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

The 2016 Election

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 646 posts

Re: The 2016 Election

#501

Post by int_19h »

grandalf wrote: post #207

HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right. This has left many poor and angry people in the dust. Many have gravitated toward Trump. Yes, poor people are more likely to be criminals and racists but let's be real, mainstream pols have been speaking racist language in a more coded and subtle way for a long time. It has always been ugly. HRC has done it herself when it benefits her. What irritates me about this ess…

> HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right.

Comparing the Democratic platform over the past several presidential cycles side by side does not support this assertion.

Indeed, it has steadily moving left since Obama, and Clinton was pretty much forced to follow in the primaries. She didn't move as far left as the Sanders crowd (myself included) hoped, but we still got a pretty good platform this year.

Re: The 2016 Election

#502

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #454
dllthomas wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> third party candidates are never going to happen More than two parties will never be stable unless elections are other than FPTP. But which two parties has changed more than once through US history. I don't see a reason it couldn't possibly happen again.

It happened twice, both in the first century of US independence; whole there have been subsequent realignments, the identity of the two nationally-competitive parties have been stable for more than a century and a half. It's not implausible that the basic factors which promoted the relative fluidity of the party system in the early Republic are gone. (Direct election of senators and the near universal norm of assigni…

> It's not implausible that the basic factors which promoted the relative fluidity of the party system in the early Republic are gone.

I agree that it's not implausible. I'm just not convinced of it, on a time scale of "never".

Re: The 2016 Election

#503

Post by dragonwriter »

gjolund wrote: post #452
mejari wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no one has pressed charges? I don't see how that's relevant. People can be guilty of things they haven't been proven to do in a court of law. I'm not saying he should be thrown in jail without due process, I'm pointing out that he himself has admitted to committing sexual assault, so it seems wrong to have a caveat of "allegedly".

If he were guilty, and if Clinton were the champion of feminism that she says she is, then why wouldn't they press charges?

For one thing, statutes of limitations would be a factor in many cases.

Insofar as the offenses are criminal rather than civil then, even if they aren't barred by statute of limitations, it's not their decision but that of a public prosecutor.

And, in some cases, they can't file civil charges because they sued in the past and already reached settlements.

Re: The 2016 Election

#504

Post by rwmj »

eeks wrote: post #363
rwmj wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, objectively. Granted sama doesn't provide detailed references, but you can find factual backing for statements such as these ones easily if you look: "A Trump presidency would be a disaster for the American economy." "He has no real plan to restore economic growth." "His racist, isolationist policies would divide our country, and American innovation would suffer" "He's erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage.…

Not that I want to split hair but in the examples you gave: 1) Subjective This is an opinion, not a fact. 2) Objective I agree. But that does not make him "objectively" wrong. 3) Subjective Without starting a discussion about Trump alleged racism, whether or not a somewhat isolationist policy would either divide our country or make American innovation suffer is a matter of opinion, not facts. Some other prominent inv…

A Trump presidency would be an economic disaster: Objectively true because his policies involve reducing taxes, increasing spending, and isolating the country from free trade (eg. withdrawing from NAFTA which has been shown to have created jobs and growth on both sides of the border).

"American innovation would suffer": Because of economic consequences, so see above.

"He's erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage": I don't even know how you can argue against this, just watch one of his speeches.

"He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants": He personally is a threat to women, and his policies, such as they are, are now stiring up racial hatred. Again, an objective truth.

"Trump shows little respect for the Constitution": He announced several completely unconstitutional plans, such as suspending the right of US citizens to return to the country if they are Muslims. You don't need a ruling from the Supreme Court on this.

Re: The 2016 Election

#505

Post by dragonwriter »

gjolund wrote: post #389
mejari wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say "allegedly" when he himself admits to it?

Then why hasn't he been indicted?

Well, I'm not saying this is why, but it's not like he hasn't quite visibly paid off prosecutors when charges were being considered against his organizations, so it's not implausible he'd do the same thing when he was in personal jeopardy.

Re: The 2016 Election

#506

Post by mejari »

gjolund wrote: post #494
mejari wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What at all does Clinton have to do with these women pressing charges or not? As for why a woman might not press charges after a sexual assault, there are a multitude of reasons that have been discussed in plenty of related literature, I urge you to seek them out.

Hillary paints herself as the savior of all women, yet she can't convince a group of women who could literally win her the election to press charges? Smells like bullshit to me.

You want her to insert herself into these women's personal choices? Can you imagine the outrage from the right if she tried to convince these women of anything? You're not making any sense, it just sounds like you're looking for an excuse to put down Clinton over a situation she has zero involvement in.

Re: The 2016 Election

#507

Post by rtx »

int_19h wrote: post #496
rtx wrote: post #75

>unprecedented threat to America Hillary is an unprecedented threat to the world. But I guess Americans are so cut of from the rest of the world, it's hard for them to see things from others perspective. As a citizen of third world please don't unleash Hillary on us.

Please don't speak for "the rest of the world" - the rest of us didn't give you that prerogative. As a citizen of Russia, I would vastly prefer Clinton on foreign policy. For all her flaws, she can keep Putin in check. Trump is more likely to prop his regime and keep it from collapsing for a while longer.

Why not do it yourself. Millions have died due games that Russians and Americans like to play.

Re: The 2016 Election

#508

Post by int_19h »

buro9 wrote: post #174

There's another issues, both parties are courting the more extreme views within their parties. That is, the Democrats are looking further left/liberal, and the Republicans are looking more right/conservative. Neither is looking after the centre, they only seek to appease the more vocal within their ranks... the extremists. Typically when the pendulum swings things average out, but politicians have learned over the pa…

> That is, the Democrats are looking further left/liberal, and the Republicans are looking more right/conservative.

True, but misleading without comparing the degree of the same on either side.

For example, on the right, the manifestation of partisan polarization was the emergence of the Tea Party, which had successfully ran many candidates across the country, and significantly redefined the party platform at its peak of prominence.

What's the left equivalent? Sanders? He came later, and his successes were far more limited.

Here's a very simple exercise you can do. Look up Democratic and Republican platforms for every electoral cycle in the past decade. Observe how much each has changed.

Re: The 2016 Election

#509

Post by rtx »

int_19h wrote: post #493
rtx wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is not the one courting Kissinger

Trump is the one who said that Russian war planes overflying American warships should be shot down to teach a lesson. I can't think of a better way to start WW3 in current climate.

Why would Russian planes fly over American ships.

Re: The 2016 Election

#510

Post by kybernetikos »

rtx wrote: post #499
kybernetikos wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the choice is between Hillary and Trump, I would expect Trump to do more damage to the world than Hillary. Everything about his behaviour so far has shown him to be easily baited and given to irresponsible escalation. These are not attributes that I would expect to go well with international politics. I find it surprising that Trump is portrayed as an isolationist candidate when personally I think the likelihood o…

That sounds like being transparent about your intentions and not using economic hitmen.

Not sure what you mean about economic hitmen - if it's sanctions, then Trump has said that he would increase sanctions on Iran, and on terrorists.

He's literally saying that the current policy (of the Obama administration, that for a while featured Hillary Clinton) is too gentle.

Elsewhere you said that your concerns were drones and missiles that miss their targets. Trump has explicitly said that he's in favor of collateral damage when attacking terrorists. He's also said that he'll bomb oil wells and put boots on the ground to take oil. Transparency maybe, but if so he's being transparent about the fact that he'll do all the things you said you dislike.

Post reply on HN