Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy • Hacker News Board

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#241

Post by dukeluke » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #233

dukeluke wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electoral college was designed so the highly populated states don't have too much leverage over the rest of the country, and worked as was intended. There are many areas of the country seeing a declining quality of life, and those areas happened to vote for the candidate who spoke of economic issues more.

The electoral college was designed so that slave states, who got extra seats in the House compared to their population of citizens through the 3/5 compromise, would have Presidential electoral power proportional to the degree to which they were overrepresented in Congress, rather than in line with their number of voting citizens. It is designed as a positive reward for the remaining enfranchised population for disenf…

Don't race bait. The issue was a lot more nuanced than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_St...

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#242

Post by grey-area » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #134

grey-area wrote: post #19

I think we need something a little more revolutionary for news than holding current news sources to account, or fact-checking tools. Most of the problems we see in our news outlets are around the competition for attention as the article says, but also around old business models for newspapers/tv which still haven't changed to adapt to a world in which anyone can report from anywhere live using a simple phone and anyo…

It's an interesting idea, and one I've been thinking about for a while. Issue is, I think that's kind of what social media is meant for. Anyone can contribute news as a primary source and share it with others online via sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. So my worry is that any system like this would basically be just another social media service (albeit with a 'news slant' in the marketing material) and the…

Yes sure, Twitter (moments) and fb (live) are converging on this to some extent.

I'm thinking of something less social and more verifiable source of info though. You'd need incentives to keep it real, probably some form of verifying in a local web of trust, and incentives to read/watch so grouping by geography and interest.

I'm thinking more make your own local newspaper than share videos to your friends. Probably you'd have to start in a niche like school news and expand out.

Twitter is really interesting here because they are making and breaking news and being used as a broadcast medium in spite of huge failings for that use (spam, trolls), I think they're the closest thing but still a long way from something letting people publish verified info to the world in chunks bigger than a procrustean tweet.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#243

Post by pklausler » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

dukeluke wrote: post #226

pklausler wrote: post #202

Democracy in the US sounds like a great idea. Republicans have won exactly one of the past 7 Presidential elections (viz. 2004) but took power in two more thanks to the Electoral College.

The electoral college was designed so the highly populated states don't have too much leverage over the rest of the country, and worked as was intended. There are many areas of the country seeing a declining quality of life, and those areas happened to vote for the candidate who spoke of economic issues more.

Nonsense. The EC was designed to give extra power to slave states. Nowadays, it's used to give Wyoming voters six effing times the voting power of Californians. That's not democracy.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#244

Post by grzm » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

anonimus17 wrote: post #234

grzm wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how you guys are now thinking this is a big issue NOW. How is this sentiment useful? Sorry, guys. Whatever you do now is invalidated by what you didn't do before. The past is only useful as something we can learn from. Focussing on what can be done now is something we can actually grapple with, change, and improve.

That is your interpretation of my comment. Notice how you are twisting it with the "Sorry, guys". I support YC's effort. After all, I spent many hours of my life on solving this very problem through my non-profit startup. Fake news has been a big problem for a long time for many countries. It would have been great if YC took an action before it became USA's problem. Think about the impact they could have made! I gues…

Indeed, that's how I interpret it. I generally try hard to avoid snark myself in responses, as it rarely is effective at engendering sympathy or support or understanding. I'm getting exhausted at all of the accusations of "why weren't you concerned then?" that are being thrown around HN the past couple of days. They're absolutely not constructive. I apologize for letting it slip this time.

Funny how you guys are now thinking this is a big issue NOW.

It's hard to interpret this charitably. On the face of it, it's a sideways, snarky accusation of hypocrisy. I have a hard time reading it any other way.

People are human. People grow and change. People pay more attention when things affect them directly, or at least are closer to home. Is that really wrong? Or just realistic? It's wonderful but mistakenly idealistic to think that everyone can be concerned about everything that's wrong all the time. People have limited resources.

Of course people should be held accountable for their actions, but we also have to allow for the possibility of change, of becoming better. Sometimes it takes a significant kick to get people moving. Are we going to begrudge them the fact that they're moving now?

And as a sibling comment pointed out, I'm sure there's a lot that goes into the evaluation YC candidates.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#245

Post by pklausler » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

dukeluke wrote: post #241

dragonwriter wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electoral college was designed so that slave states, who got extra seats in the House compared to their population of citizens through the 3/5 compromise, would have Presidential electoral power proportional to the degree to which they were overrepresented in Congress, rather than in line with their number of voting citizens. It is designed as a positive reward for the remaining enfranchised population for disenf…

Don't race bait. The issue was a lot more nuanced than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_St...

How the bloody hell is his comment "race baiting"??

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#246

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:13 PM UTC

TheGRS wrote: post #210

DougN7 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've rewritten my comment three times so far ... My wife and I are fortunate enough that she can be a stay at home mom. I grew up the same way. Were middle class, though increasingly probably slightly mid to upper these days. We don't need the babysitter, and want our kids to be educated, so that is the focus. We help them with homework, etc. We're lucky. So from my perspective, having both parents working is the roo…

The nuclear family is not always going to be viable in every scenario though and we really can't control all of the economic factors that go into that effectively. But we can effectively control a lot of what happens in schools. Things like curriculum, money spent, facilities used, after school offerings, etc. Even if the incentive existed to be a stay-at-home parent, there will always be parents who would rather hav…

[deleted]

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#247

Post by 6d6b73 » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:15 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #60

alphonsegaston wrote: post #53

The thing that is needed most is a laboratory of ideas for what will replace the neoliberal order. A corporate democracy that increases inequality and only panders to justice by gestures towards identity politics is seemingly over. What we're faced with now is either devolving into an Ethnic Nationalist state on par with Russia, or something entirely new that has yet to be described. What needs to be recaptured is a…

> What needs to be recaptured is a vision of the future based on science, health, the arts, and shared prosperity. And it has to be described in actionable political terms. We need a Star Trek: TNG for the (pun not intended) next generation... If someone is willing to start a movement that wants to create United Fedration of Planets, count me in.

+1 If someone is willing to start informal group that would work on making something like that a reality - count me in. :)

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#248

Post by dandare » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:15 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #190

dandare wrote: post #179

I have a very specific idea on how to improve democracy. Make all public spending easy to search. Let me elaborate: Via direct and indirect taxes democratic governments take and redistribute between 30% and 50% of our income[1]. Yet we usually have no idea how exactly is it the money spent. This has two effects: 1) many disenfranchised people think state spending is somehow secret therefore "all politicians steel" an…

I support transparency in government spending, especially financial information in a standardized format. However, I don't share your optimism regular people will be able to make sense of this data. Just take the financials for public companies for example. Because all public companies report their financials in GAAP formats you'd think that therefore it would be easy to look at a company's balance sheet and cash flo…

> numbers by themselves say very little.

They may say little but in the age of "alternative facts" it is more than all the words.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#249

Post by dukeluke » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:16 PM UTC

pklausler wrote: post #245

dukeluke wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't race bait. The issue was a lot more nuanced than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_St...

How the bloody hell is his comment "race baiting"??

It's race baiting by implying the only reason the electoral college was created was to leverage the slaves. It creates a false narrative that amplifies racist thoughts against the government.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#250

Post by clarkevans » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 10:16 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #30

A category of applications that I'd like to see YC helping along are those things that could help ordinary people run for office. The things off the top of my head I can see technology helping with: * Leveraging social networking to generate social permission for people to stand for office, which I think is the most important obstacle facing people who might consider running --- far more so than money. * Using techno…

Lovely list. I'd add ways to address problems with "congressional fund raising" as discussed by John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk), so congress members can focus on the needs of their constituents rather than those who pay for their re-election run.