I've been seeing a lot of Bernie or Bust takes coming out since Bernie suspended his campaign yesterday, and I find myself wanting to talk about them, namely, this picture:

Now, there is a lot wrong with this picture, but to get there, we're going to have to talk about voting statistics, and in order to get there we're going to have to talk about ethics, and we're going to talk about an old game show for some reason? So settle back, this

is going to be a long one. So settle in.

First thing first, I'm not interested in converting any Bernie or Busters. I do think it's true that the arguments for that position are universally bad, and displays a kind of slacktivisim that I think is unhelpful to most causes. But I also don't think that a person

has to have a good argument to believe something? I mean it helps if you want to convince another person, but if you're just justifying your internal beliefs, I don't think they necessarily need to be built on solid arguments. So let's get into this.

In ethics, there is a concept of harm reduction. Essentially: It is not enough to merely do good, it is also necessary for a person to prevent harm when possible. A good example of this is if I see a person walking into oncoming traffic, and it would be a simple matter for me

To grab their shirt and pull them out, at no risk to me. It's hard to find an argument for why I ought not do that. The simple reasoning as to why I should, is that acting good or virtuously does not in itself make a better world. It's certainly a factor, but there are other

elements in which falls solidly out of our personal control. General ignorance of others, acts of nature, a complex weave of human action in which even good actions can be poisoned into bad through basic consequentialism; these things are aspects of our daily lives

That we are constantly battling. The reality is, that no matter how virtuous you are: Bad things happen. Socialists often say "there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism." And this is what that argument is drawing on. When I buy a burger, the sesame seeds on

That burger are likely coming from a factory in China, who is exploiting its workforce for pennies on the dollar to get that to me. By giving them my money I am contributing to this system. This is something, despite the fact that I am decidedly not a socialist I agree with.

Though I would argue that: In a complicated enough system, truly ethical actions are impossible. One person just can't pay attentions to a thousand spinning plates. But I can pay attention to a few. So from a consequentialists perspective, it's necessary to reduce

harm where I am able. This is an acknowledgement that ethics on a wide scale is insanely complicated, and the only conclusion is harm reduction. I can only reduce harm, I cannot, in total, remove it. But it's still better to grab the dude by the collar and save him

from oncoming traffic, even if he does, in the end, vote Republican. It's better to reduce harm where I can, even if I can't eliminate it. This is a non utopian world view.

It's a lot like that old parable where a guy is walking on the beach, picking up starfish, and chucking them back in the ocean. And when someone says "Why are you doing that, you can't save them all, it doesn't matter." Then he picks up one starfish and chucks it into the ocean

and says: "It mattered to that one."

You see, voting is a lot like picking up Star fish on multiple angles. One vote rarely actually matters, but it's the aggregate of people deciding that it mattered enough to them to sacrifice an hour or 5 to do it, that makes it matter. But it's also because

It's a zero-sum game. A person can throw the starfish in or not, but they're not abstaining from a choice. Either they throw it in the water and it lives, or they don't and it likely dies. The same is true for voting, but with Starfish, the only theoretical limit

is how many people happen to be near the beach at the time. With voting, there is a population.

Let's say for sake of argument that you are part of an apartment complex community. And the community has decided that it wants a crockpot, and that everyone will chip in to get one. The first thing everyone did was chip in the money, because everyone agreed that the crockpot

Was necessary. After a month of arguing, your favorite crockpot, with the easy settings, adjustable temperature, safety rating, and lock-down lid was shot down. Now it's between two crockpots. A model that through your research, breaks down and occasionally shocks its user,

And a kind of boring model with outdated features, but is reliable if only for a few stains on it that makes you uncomfortable. There are only 15 people in your complex, so we're dealing with a set number of people, so there is only a set number of total votes that

can be used (though you suspect the next building over is sending fliers to everyone's door, smearing the old model, and propping up the cheap one for some reason). Then you get into a conversation with another tenant where you tell him that you're not excited about these other

models, and you think you're going to sit it out, and he says something that surprises you: "If you don't vote for the older model, when the cheap model gets selected, and you get shocked by it, it will be your own fault. Not voting is a vote for the cheap model."

His reasoning for this is actually pretty clear. By abstaining you are removing a vote from the system, thus lowering the threshold of votes for the cheap model to succeed. While you doing it might not matter, your neighbor knows that 3a, and 2b have similar reservations.

If you all stay home that day, the cheap model only has to gain 7 instead of 8 votes, and considering the cheap model supporters are very motivated, and you 3a and 2b would likely vote for the old model if forced to vote, as it aligned better with your preferred model,