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Stay Gold, America

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: Stay Gold, America

#61

Post by coldtea »

dijit wrote: post #45
booleandilemma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered why our politicians should be so rich. Why are so many of them millionaires? It would be nice to have laws preventing this, somehow. Or maybe force them to donate x% of their wealth to the areas they represent every year, in addition to the standard taxes. Do politicians even pay taxes? :)

I go back and forth on this myself. I'm the first to admit my ignorance of such topics to be completely honest. However, what I've noticed about myself as I've become more wealthy is that I'm less corruptible. I've always had a strong moral backbone, sure, but I've noticed that I am less likely to do things that compromise what I want to do, as I've become more rich. So, maybe you need your politicians to be somewhat…

>So, maybe you need your politicians to be somewhat rich and numerous, in order to prevent external pressure from people who have an incentive to bribe ahem... sorry.. "lobby".

And how's that been working out?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#62

Post by defrost »

gadders wrote: post #50

I don't know how you can want to improve democracy, and be in favour of universal mail-in voting, the most open to abuse form of voting there is.

  Minuscule number of potentially fraudulent ballots in states with universal mail voting undercuts Trump claims about election risks
~ https://archive.md/gLi2e

  analysis of data collected by three vote-by-mail states with help from the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) found that officials identified just 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people out of about 14.6 million votes cast by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, or 0.0025 percent.
( 2000 Mules (2022) is a US conservative horror movie, not a factual documentary )

Re: Stay Gold, America

#64

Post by alkonaut »

Narkov wrote: post #59
alkonaut wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Which is why very few democracies have compulsory voting. Having 70-80-90% participation with non-compulsory voting should be the goal of any self respecting democracy and politicians who reject measures to increase voter turnout should be viewed with extreme suspicion.

> Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Why on earth would you prefer a signal of legitimacy over 70/80/90% vote participation? Get people engaged.

Is that rhetorical? It's the de-facto choice in most liberal democracies for exactly the reason I mentioned.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#65

Post by stonogo »

throwpoaster wrote: post #21
coldtea wrote: post #7

> We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream The understatement of the year. From all I read, hasn't it been dead and burried for decades? (Of course not for some founder who hit the jackpot like Jeff). "Evidence indicates that in recent decades social mobility in the United States has declined, and income inequality has risen.[7][8] Social mobility…

"Gotcha: Can't win, don't try." - Bart Simpson This is nihilist cynicism, and is worth rejecting out-of-hand.

Why?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#66

Post by coldtea »

throwpoaster wrote: post #31
booleandilemma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered why our politicians should be so rich. Why are so many of them millionaires? It would be nice to have laws preventing this, somehow. Or maybe force them to donate x% of their wealth to the areas they represent every year, in addition to the standard taxes. Do politicians even pay taxes? :)

Maybe the people who serve society at the highest levels should also have the biggest stake in its successful outcomes.

"serve society"? More like help themselves to the loot, while driving society to the ground...

Re: Stay Gold, America

#68

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

roenxi wrote: post #54
docdeek wrote: post #9

>> Whatever the reasons, 42% of adults living in America had no say in the 2024 election. The vote failed to represent everyone. The 2024 election had a turnout of about 59% of the voting age population. Since 1972, only one presidential election had higher turnout than that (it was 2020). If the 2024 vote didn’t represent everyone, then most every election for the last half century has been even worse at representin…

Furthermore, while philosophically I don't want to see any barriers to voting, full participation is not a good thing in the abstract. It is like free speech; great idea but that doesn't mean we just say everything. Similarly, everyone has the right to vote but for heavens sake people with only a shallow clue should stay away from all but the most basic of policy questions. Lot of great people of average intelligence…

I agree on the principle, but I want to argue a small point. You say intelligence, when I think an average IQ person who studies policy as a hobby and puts time and effort into being informed will be vastly more capable of proper governance than a 115-120IQ person who doesn’t put the time in. I think the main thing here is education and information distribution and how (in our case, poorly) we set up the infrastructure and social mechanisms to perform these.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#69

Post by coldtea »

imacomputertoo wrote: post #55
coldtea wrote: post #7

> We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream The understatement of the year. From all I read, hasn't it been dead and burried for decades? (Of course not for some founder who hit the jackpot like Jeff). "Evidence indicates that in recent decades social mobility in the United States has declined, and income inequality has risen.[7][8] Social mobility…

people have been saying the American dream is dead my entire life. I'm tired of hearing it. I'm also tired of people saying the American dream is about becoming a billionaire. It's not. It never has been. It's always been about having the opportunity to improve your wealth and living standards. Sometimes that means just leaving something better for your children, much like the Italian and Irish immigrants did That Am…

>people have been saying the American dream is dead my entire life. I'm tired of hearing it.

Doesn't make it less true.

>I'm also tired of people saying the American dream is about becoming a billionaire. It's not. It never has been. It's always been about having the opportunity to improve your wealth and living standards.

True, but that's what is argued that has regressed (and the numbers back this up).

>On a related note, I'm tired of hearing people say they can't afford to buy a home. Buying a house is a very expensive and slow way to build wealth.

Which is irrelevant. People want to buy a home to have a shelter and not be subject to raising rent, evictions, and insecurity. Not necessarily to "build wealth". And, in past decades, they used to be able to buy a house, without huge mortgage costs, and pay it off quite early too.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#70

Post by coldtea »

Hilift wrote: post #10
coldtea wrote: post #7

> We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream The understatement of the year. From all I read, hasn't it been dead and burried for decades? (Of course not for some founder who hit the jackpot like Jeff). "Evidence indicates that in recent decades social mobility in the United States has declined, and income inequality has risen.[7][8] Social mobility…

There has always been poor people in the US. There seems to be more shame and stigma attached now though, along with denial. I think that is one of the reasons the iPhone is more popular in the US. It helps people feel like they aren't poor.

>There has always been poor people in the US.

...and those poor people in the US could always look up to much better social mobility trends than the current ones.

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