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Morals, athiests and online voting

Is it moral to vote out of state repeatedly in order to stack a pole to get a secular result?

Interesting discussion -

The pole isn't particularly important in the bigger scheme of things - and it would seem that repeated voting isn't illegal - the site is perhaps designed - like most things in our society - to be an honesty based system.

The organisers would perhaps organise a different way to do it - but perhaps it isn't an issue to vote repeatedly. If it was there would be some way of registration or cookies - which there doesn't seem to be.

It could be set up like big brother or other reality tv voting systems where you can vote as many times as you wish.

Why get all 'holier than thou' about it?

I think we need to use our rational thinking in this case - go through the facts of the case, before condemning others of immoral actions. What's wrong with some reasoning - rather than public shaming?

I'm for the Naturalistic attitude of compassion due to our deterministic universe.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 12:08am

This discussion also highlights the issue of atheists being seen as immoral, that was brought up recently in another discussion.

Perhaps it's immoral to jump in and use public humiliation to shame a person into changing their behaviour?

Perhaps more compassion and reasoning would be an act of greater morality?

Permalink Reply by Orson_Zedd on July 12, 2011 at 12:52am

Online polls are asking to be flooded, hacked, maimed, etc. That's what they get for trying to get a pulse on reality.

Permalink Reply by Orson_Zedd on July 12, 2011 at 12:53am

Online polls are asking to be flooded, hacked, maimed, etc. That's what they get for trying to get a pulse on reality without going through the long, arduous process that people like Gallup do.

Permalink Reply by Richard H. McCargar on July 12, 2011 at 1:00am

Online polls are not "asking to be flooded, hacked, maimed, etc." any more than someone out at 2AM is asking to be robbed or raped. Strange logic.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on July 12, 2011 at 12:43pm

Because an online poll literally asking to be used by everyone (or at least everyone from a specific state), repeatedly, is anything like being out early in the morning. Right.

Permalink Reply by Richard H. McCargar on July 12, 2011 at 12:59am

Perhaps using the religious "holier than thou" to shame someone with whom you disagree is an example public shaming that you decry?!?

When you follow it with the line " I think we need to use our rational thinking in this case" you seem to be then deciding that the other line of reasoning wasn't rational, followed with "condemning others," more loaded words not meant to enlighten, but obviously meant to chastise publicly.

Strange that you use the tactics you deplore and ignore your stated preference for a "Naturalistic attitude of compassion..."

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 1:53am

LOL sure - fair cop :)

Permalink Reply by Richard H. McCargar on July 12, 2011 at 1:04am

To go to the heart of the matter. When the poll is set up to gain an idea of the state's resident's wishes, any attempt to subvert it is just that. The only way you can decide it is ethical to subvert is if you decide that your concept of what should be trumps our civic duty to one another.

More justification, without any actual attempts to show the reason you claim you support.

I understand you don't like my stance against gaming the poll. Provide your reasoned logic as to how it is okay to do it anyway.

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 2:01am

I don't support it either way - I live in Australia and we don't have online voting for anything political. Personally I think if the 'sticker' is important then perhaps they need a better system of deciding which sticker they want to use. I don't know anything about the implications of the end result of the vote either.

But I thought it better to have this conversation in a discussion post rather than on the message board for the entire group.

I went along with the idea initially because I didn't see any harm in 'stacking' the pole towards getting a sticker without the word 'god' in it. But perhaps that's naive and immature on my part.

What's good and bad and moral and just etc seems to be cultural as well as personal or religious.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on July 12, 2011 at 7:33pm

<i>To go to the heart of the matter. When the poll is set up to gain an idea of the state's resident's wishes, any attempt to subvert it is just that. The only way you can decide it is ethical to subvert is if you decide that your concept of what should be trumps our civic duty to one another.</i>

I'm not sure I agree with this. The very last part "trumps our civic duty to one another" is not what is going on. I have a civic duty, but I also have my ethics, and they don't always agree. Additionally, I don't think my civic duty is served by allowing something like the poll in question go forward as set up. When an option that is patently unconstitutional is at hand, I think my civic duty and my ethics push me to do what I must to stop it. Call it "civil disobedience" if you like, I think it is a bit much to say that since it is a freaking sticker, but that is essentially what I'm doing.

Thanks for this ongoing conversation by the way, it has been very thought provoking.

Permalink Reply by Richard H. McCargar on July 12, 2011 at 1:38am

One final thought. When you wrote: "It could be set up like big brother or other reality tv voting systems where you can vote as many times as you wish.
Why get all 'holier than thou' about it?" you ignored the fact that the rules for the poll are already set, it isn't a theoretical situation. While it "could be" set up in many way, it isn't. It is already setup the way it is, and as such, voting as many times as you wish is a violation.

Feel free to start your own poll and run it the way you like. That won't in any way change the facts in this real-world case.

You start this discussion as though it was to be general, but then clearly discuss the specifics of this poll as your way of deriding the facts as they are. Transparent.

I realize you 'say' you don't like it, but you seem to enjoy dishing it out while attempting to put your own spin on it.

Now feel free to attack again. This time, you needn't pretend you aren't doling out your own form of a public spanking. Then spare me the platitudes about compassion.

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 2:03am

You seem pretty worked up about it all...