Except the point of this post is that a different sort with worse Big O could be faster with a small dataset.

The fact that you’re sorting those 64 ints billions of times simply doesn’t matter. The “slower” sort is still faster in practice.

That’s why it’s important to realize that Big O notation can be useless for small datasets. Because it can actually just be lying to you.

It’s actually mathematical. Take any equation:

y = x^2 + x

For large x the squared term dominates. The linear may as well not exists. It’s O(x^2). But when x is below 1? Well suddenly that linear term is the more important one! Below 1 it’s actually O(x) in practice.

Just for clarity, I’m actually from the UK, but we also have FPTP voting and a number of similar issues. The Democrats would (for many issues) be considered right wing in the UK though… The really difference though is we actually have minor parties that can leech power from the big parties (see Brexit for a side effect of that).

This is a wonderful condemnation of our electoral process…

I agree with this actually. The electoral process is horrible and needs reform. We just disagree on how to hopefully eventually achieve said reform

Lower voter participation is a threat to “moderate” parties, forcing them to appeal to radicals they’d previously written off as irrelevant if they wish to remain relevant themselves.

and Democrats follow the Overton Window to the right in search of the new middle.

Gonna combine the rest here, because I think the crux of the issue is this. I believe that not voting leads to the Democrats shifting right, feeling no need to chase the “lost votes” that are too “radical” to ever convince. They’re too focused at trying to take votes from the Republicans to care about those further left.

Your (simplified) argument, if I’m correct, is that by not voting you present a base of people that are currently untapped, and hope to encourage the democrats to move towards you in order to convince you to vote for them again.

It’s effectively the same argument I used to claim that voting for the dems would encourage the republicans to shift left, but you’re trying to shift the dems further left instead.

My concern is I think I agree with you regarding how the dems are chasing the republicans to the right, but trying to think about this now (after a few drinks) I still think not voting is worse than voting. The not voting method seems to rely on things getting worse before they get better. i.e. you shift far enough right that there’s a big chunk of people not voting on the left that you can grab up in one fell swoop with a big policy change

Hmmm… I’ll have to think on this further, because you do raise interesting points to consider. So for now instead I would like to say thanks for replying in full and in detail. It’s rare to see people engage this way.

I’m fine with people who don’t care about politics. I think they’re missing out on having their say, but I get it. However I will never understand your mindset.

You claim that participation legitimized the false choice, giving the lesser evil no incentive to reform, yet this is just wrong!

Voting for nobody means the status quo sticks. Voter participation can drop insanely low, and still nothing will happen. You’re just giving more power to those who do vote. The lesser evil has no need to change their ways, because you are irrelevant to them. You are not part of the equation for them. You are, quite simply, nothing. You may as well not exist. Your voice isn’t being heard, because the only time your voice matters in the US is when you vote. If you don’t vote, you have no voice.

But if you vote for the lesser evil, you are now a threat to the greater evil. The greater evil must now start leaning towards policies held by the lesser evil party in an attempt to take votes from the lesser evil party. By doing this, the lesser evil party once more must distinguish themselves, and thus they will move further away from evil in an attempt to keep your vote.

Voting for the lesser evil has a chance of improving the country. Not participating guarantees the opposite.

And all of this is ignoring the short term effects of how one party is definitely more evil than the other. One of them is actively trying to make the system worse, and less democratic. Ignoring that fact is so strange.

I guess it’s fine to be responsible for letting the greater evil into power as long as you can tell yourself that you were morally correct at the end of the day. Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re making a selfish moral point, and in turn actively increase the odds of a worse outcome. You feel better about yourself at the expense of everyone (including yourself).

Because what do you even gain by not voting here? The moral high ground? You just make it look like the greater evil is more desirable. At least spoil your ballot, so that it counts in the percentages…