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

541–550 of 646 posts

Re: The 2016 Election

#541

Post by douche »

susan_hall wrote: post #358
rayiner wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: many of the founding fathers were crazy sexist racists, yet we still hold their other opinions in quite high regard.

No "we" don't. Not all of us. Many of us hold the Founding Fathers in deep contempt. There is now DNA evidence showing that Thomas Jefferson raped Sally Hemings. That means that all of Thomas Jefferson's writings, including the Declaration Of Independence, needs to be re-evaluated and perhaps put aside.

If we're going to look at historical figures through modern lenses and discredit their works if we find they don't measure up to our modern morality, we're not going to have much left. It's more than likely that Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle engaged in sexual acts with young boys, for instance - in our world, these philosophers would be on a list and couldn't live within 500 yards of a school, let alone found one, but in theirs, pederasty was common, accepted, and even lauded.

Re: The 2016 Election

#542

Post by monk_e_boy »

int_19h wrote: post #434
monk_e_boy wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not from the US, so take this as an outsiders view. Clinton says different things in public than she does to her friends. She also flip flops. This is not trustworthy. Trump is unpleasant, but at least he talks straight. I think this could be the last election of its kind in the USA, a two party system that works to produce these two candidates? Someone (Facebook, google, twitter) will come up with a better way o…

Electoral reform is a hot topic, but what people usually mean by it is not a change in how the votes are counted. The most popular issue is campaign financing (with the current arrangement being that there's no practical limit a private party can pour into the elections, so long as they do the Super-PAC dance). Another big issue of concern is gerrymandering. For Democrats, the way their primaries function (superdeleg…

Interesting. I work in education in the UK and the way we assess pupils is a relatively complex calculation based on a number of factors.

So schools, teachers, pupils and parents are all aware that attainment is a complex beast and requires an open, yet complex calculation.

Which leads me onto STV and other ways of counting votes, none of these are as simple as first past the post, but these are all far simpler than what we do in our schooling calculation. So I think people are ready to make voting a little more complex and a lot fairer. If we educate them and give them a chance.

Re: The 2016 Election

#543

Post by CoryG89 »

burkaman wrote: post #469
CoryG89 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few points: 1. Donating to the Clinton Foundation is not the same as donating to the Clinton campaign. 2. Buying an album is not the same as donating money to a campaign or voting, both of which can meaningfully affect a large number of other people, unlike buying an album. 3. If you knowingly fund criminal operations without actually committing said crimes yourself you can definitely be held accountable for it by…

1. He has donated to her campaigns as well, several times. 2. If money that supports speech is equivalent to making that speech, isn't this just a matter of degree? 3. I understand. Doesn't my specific example seem absurd, though? 4. But there are many more limitations on money than there are on speech. There is no limit on speech in support of a campaign. There is a limit on money in support of a campaign. Is that n…

> There is no limit on speech in support of a campaign.

What about yelling "fire" in a crowded polling place?

:P

Re: The 2016 Election

#544

Post by douche »

Locke1689 wrote: post #525
551199 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, how does one bring forward the 43% that appears to agree so strongly with Trump there isn't really any common ground to have a reasonable discussion around? How do you go about working with someone that is uneducated. That someone isn't uneducated just because she/he doesn't align with one's thinking. The Economist: Where Donald Trump’s support really comes from: 'However, averaging out his support in all…

That article is from the April primaries. Donald Trump's demographic support is much different now.

Source? I'd legitimately be interested to see how it has changed. I haven't seen much movement in my particular bubble; it's the same people now as back then.

Re: The 2016 Election

#545

Post by dragonwriter »

Torgo wrote: post #540
chris11 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and if we were talking about people with Hillary's or Robert Byrd's record then I would decide that they weren't racist. Hillary's record has shown a strong commitment to civil rights activism. Robert Byrd did do some horrible things, but he changed and apologized. The NAACP actually honored him after his death. Supporting the the KKK would prevent me from voting for any politician. But Robert Byrd actually ch…

The judge was a member of a group affiliated with La Raza, it was not because he "was Mexican."

Trump specifically attributed it to Curie's "Mexican heritage" when he made the comment. The organizational link is an after-the-fact rationalization. (And, also, mostly false; that is, he's a member of a lawyers group with "La Raza" in the name, but that group isn't connected at all with the advocacy group -- the National Council of La Raza -- that right-wingers who don't recognize that "La Raza" as a name element is about as distinctive and unique as "People's" think of us the organization called "La Raza".)

Re: The 2016 Election

#547

Post by MicroBerto »

chasing wrote: post #175
simonsarris wrote: post #77

Sam, just so you know, many of your sentences could exchange Trump for Hillary and be exactly what Trump supporters I know say. Especially this one: > [Hillary] shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if [she] becomes our president. Other sentences would just exchange antonyms and not make it sound any better. You call Trump isolationist, they ca…

> Sam, just so you know, many of your sentences could exchange Trump for Hillary and be exactly what Trump supporters I know say. Especially this one: > > [Hillary] shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if [she] becomes our president. Except one is based on a set of statements made by the candidate and his own campaign, the other is mostly buil…

> built upon the massive pile of conspiracy theories and mountains-made-from-molehills that constitute the argument against Hillary.

Like the "conspiracy theories" that Hillary's campaign was behind the violence at this year's Trump rallies?

Seems like they're no longer 'theories'... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY&feature=youtu.be...)

Re: The 2016 Election

#548

Post by douche »

mtgx wrote: post #95
lhnz wrote: post #6

> We should all feel a duty to try to understand the roughly > half of the country that thinks we are severely misguided. > I don’t understand how 43% of the country supports Trump. > But I’d like to find out, because we have to include > everyone in our path forward. If our best ideas are to > stop talking to or fire anyone who disagrees with us, > we’ll be facing this whole situation again in 2020. > > That kind of…

What I don't understand "even more" than that (literally, by the numbers) is how 49% of the country is registered independent and yet keeps voting Democrat and Republican. Worse yet, 76% of the country "wants to see alternatives" in the debates...but still keeps voting Democrat and Republican. Even if people agree to buy into this whole "this election is special" premise, I think people would be well within their rig…

If Teddy Roosevelt couldn't break up the two-party system, I'm not sure anybody can[1]. Political parties aren't even necessarily about policies at this point, I'm afraid; they seem to have turned into badges of identity such as religions once were. We're not quite there yet, but calling oneself a Republican or a Democrat is starting to feel like identifying as Lutheran vs Catholic during the wars of religion in the 16th century. For an example of how awful that kind of dynamic can go, particularly with an extra-radical fringe element stirring up populist sentiment, I would suggest Dan Carlin's podcast on happenings in the city of Muenster in that era[2]. It's thought-provoking.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_Stat...

[2] http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-48-prophet...

Re: The 2016 Election

#549

Post by OmarIsmail »

atmosx wrote: post #218

As an outsider, I am having troubles understanding why the Democrats put against Trump the only candidate who had a poor enough track record to make this election "interesting". Why didn't they choose Sanders who is not as vulnerable as Hilton? By they I mean the Democrat elite.

This is a common misconception. Look at how much stuff has come out from Trump's past. You probably thought Trump went through lots of vetting in the primaries, but the reality is that it was super light. The same thing is true of Sanders. Clinton went very easy on him and stayed positive for pretty much the entire primaries. The republicans would not have been as nice.

I actually think that Clinton was the best choice against Trump because she is so thoroughly vetted. There's effectively nothing that could come out that we don't already know. Any other candidate could have a myriad of skeletons in their closets that would only come out with well resourced oppo. That's not even including Sanders' proposals that would result in a decent tax hike on middle class families. Republicans would have pushed that HARD and you have no idea how that would have been received.

Post reply on HN