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

Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 221 posts

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#151

Post by csallen »

Vraxx wrote: post #131
csallen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better framework for decision-making is the trusty cost-benefit analysis. For starters, it always reminds you that decisions have costs: > If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. Not true. If you vote, something does happen — you take time out of your day to vote. You're also likely to spend a lot of time researching candidates and issues, following along with the results, telling everyone else that you…

which if you want to go down that route I think it's important to note that many of the policies meant to protect against the specter of voter fraud in the US drastically increase the cost of voting on a segment of population that the propagating party (Republicans in this case) does not consider to be a part of their base. Sure, this could be accidental, but with the number of times it has happened in separate place…

I don't disagree, but probably the best way to value the importance of your vote is some equation where the biggest variables are the % chance of your side winning and the importance the issue at hand. The amount of voter suppression going on is, I think, an indirect way of estimating both of these things.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#152

Post by chrisweekly »

josefresco wrote: post #77
soneca wrote: post #20

His post "I hate the news" (0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form. From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it co…

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

effect (noun) -> affect (verb, in this intended usage)

not nit-picking, rather trying to help correct a common error that distracts from an otherwise excellent comment

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#153

Post by sDlEzAtyoNAz »

Vraxx wrote: post #147
sDlEzAtyoNAz wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of those things deals with your own personal vote, which is not likely to change the outcome of the election, while the other deals with large numbers of votes, which could easily change the outcome of the election. No person trying to suppress votes cares if a single individual is barred from voting. They care that many people are barred from voting.

well what better way to make sure a large number of people don't vote than to let them convince themselves that voting doesn't matter. My point is that the net effect is the same for both things, one you don't vote because your vote was suppressed and the other is you not voting because you don't think it will matter. Obviously if it's worth paying money to try to make sure than many people can't vote then it's even…

>well what better way to make sure a large number of people don't vote than to let them convince themselves that voting doesn't matter.

Sure, if you can convince large numbers of people of the validity of that argument, you could potentially affect the election. That doesn't mean the argument is actually wrong though.

>My point is that the net effect is the same for both things, one you don't vote because your vote was suppressed and the other is you not voting because you don't think it will matter.

It's not the same net effect. If you decide not to vote personally, because you evaluate the argument and find it to be correct, that changes the tally by 1. If someone suppresses the vote (whether by convincing large numbers of people that their vote doesn't matter, or by making it more difficult or impossible for them to vote), that changes the tally by a lot more than 1 (or else they failed badly in what they were trying to accomplish).

>Disenfranchising yourself serves the same coalition that seeks to dismantle the system in return for more personal power.

That coalition might like that the argument is out there, but it still doesn't make the argument incorrect. It still isn't likely to change the outcome of the election if you personally choose to vote or not to vote.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#154

Post by dhimes »

csallen wrote: post #128
dhimes wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

The better framework for decision-making is the trusty cost-benefit analysis. For starters, it always reminds you that decisions have costs: > If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. Not true. If you vote, something does happen — you take time out of your day to vote. You're also likely to spend a lot of time researching candidates and issues, following along with the results, telling everyone else that you…

If you're going to use cost-benefit, then you have to look at the margins. The delta cost is time out of your day. Learning issues, caring about outcomes etc., is just going to be done at the level that people do it going about their normal days (perhaps unfortunately). You read the news, you see outcomes, you have an opinion- then voting is a small additional effort.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#156

Post by sDlEzAtyoNAz »

Vraxx wrote: post #148
sDlEzAtyoNAz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the more likely it that your vote is important given the political capital and effort expended to make sure it is hard for that person to vote It would make no sense for voter suppression to be aimed at an individual. It would only make sense for it to be aimed at large groups of people. No one is going to spend political capital and effort to stop you from voting personally. They may spend political capital and eff…

and if you are a member of that group, and they paid X dollars to target that group with an attempt at disenfranchising them then we arrive at an estimated cost of $(X/population of group) to target you (among the others in the group as well). The emphasis on individual vs group only serves to distract, groups don't target individuals with disenfranchisement because it's just easier to target entire groups. They stil…

>and if you are a member of that group, and they paid X dollars to target that group with an attempt at disenfranchising them then we arrive at an estimated cost of $(X/population of group) to target you (among the others in the group as well).

Sure, but that doesn't imply they would have spent $(X/population of group) to stop you personally from voting, if it was not a part of a package deal.

>The emphasis on individual vs group only serves to distract, groups don't target individuals with disenfranchisement because it's just easier to target entire groups.

That's true, because our laws are set up that way. The important distinctio between group and individual is that you choose to vote or not vote as an individual. You don't choose to vote as a group. Voters are not suppressed as individuals. They're suppressed as a group.

>They still don't want you to vote

They don't care if you personally vote or don't vote. They care about how many people like you vote.

>then clearly your vote is worth both the concern and the price of the group targeting you (among other people).

No, it's not. What's worth something to that group is reducing the number of people in your category that vote.

>Vote, and preferably against the group of people that uses voter suppression as a tactic for winning an election in a democracy.

Out of spite? What if the policies of the people using voter suppression align better with your interests than do the policies of the people whose votes are being suppressed?

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#157

Post by soundwave106 »

choxi wrote: post #125
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

> It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting He provides some pretty good reasoning that ignoring the news and doing candidate research might be make you a more informed voter. Could you give an example of something you learned or read in the news that had a practical effect on your life?

There are many forms of "news" out there (we're on a site called Hacker News after all :) ), which is probably what my complaint about that article would be.

To me, more specialized news sources sometimes definitely can be relevant to your career (think trade journals and similar), or perhaps helps you learn new things (techniques, tools, etc.) about your hobby. Definitely I've learned some things from these type of sources.

If you have a good local media source, you will also see stories with relevance to your life, perhaps affecting some of the things you do, at the least involving the town you live in. Unfortunately good local media can be tough to find in some places.

It usually does not involve me directly (though it indirectly involve me if said investigation is about things I pay for via taxes), but I do appreciate good investigative journalism sometimes for unearthing various wrongs and putting public pressure on organizations to do the right things. Good investigative journalism unfortunately is also in decline, however.

I think Aaron's point is absolutely correct when it comes to the current trend of "news" to be talking heads shouting at each other, and yellow journalism designed to titillate, not inform. Even more sober journalism can over-focus on national issues, and that can be problematic without a balance of the local, as Aaron IMHO correctly implies. Unfortunately increasingly national and increasingly overemotional is the most visible trend of "news" today.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#158

Post by dhimes »

gweinberg wrote: post #141
dhimes wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

Even if you buy into the premises, the logic only works if voting is costless. But there are arguments that voting is not merely useless, it is counterproductive.

Interestingly, I put your phrase into my favorite search engine and the top result is a counterargument to your argument. :)

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=arguments+that+voting+is+not+merel...

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#160

Post by elicash »

chuckgreenman wrote: post #135
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

The US is structured as a representative democracy, specifically because following politics and making reasoned decisions on all this stuff is a full time job. We elect people who we think will do a good job researching, reasoning and governing. I started my academic career in political science, I thought I wanted to be a journalist. Ultimately found that computer science had problems that I was better at working thr…

The founders didn't like too much democracy for ALL SORTS of reasons, some valid and some not. They built a system that mostly empowered people like themselves. I'm not demonizing them, historical context matters and they did all sorts of stuff that was good and important -- my point is simply that we should feel more willing to question their assumptions than most people have been willing to do.
Post reply on HN