Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 246 posts

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#71

Post by cjbenedikt »

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 reason for Iraq invasion? http://www.globalresearch.ca/ralph-nader-letter-to-george-w-...

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#72

Post by studentrob »

tptacek wrote: post #64
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 .

Thanks for your reply. So presumably this would bring us back to the state of things from 1971 with the entrance of the Federal Election Campaign Act, including the limitation on spending money on media?

It sounds tricky. The most powerful thing about free speech is the right to say whatever you want about your government. But given the apparent level of corruption, maybe it's time to limit corporations' ability to make political speech. Is that what he's proposing?

I read this on publicintegrity.org,

> It wasn’t until 1971 that Congress got serious and passed the Federal Election Campaign Act, which required the full reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures. It limited spending on media advertisements. But that portion of the law was ruled unconstitutional — and that actually opened the door for the Citizens United decision.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#73

Post by tptacek »

dankohn1 wrote: post #34

I supported Lessig's presidential campaign monetarily, even though I never thought he had a snowball's chance and also didn't think that his model of affecting change was fully thought through. As entrepreneurs, I think many of us can sympathize with the idea of knowing that there is a huge, massive problem that needs to be fixed, without necessarily having the solution fully formed. It would have been so easy for Le…

Serious question: given that he didn't have a snowball's chance, why did you give him money, as opposed to giving money to some other change agent that does have a chance?

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#74

Post by ermacaz »

tptacek wrote: post #64
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 .

Because regulating speech could never end badly...

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#75

Post by ThomPete »

tptacek wrote: post #70
ThomPete wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

Thats an opinion you are entitled to have but which I do not share.

Politics is the art the possible and sometimes it takes several years for something to gain momentum, something that often starts in futile attempts and yes often ends with not succeeding. But once in a blue moon it does and that is the important part.

You keep arguing as if there is a right way to think about these things. If that is your claim then I do not share that belief.

Doing is the only way of discovering.

That there are plenty of people that do obvious stupid things which end bad in hindsight does not cancel out that there are plenty of people who do obvious stupid things and in hindsight succeed.

We have plenty of critical thinkers in this world, it's the constructive thinkers we lack.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#76

Post by morgante »

tptacek wrote: post #47

He hasn't ended his Presidential campaign. He's ended his bid for the Democratic nomination. David Weigel at WaPo asked him if he would run (pointlessly) as an independent; Lessig would (unsurprisingly) not rule that out. Note that he is still taking donations.

I really, really hope he doesn't. That will destroy any goodwill I ever held towards him.

My only consolation is that his campaign is such an abject failure that it probably can't even function as a spoiler.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#77

Post by tptacek »

cjbenedikt wrote: post #71
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…

Ralph Nader reason for Iraq invasion? http://www.globalresearch.ca/ralph-nader-letter-to-george-w-...

Of the three major candidates in 2000, there's no question Nader was the least likely to support military intervention anywhere. His policy intentions, many of which I support unreservedly, aren't the issue.

The issue is that he had no chance of winning the 2000 election, and by staying in, he probably cost Gore the Presidency. There's a "dispute" over whether Nader was a spoiler, but that dispute relies on the notion that a very significant fraction of Nader's voters would have broken for George W. Bush, and --- remember the margin in Florida was razor thin --- ignores the indirect impact of Nader's campaign on Gore's support and turnout.

What gives the Nader spoiler charge so much electricity is the fact that his campaign was obviously and hopelessly doomed far in advance of election day, and yet he stuck with it in order to make a point. Well, he sure made his point alright.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#78

Post by ThomPete »

tptacek wrote: post #67
ThomPete wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah but thats not what I did.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#79

Post by dluan »

gee_totes wrote: post #27
jonathankoren wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I guess that's the difference between the Democratic party debates and the Republican party debates. I know that sounds like a troll, but it's not. The GOP primary debates had 17 people running, the Democratic primary had 5 (not c…

As much as I hate to defend Lindsey Graham, I honestly think he's running for the VP slot. He would make an appealing VP for the Republican base -- hawkish on defense and a veteran of senate dealmaking.

Lessig running not as a VP, but to get his podium into the next White House seems like a worthwhile shot.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#80

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tptacek wrote: post #73
dankohn1 wrote: post #34

I supported Lessig's presidential campaign monetarily, even though I never thought he had a snowball's chance and also didn't think that his model of affecting change was fully thought through. As entrepreneurs, I think many of us can sympathize with the idea of knowing that there is a huge, massive problem that needs to be fixed, without necessarily having the solution fully formed. It would have been so easy for Le…

Serious question: given that he didn't have a snowball's chance, why did you give him money, as opposed to giving money to some other change agent that does have a chance?

Sometimes its about sending a message. After all, its not a horse race; you don't win any prize by backing the winner.
Post reply on HN