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Stay Gold, America

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: Stay Gold, America

#111

Post by gadders »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #107
gadders wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No evidence yet . I guess we might find out more in the next 4 years when it is investigated properly. If you want to put elections beyond doubt and make everyone accept the result you should have voter ID and paper ballots. The public holiday idea is probably not a bad one.

Investigate anything hard enough and it’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. Hard to imagine any result to that investigation that would be universally accepted. Why not apply a little bit of technology to the problem so we can verify our vote was counted, and that only legitimate votes were counted?

The obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2030/

Re: Stay Gold, America

#112

Post by rstuart4133 »

alkonaut wrote: post #64
Narkov wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you have a citation for this, or is it just something you've come to believe?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#113

Post by gadders »

thrance wrote: post #109
gadders wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No evidence yet . I guess we might find out more in the next 4 years when it is investigated properly. If you want to put elections beyond doubt and make everyone accept the result you should have voter ID and paper ballots. The public holiday idea is probably not a bad one.

It was already investigated "properly"... Republicans states have been going crazy over it since at least 2016. If there was any evidence of it would have been found by now, now it's just another red herring. Agreed on your second paragraph.

I think it is hard for political parties to investigate anything. You would need law enforcement for that.

It is also my understanding that most voter fraud challenges in 2016 were dismissed due to lack of standing, before the facts were considered.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#114

Post by palmfacehn »

gadders wrote: post #57
gandalfgeek wrote: post #36

Most charities on that list are on sharp sides of deeply polarizing culture war issues and it is not at all clear that their causes align with the “American Dream”. If the last election was any indication then more than half the country explicitly rejected many of them.

Yeah, this is more like a democrat wish list, donating to help polices that the electorate didn't want.

The author engages in classism, yet he is a multimillionaire funding things the voters rejected.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#116

Post by [deleted] »

dijit wrote: post #81
coldtea wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

[deleted]

Re: Stay Gold, America

#117

Post by txextos »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #29
stevage wrote: post #28

"may lose sight of the American Dream"? Dude. It's well and truly ever. Sorry for your loss.

Most data doesn't support that the dream is over: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://www.statista.com/statistics/184266/educational-attai... There are some downside like wealth inequality but the dream is about individual attainment not comparisons with the Joneses.

You should try reading de Tocqueville. It is literally the same country as it was in 1835.

A man builds a home to grow old in and sells it before the roof is on is the American Dream.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#118

Post by stevage »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #29
stevage wrote: post #28

"may lose sight of the American Dream"? Dude. It's well and truly ever. Sorry for your loss.

Most data doesn't support that the dream is over: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://www.statista.com/statistics/184266/educational-attai... There are some downside like wealth inequality but the dream is about individual attainment not comparisons with the Joneses.

Interesting stats, though stats like these are much narrower than what "the American dream" is meant to encompass. Home ownership accompanied by crippling debt is not freedom. And arguably very high rates of university degrees are a symptom of just how difficult it is to make a living without.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#119

Post by roenxi »

michaelt wrote: post #88
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…

> 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 e…

> ... having equal voting rates across all demographics is required for a just society...

The logical endgame of that approach is to have a big tug-of-war between two big coalitions struggling to steal stuff off the other (which, in fairness, is a pretty common equilibrium in democracies).

That actually goes right to the heart of the issue - you can't get a just society by doing things by the numbers. To get a just society, just policies need to be implemented. If the winning side of an election wants just policies then there will be a just society. Otherwise society will be injust. Participation doesn't change the dynamics of that at all - if anything it makes it harder because the majority is generally an unprincipled blob and certainly does not make time to reflect on matters of fairness (Australia is hardly a just society, simply that the people getting a bad deal are relatively small minorities, not actively mistreated and can be reasonably ignored). If we had a reliable process for achieving a just society we'd use that instead of democracy.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#120

Post by apexalpha »

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…

Isn't this just the FPTP system? I mean what point is there in voting R in California or so.

You'd have to be a dogmatic believer of civic duty to stand in line for hour just to vote R or D in a state that will go the other way with 30% difference...

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