Rationally Speaking #171 - Scott Aaronson on "The ethics and strategy of vote trading"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2016

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It can be pretty frustrating to live in a "safe" state during national elections, where the chance your vote will affect the overall results is practically zero. This episode, with professor Scott Aaronson, explores an unorthodox solution to the problem: "swapping" your vote with someone in a swing state who was going to vote for a third party candidate. Scott and Julia explore the game theory of vote swapping, and whether there are any ethical problems with it.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just a quick announcement that New York City will be hosting its annual Skeptocamp event this December 3rd, 2016.
0:07.5	It's an unconference, which means that anyone can be a presenter, as long as your topic has something to do with science and or skepticism.
0:15.0	It's free of charge, and you can learn more at skepticamp, n.org.
0:19.5	If you're not near New York, and you're curious if there's an event like this in your neck of the woods, just go to Skepticamp, NYC.org. If you're not near New York,
0:22.5	and you're curious if there's an event like this in your neck of the woods,
0:23.6	just go to skepticamp.org.
0:25.9	And if there's not an event near you,
0:27.5	you can learn how to start one.
0:32.5	Music Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City Skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:51.0	For more information, please visit us at NYCsceptics.org.
0:55.2	Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and
1:09.9	nonsense. I'm your host, Julia Galef,
1:12.5	and with me is this episode's guest, Professor Scott Aronson. Scott is a returning guest on
1:17.6	Rationally Speaking. When last we spoke with Scott, he was a professor of computer science at
1:23.1	MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has since moved to Austin, Texas, where he is a professor
1:29.6	of computer science at the University of Texas, Austin. Scott's research focuses on quantum
1:35.6	computing and computational complexity theory, but he writes and blogs about a bunch of wide-ranging
1:42.4	and interesting topics, including one that we're going
1:45.0	to talk about today, which is vote trading.
1:47.9	Scott, welcome back to the show.
1:49.7	Thanks.
1:50.1	It's great to be here.
	...

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