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Bernie’s Army of Coders

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Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#71

Post by SilasX »

rapicastillo wrote: post #34
SilasX wrote: post #2

Interesting! This part got me thinking though: >And last summer a map compiling all the Sanders campaign happenings across the country, built by volunteer Rapi Castillo, a Philippine immigrant living in Queens who isn’t an American citizen and can’t vote this November, became the official “eventslink on Sanders’ website. So a foreigner is effectively giving an in-kind campaign contribution to a candidate? How come pe…

Hi! I'm the immigrant in the story. For what it's worth I'm permanent resident, not allowed to vote. Furthermore, it's seen as an in-kind contribution, just like when you help building a stage for the campaign, only in online-terms. It's explained more in http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders...

Thanks for joining the discussion!

I understand that it's a non-monetary contribution; my confusion is just on why we should treat them differently from monetary and why people think of them differently, even when they accomplish the same thing (deliver $X worth of value to a campaign), especially given that, for a foreigner to contribute money is a serious crime.

(Less of an issue in your case since you're not some random Chinese government official but an actual US resident with legal status who can stay.)

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#72

Post by SilasX »

rhino369 wrote: post #64
weatherlight wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations shouldn't be people though. This is a dangerous precedent.

The problem with this viewpoint is that historically, and especially today, free speech and press is conducted primarily through corporations. Campaigning is done on corporate television. The print press is for profit corporations. Can you imagine a free election without the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Twitter, Reddit, etc. Why can't Koch brothers buy advertisements trashing Hillary Clinton when Jeff Bezos…

>Why can't Koch brothers buy advertisements trashing Hillary Clinton when Jeff Bezos can buy the Washington Post and then run a hit piece on Marco Rubio?

This. I've heard people joking refer to campaign finance laws as "enforcement of mainstream media relevance".

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#73

Post by maxerickson »

specialist wrote: post #35
weatherlight wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations shouldn't be people though. This is a dangerous precedent.

I'll believe corporations are people (natural persons) when Texas executes one.

Is bankruptcy just dealing with the already dead body?

I bet there is at least some corner case where an action of the state government made a company give up operating (like pulling a liquor license or whatever).

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#74

Post by SilasX »

monocasa wrote: post #55
bmelton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets harder to measure, but on the argument of scalability, that varies dramatically. If I wrote an app that was as popular as GMail, it's very possibly much more impactful than a $100M worth of advertisements.

Can you point to an app that swung an election more than $100M worth of advertisements? Like, I know this is hacker news, home of "there's no limit to what you can achieve with hard work and VC money!", but if we're being honest with ourselves could even a single unicorn class app company swing a presidential election if it put it's mind to it?

Nader Trader, almost. It nearly swung the election to Gore in 2000 by giving him votes in swing states. (And some would claim he should have been counted as the winner because of Florida.)

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#75

Post by specialist »

bmelton wrote: post #61
monocasa wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I fail to see how allowing corporations to pay for large parts of politicians' campaigns achieves the goals you're implicitly stating here.

If you don't allow the government to make mandates, then there's very little purpose in lobbying them. People tend to believe that regulations are imposed to keep big businesses in check, but many if not most business regulations are lobbied for by the big businesses to impose hurdles to would-be competitors. This isn't to suggest that all regulations are bad, mind you, but cui bono; wherever there exists a regulatio…

Struggling to keep up...

Your solution to regulatory capture is to abolish government appropriations? Consumers, erm citizens, would then get essential services from corporations directly, mooting the need for governments?

I think I've seen that movie.

PS- Sorry about your Chertoff. Talking about it is an important part of the recovery process.

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#76

Post by Zikes »

gozur88 wrote: post #46
Zikes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the Citizen's United comparison, since donating time towards a campaign can't be pocketed the same way money is. You can't commoditize already-spent labor in that way. Regardless, I think the real solution would be campaign laws similar to the UK's. It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sl…

>It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. And how do you deal with third parties who advocate for issues? If Candidate A and Candidate B have a different position on something, it's pretty clear who you're helping if you blanket the airwaves supporting Candidate…

Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai agree on the issue of backdooring. Does that mean that either of them wants to give their job to the other?

If you're campaigning issues, then you'll get candidates on board that support those issues. It shouldn't be the other way around.

I don't fully understand how the UK does it, and maybe it's not any better than what we've got, but when you have people flagrantly buying bills and politicians in Washington then we know at the very least that what we have now does not work. If we can't find some way to make it work, then a drastic change is in order.

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#77

Post by gozur88 »

Zikes wrote: post #76
gozur88 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. And how do you deal with third parties who advocate for issues? If Candidate A and Candidate B have a different position on something, it's pretty clear who you're helping if you blanket the airwaves supporting Candidate…

Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai agree on the issue of backdooring. Does that mean that either of them wants to give their job to the other? If you're campaigning issues, then you'll get candidates on board that support those issues. It shouldn't be the other way around. I don't fully understand how the UK does it, and maybe it's not any better than what we've got, but when you have people flagrantly buying bills and polit…

I disagree. One of the reasons we're in this position is we keep making drastic changes without thinking them through first. I'd like to see some evidence proposed changes are actually workable before they're enacted.

In my life I've seen this cycle maybe five or six times, and each time we fiddle with campaign finance laws they get more complicated, leaving more gray area. When the power brokers act nobody can even tell if they've broken the law.

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#78

Post by bmelton »

maxerickson wrote: post #73
specialist wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll believe corporations are people (natural persons) when Texas executes one.

Is bankruptcy just dealing with the already dead body? I bet there is at least some corner case where an action of the state government made a company give up operating (like pulling a liquor license or whatever).

Trust-busting also comes to mind.

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#79

Post by rapicastillo »

SilasX wrote: post #71
rapicastillo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm the immigrant in the story. For what it's worth I'm permanent resident, not allowed to vote. Furthermore, it's seen as an in-kind contribution, just like when you help building a stage for the campaign, only in online-terms. It's explained more in http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders...

Thanks for joining the discussion! I understand that it's a non-monetary contribution; my confusion is just on why we should treat them differently from monetary and why people think of them differently, even when they accomplish the same thing (deliver $X worth of value to a campaign), especially given that, for a foreigner to contribute money is a serious crime. (Less of an issue in your case since you're not some…

That's a great thing to think about. IMHO, it's about worth and intent - as with any. And as with any software development, it's all relative. For me - personally - coding the map was a way for me to practice leaflet, which I've always been interested in learning, and at the same time D3. I never really thought about or even expected the campaign reaching out to me. The original map which is in bernie2016events.org used to take events from meetup.com and facebook.com, which I have scraped and manually curated. The campaign's open API for the events happened later.

So for me, the map was a practice exercise, which is essentially like a more convoluted Hello World. The value was perceived by others, and the campaign. The value for me was, "Ok, there's cluttered events all around the wild, I'd like to make sense of it and help out while I practice D3 and Leaflet."

The value as perceived by others was beyond me, and I was really just happy that it had bigger value that I originally intended.

This is different with foreign governments contributing online assets or money to the campaign, because the intent is different, and the worth is different. The intent is influence/leverage, and worth is tools/dollars. And as you have predicated below as well, corporate money is very different if you look deeper, compared to an individual who's just practicing.

Re: Bernie’s Army of Coders

#80

Post by stephenboyd »

SilasX wrote: post #71
rapicastillo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm the immigrant in the story. For what it's worth I'm permanent resident, not allowed to vote. Furthermore, it's seen as an in-kind contribution, just like when you help building a stage for the campaign, only in online-terms. It's explained more in http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders...

Thanks for joining the discussion! I understand that it's a non-monetary contribution; my confusion is just on why we should treat them differently from monetary and why people think of them differently, even when they accomplish the same thing (deliver $X worth of value to a campaign), especially given that, for a foreigner to contribute money is a serious crime. (Less of an issue in your case since you're not some…

Except for actually voting and running for elected office themselves, the laws for permanent residents in the political process are the same as for citizens. So in this case, it's not a question of non-monetary versus monetary contributions—Rapi can also legally write a check to the Sanders campaign because he is legally an American national. Getting the green card is the point when someone is no longer considered a foreign national.

I personally participated in the 2008 Democratic caucus as a permanent resident. I could take part in the political discussions, but I just couldn't vote (which is a party rule, not a law). I also lobbied state legislators on behalf of the school I was attending.

http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml#Can_nonUS_citiz...

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