subjective value judgement.