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What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

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Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#71

Post by leereeves »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #61
leereeves wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 2019 election - just like the previous 3, subverted the popular vote by way of First Past the Post. Nationally, the pro-leave side only secured a minority of the vote. Labour's official position is to negotiate a deal and then hold a final referendum. [1] So there were three positions in the election (leave, remain, vote again) and leave won the largest share of the popular vote. 1: https://labour.org.uk/page/l…

But even so, the largest share were not the majority. The majority of the country doesn’t want the Tories to negotiate the withdrawal. But that’s what is going to happen.

I don't think proportional representation would fix that.

PR would probably lead to even more parties with each having fewer votes and none ever having a majority.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#72

Post by seibelj »

wolco wrote: post #66
seibelj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The condescending part is that the left views poor people who vote for non-democrats as voting against their self-interest. No one knows what someone’s self-interest is except the person who is voting. Considering the US has only 2 major options on elections, there is a panoply of reasons why someone votes and merely saying “poor people who vote republican are brainwashed idiots” is what grates on people who believe…

You have it wrong. In many cases poor people are better served by voting for lower taxes, cheaper products, maintaining the status quo so there factory job can stay a little longer. It might mean dropping union protections because it makes there state more investable. In the auto sector jobs shifted to southern states without unions.

I didn’t say anything about the issues. What could I be wrong about? All I said is, if you believe anyone from X voting for the other guy means that they are brainwashed, you are delusional. People vote how they want for innumerable reasons. All poor people, gay people, black people, etc. cannot be easily bucketed into voting units. Everyone has their own agency as individuals.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#73

Post by ldoughty »

jtbayly wrote: post #13
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government is to govern. Government in most countries is driven by democratic mandates. Democratic mandates are set by influencers. The US’ key influencers are largely regressive and dishonest - and convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests[1]. The US government does not currently have a democratic mandate to operate as the social welfare state. Consequently hundreds of tho…

> convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests. I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents. You think the reason they won’t vote the way you want is because they don’t know what’s good for themselves. You might want to consider an alternate: they don’t want someone like you deciding what’s good for…

I would make the same quoted statement, but mainly because of misinformation.

I do NOT think people understand what their parties are telling them because both sides lie dramatically.

Democrats do not present realistic plans with costs on their social programs, and Republican media and politicians typically say the exact opposite of what the real plan is. I used to love their smaller government push until they touted cutting public services to save 40 million as a huge victory for the budget while giving Lockheed et. al. A billion dollar contracts... So smaller government, sure, but NOT balancing a budget as it was claiming to try for.

So if you subscribe to partizan political sources, both parties only feed you information that support their party line, and the facts are elsewhere, if they are even available. Presidents keep breaking all promises they make on the trail.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#74

Post by sokoloff »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #46
seibelj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The condescending part is that the left views poor people who vote for non-democrats as voting against their self-interest. No one knows what someone’s self-interest is except the person who is voting. Considering the US has only 2 major options on elections, there is a panoply of reasons why someone votes and merely saying “poor people who vote republican are brainwashed idiots” is what grates on people who believe…

> The condescending part is that the left views poor people who vote for non-democrats as voting against their self-interest. Is it condescending if it's true, though?

Condescension and correctness are largely orthogonal axes.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#75

Post by [deleted] »

abnry wrote: post #30
traderjane wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is DaiPlusPlus is forcing things down people's throats? Is DaiPlusPlus' condescension running in torrents? Are you being condescending? If I say that consumers are being tricked by ad companies, am I being condescending? How dare I make judgments on so many people? And when American Christians say that Jesus Christ is the only true way and that Islam is a false path, and that all other ways are false pathways which l…

You are missing the point. If I say, "I support X" and you say, "I support not X," that's just a disagreement. If I say, "I support" and you say, "I support not X, and if you weren't so blind you'd think that too," that's being condescending because you are assuming that someone (a) has fundamentally the same values than you but is (b) too stupid to see it. The reality is that people can value something different tha…

[deleted]

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#78

Post by ralusek »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #5
TulliusCicero wrote: post #2

> We need to applaud companies like Slack, but know that the nitty-gritty of human services—housing, health care, social support—which lots of nonprofits and public institutions are working on, the private sector has largely turned away from.” I mean, yeah? Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies…

Government is to govern. Government in most countries is driven by democratic mandates. Democratic mandates are set by influencers. The US’ key influencers are largely regressive and dishonest - and convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests[1]. The US government does not currently have a democratic mandate to operate as the social welfare state. Consequently hundreds of tho…

When people vote in their personal best interests, that is a signal for a dying society. Imagine if you had a vote at halftime of a sports game and let people vote on what the rules should be. Ideally, they would vote out things like corrupt refs, and make adjustments to rules that have proven to greatly advantage people in a game-breaking way. But if they start voting in such a manner that they are reallocating points in order to personally benefit their team, the democracy is over, that's no longer a society with social cohesion voting on principle for the sake of the game.

Direct democracy populism where people are maximizing personal return should not be considered the standard that we aspire to. I'm not making a case for right or left wing politics, I'm just making a case against the idea that if people vote in such a manner that they will not personally benefit, particularly in the short run, that they are necessarily idiots that have been tricked into voting against their best interests.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#79

Post by pbhjpbhj »

kd5bjo wrote: post #58
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to jtbayly - I do agree I came across as presumptuous and paternalistic to state people are voting against their personal best interests. While I cannot, at all, claim to know what's in someone's interests, let alone their best interests - it is possible to reasonably determine when someone is voting _against_ their interests - especially when there is evidence of emotional manipulation or misrepresentatio…

> it's demonstrable that they did not vote in their rational best interests Actually, it's not. You're reducing the whole spectrum of things that they may care about to the single axis of healthcare costs, and not performing any analysis of the opposition position. It may be that the representative these people voted for aligns significantly better to their values than any other choice that was available.

[flagged]

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#80

Post by sokoloff »

leereeves wrote: post #71
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even so, the largest share were not the majority. The majority of the country doesn’t want the Tories to negotiate the withdrawal. But that’s what is going to happen.

I don't think proportional representation would fix that. PR would probably lead to even more parties with each having fewer votes and none ever having a majority.

I think that would a feature at least as much as a bug. If the national government becomes focused on doing the most essential things and is forced to build broad-based, cross-party coalitions to accomplish that, it seems that causes the people to be better represented than if a majority party can cram through their point of view without worrying about trodding over those (temporarily) in the minority.
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