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Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

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Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#61

Post by zeveb »

tptacek wrote: post #49
oldmanjay wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily for humanity, we have people who are willing to take action that others would find ill-advised. Risk aversion does not make for incredible discoveries, and an adventurous can-do sensibility drives us all onward.

Unfortunately for humanity, we have other people who are willing to take action that others would find ill-advised because they are, in fact, ill-advised. Risk aversion does not make for incredible discoveries, but has the virtue of mitigating disaster. And an adventurous can-do sensibility drives people onwards in all directions, including off cliffs. Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practic…

> Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practice, he turns out to be the reason we invaded Iraq.

Or, possibly, the reason we didn't nuke Afghanistan. Remember, prior to the actual invasion Clinton sent more missiles into Iraq than the Bushes put together; JFK started and LBJ escalated the Vietnam Wars: who knows what Gore would have done, presented with the attacks on 11 September 2001?

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#62

Post by ThomPete »

smacktoward wrote: post #39
michael_nielsen wrote: post #29

With all the critical "I-told-you-sos", this seems like a good time to quote Teddy Roosevelt: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, beca…

God, how I hate this quote. It's TR justifying his own worst qualities -- his impetuousity, his willingness to wade into things without thinking them through. Two years after he made that speech ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic ) he would wade into the 1912 Presidential election, where his major accomplishment was splitting the Republican vote and therefore handing the election to the Democra…

Thats missing the essence of that quote IMO.

Of course people are going to fail even again and again. You are somehow assuming that there are ways to know. But if anything we learned it is that it's trough trial and error and luck that we mostly succeed not trough armchair strategy sessions.

You seem to have an issue with TR that clouds your ability to understand whats important in that quote IMO.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#63

Post by zeveb »

gkoberger wrote: post #8
scrollaway wrote: post #2

Can someone give me a rundown of how anyone expected anything different to come out of this? Polling at 0% isn't exactly fixed by a televised debate. Sanders is competing with Hillary on a fairly close scale and yet a lot of people still say he has no chance (though I definitely think he does at this point, but I'm not a US citizen so...), so what could possibly happen with Lessig?

Lessig never wanted to be president; he wanted a podium. But you can't say that. If he indicated he wasn't serious about being president in any way, they never would have let him on stage. That being said, I think it's shameful he hasn't endorsed Sanders. Lessig acts like he's the only one working on it. Whether or not you like Sanders, he is the only viable candidate whose core issue is overturning Citizens United.…

> Whether or not you like Sanders, he is the only viable candidate whose core issue is overturning Citizens United.

Repealing the First Amendment is a tremendously weighty decision, and not one whose prospect should fill anyone with optimism.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#64

Post by tptacek »

studentrob wrote: post #59

I'm conflicted or perhaps uninformed about what could be the real solution for reducing corruption in politics. I am against corporations spending large sums of money to influence politics because in the long term the rights of individuals, particularly groups of individuals who do not have a lot of money, erode. This weakens our founding fathers' protections against tyranny of the majority. I'm also very pro free sp…

Sanders supports a Constitutional amendment to allow Congress to regulate campaign finance; in other words, Sanders would support the first Constitutional amendment in the history of the US to deliberately abridge the First Amendment, and would do so to regulate political speech.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#65

Post by ermacaz »

s73v3r wrote: post #32
ermacaz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its hard to poll above 0% when your only issue is being against freedom of speech

Citizens United is not freedom of speech.

Imagine thinking a person shouldn't be able to rent billboard space for a month and say their congressman sucks because thats not covered under free speech

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#66

Post by ThomPete »

tptacek wrote: post #49
oldmanjay wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily for humanity, we have people who are willing to take action that others would find ill-advised. Risk aversion does not make for incredible discoveries, and an adventurous can-do sensibility drives us all onward.

Unfortunately for humanity, we have other people who are willing to take action that others would find ill-advised because they are, in fact, ill-advised. Risk aversion does not make for incredible discoveries, but has the virtue of mitigating disaster. And an adventurous can-do sensibility drives people onwards in all directions, including off cliffs. Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practic…

The point of michael_nielsens comment has to be seen in the context it was posted. To tell the majority if the comments that it's easy to just critique but har to do things.

In that context it was actually a pretty relevant quote.

Someone putting themselves out no matter whether it turns good or bad always requires something most people don't have. It's rarely elegant or clean. Mostly just brute force and that of course have good and bad outcomes.

Normandy was bruteforce and in many ways ill-advised and a lot of men was lost in that battle, but luckily the germans kind of got caught of guard without their best general in the area.

Most are just here for the ride.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#67

Post by tptacek »

ThomPete wrote: post #62
smacktoward wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, how I hate this quote. It's TR justifying his own worst qualities -- his impetuousity, his willingness to wade into things without thinking them through. Two years after he made that speech ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic ) he would wade into the 1912 Presidential election, where his major accomplishment was splitting the Republican vote and therefore handing the election to the Democra…

Thats missing the essence of that quote IMO. Of course people are going to fail even again and again. You are somehow assuming that there are ways to know. But if anything we learned it is that it's trough trial and error and luck that we mostly succeed not trough armchair strategy sessions. You seem to have an issue with TR that clouds your ability to understand whats important in that quote IMO.

It's a kind of "Peak HN" when someone manages to accuse someone else of shilling for the anti-Teddy-Roosevelt lobby.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#68

Post by AnimalMuppet »

r00fus wrote: post #38
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true of Sanders, too.

Except that Sanders has street cred. You know, his entire life has been in politics, and Dems don't want a naive semi-outsider this time (for some Obama has been a let-down).

He may not be naive, but he's still a semi-outsider, isn't he? I mean, technically, he's not even a Democrat.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#70

Post by tptacek »

ThomPete wrote: post #66
tptacek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for humanity, we have other people who are willing to take action that others would find ill-advised because they are, in fact, ill-advised. Risk aversion does not make for incredible discoveries, but has the virtue of mitigating disaster. And an adventurous can-do sensibility drives people onwards in all directions, including off cliffs. Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practic…

The point of michael_nielsens comment has to be seen in the context it was posted. To tell the majority if the comments that it's easy to just critique but har to do things. In that context it was actually a pretty relevant quote. Someone putting themselves out no matter whether it turns good or bad always requires something most people don't have. It's rarely elegant or clean. Mostly just brute force and that of cou…

Of course it's easy to "just be a critique". But critiques of Lessig aren't "just critiques".

Lessig's critics understand something Lessig himself seems not to: his campaign is quixotic, his goal of being a "single-issue President" is incoherent given the structure of the US government, and, in a close election year, his prospects of somehow acting as a spoiler for the party he purports to support are far greater than his prospects of actually being an agent for change.

You're welcome to disagree with any or all of that, but I don't think you can say that they don't constitute a colorable argument, and you can't dismiss them as insubstantial points. Which is, of course, the implication of the actual words quoted upthread!

It's not enough just to "put yourself out there". Anyone who does anything dramatic, good or bad, is "putting themselves out there". Boldness makes for good copy, but can't reasonably be taken as a shield from commentary.

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