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Stay Gold, America

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: Stay Gold, America

#81

Post by dijit »

coldtea wrote: post #61
dijit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Everything is comparative.

What are we comparing to?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#82

Post by TacticalCoder »

> Wealth concentration has reached historic levels. The top 1% of households control 32% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% only have 2.6%.

> First Generation Investors – Introduces high school students in low-income areas to the fundamentals of investing, providing them real money to invest, encouraging long-term wealth accumulation and financial literacy among underserved youth.

I don't know how to process these two together. Giving $1m to a charity teaching people to invest while lamenting that the top 1% own 32% of the wealth.

The concentration of wealth is a result of the insane inflation created by the spending and endless money printing of the state, not because people are savvy investors bent on seizing all the poor people's wealth.

It's not investors / the top 1% who created the $36 trillion in government debt (except for the corrupt politicians like Nancy Pelosi who are part of the 1%).

Re: Stay Gold, America

#83

Post by alkonaut »

fifilura wrote: post #44
noduerme wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent point. Turnout may be an important signal which is lost with compulsory voting, and certainly any politician trying to suppress votes is dishonest. To play devil's advocate and to argue for compulsory voting for a moment, however: It is a potential antidote to the type of voter apathy by which a somewhat demoralized but popular party (e.g. Democrats in the last US election) put themselves out of…

Not voting is a poor way to show dissent since it practically gives your vote to whoever gets the majority. Better then to vote for yourself, vote blank, vote for whoever you would rather have in charge, or vote for the least bad.

Yes. It's important to vote IF you think the elections are legitimate and fair. By voting (blank, for yourself, for Mickey Mouse) you say "I didn't like any of the candidates, but I'm ready to accept the result of the majority", thereby giving more legitimacy to whoever is elected.

Not voting can be dissent (I disagree with the process, I don't think it's fair etc) or simply apathy. But in either case it gives less legitimacy to whoever is elected. And that's important: if you don't think it's a fair election/process then you don't want to give the legitimacy.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#84

Post by photonthug »

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…

>> 34% of adults in America did not exercise their right to vote. Why?

I think that Gilens 2005[1] and Gilens 2014[2] are the references that people usually cite to argue that America is an oligarchy. The 2nd paper made a splash at the time, see for example this summary[3]. There were some attempts at rebuttals that seemed silly even back then, but regardless of what you think about the argument 1 or 2 decades ago, wealth concentration has accelerated, so.. hmm.

If voting has little chance of winning you your policy preferences even when you do get your preferred candidate, there is little good that may come of it but many potential negatives such as: junk mail, jury duty, the smoldering eternal hatred of your differently aligned friends/family, drafted into the coming great space war, etc

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3521574 [2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Re: Stay Gold, America

#86

Post by jbaber »

jongjong wrote: post #25

>> We must act now to keep the dream alive. Our family made eight $1 million donations to nonprofit groups working to support those most currently in need This kind of thing triggers me. Not because of the humble-bragging but because this is precisely the attitude which makes everything worse. Systemic problems cannot be fixed by bailing out a select few... It's making things worse for everyone else, adding cost pres…

What is his alternative?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#87

Post by pjc50 »

eunos wrote: post #4

On the cost increases graph, As always, things that got cheaper are things that American import from other countries while things that got more expensive are things that you cant import and solely depends on American workforce, more or less. So I found it very funny that right now there are more and louder voices on reducing trade deficits and bringing manufacturing backs. Well, are most folks ready to have the black…

That's the "Baumol cost disease" graph. Things which involve labour inputs get proportionally more expensive as manufactured goods get cheaper.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#88

Post by michaelt »

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…

> while philosophically I don't want to see any barriers to voting, full participation is not a good thing in the abstract.

Have you ever heard people say, when government policies transfer wealth from the young to the old, that it's because young voters have low voting rates while old voters have high voting rates?

If you believe politicians will naturally favour the interests of demographics who vote, then having equal voting rates across all demographics is required for a just society.

(Not that it's worked flawlessly for Australia, I'll admit)

Re: Stay Gold, America

#89

Post by watwut »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #68
roenxi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 infrastructu…

People who study policy as a hobby have an unfortunate tendency to fall into reddit bubbles of like minded individuals, think in theories only and loose touch with with how the world actually operate back on earth.
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