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Stay Gold, America

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: Stay Gold, America

#151

Post by jongjong »

throwpoaster wrote: post #150
jongjong wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advocating and lobbying for system change such as abolishing reserve banking and other such monetary manipulations. It's dystopian that some people have millions of dollars of passive income; easy money falling on their lap each year, mostly coming straight out of a money printer, then they give back a fraction of that to a fraction of the people who were victimized by that same system. The system systematically stea…

Making the perfect the enemy of the good?

How are they good? They literally helped my competitors to out-compete me using free money from a money printer. I had to work hard for my money to buy stuff from the same markets; whose prices they drove up using free money.

If you factor out ignorance, it's as evil as it gets.

And yes, if you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, you are competing in the market against homeless people for limited goods. That's the modern reality. Most people are precariously close to being homeless.

If the rich started donating a lot of money to all the homeless people, I'd probably become homeless myself because rents for low-cost accommodation would go up because of all the free money flooding that market...

Then surprise, surprise, when it'd be my turn to get my free money, rich people wouldn't have any money left to spare for me because the problem would have become too large by then due to perverse incentives they would have created.

The whole system is in a controlled demolition; concentrating more and more and creating increasingly perverse incentives. Why bother creating value, when there is an easier way to get money by convincing rich people to 'select' you?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#152

Post by fifilura »

alkonaut wrote: post #60
Terr_ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Not really: Voters can still choose to "not participate" (whether as protest or laziness) simply by casting a ballot that is functionally empty of choices. If anything, the signal you're talking about becomes stronger , since a compulsory-voting system removes or reduces certain practical impediments which have nothing to do…

> simply by casting a ballot that is functionally empty of choices. The signals are different. I cast a blank vote to indicate my support for the process/election, but my lack of support for any of the candidates. I cast no vote to indicate my lack of support for the process itself. Non-voters and blank/invalid voters are usually reported separately to give exactly these 2 signals.

Your vote would have been stronger if you actually voted for change of the process. By not voting you are just voting for the strongest candidate. And chaos.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#153

Post by arkh »

valar_m wrote: post #101
arkh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is an extremely poor analogy, and it doesn't change the objective fact that mail-in voting is provably, measurably secure.

In France, vote by mail was used between 1946 and 1975. It was stopped due to too much fraud (even if less than 2% of the population used it).

Just the fact requiring a valid ID is a contentious idea in the US is baffling when seen from here. I think more people in the US should check how elections are done in other countries (and not just 3rd world ones).

Re: Stay Gold, America

#154

Post by gadders »

arkh wrote: post #153
valar_m wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely poor analogy, and it doesn't change the objective fact that mail-in voting is provably, measurably secure.

In France, vote by mail was used between 1946 and 1975. It was stopped due to too much fraud (even if less than 2% of the population used it). Just the fact requiring a valid ID is a contentious idea in the US is baffling when seen from here. I think more people in the US should check how elections are done in other countries (and not just 3rd world ones).

The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust looked into it in the UK as well in the early 2000's and from their Exec Summary:

- There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007.

- Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud.

- The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion

https://www.jrrt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Purity-of...

Re: Stay Gold, America

#155

Post by rickydroll »

alkonaut wrote: post #74
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…

Yes I agree, in the US specifically it would proabably be the lesser evil to have compulsory voting. And especially if it was coupled with some sweeping reforms to convince everyone of the integrity of the election (The problem not being the integrity, but that people lack faith in the integrity which is an equally important problem!). For example, ensure absolutely everyone has easy and free access to ID. Then ensur…

Free access to an ID is only part of the problem. you also need equal access to ID issuers (ie, locations, hours open, wait times, etc), multiple forms of ID to validate the voter ID. Not everyone has a birth certificate (lost, home birth, in another country that you may want to stay hidden from).

Put simply, the effort to become a voter should be equal regardless of wealth. I like the idea of imposing the difficulty the minority poors have in getting an ID on the white better off. Can you imagine Musk having to make multiple in-person trips to the DMV and wait an hour each time he is there?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#156

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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…

> However, what I've noticed about myself as I've become more wealthy is that I'm less corruptible.

I think the difference is, what was your goal? If your goal was something other than getting rich, then it can go the way it did for you. But if your goal was to get rich, if you went into politics because you thought that you could make a lot of money around the edges there, then the more you rise in power, the more opportunities there will be for corruption.

Character matters. It matters for everyone, and it matters in particular for politicians.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#157

Post by AnimalMuppet »

throwpoaster wrote: post #121
DaSHacka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would still require what GP is suggesting, no? 1%'ers don't have to worry about the price of groceries nor affordable housing; they can just brute-force whatever they desire through excessive wealth. At least, that's the impression I get from the millionaires I know. Perhaps not all are like this (they gathered their wealth primarily via private equity) but I have no reason to think politicians would be any diff…

The rich care as much as much about how the price of groceries leads to social unrest as you do, maybe more. There are jerks everywhere. Most very wealthy people I know fund science and hospitals.

That's the third time you've posted this exact line. You're starting to sound like a shill, and an uncreative one at that.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#158

Post by anarticle »

Love Joel, and all his work.

I feel sad reading this because it is filled with the millennial optimism that DID improve the world in the early 10s in the wake of the financial crisis. We are in a different time, I think.

The core issues are that voting, donating, and protesting, do not "work" in effecting meaningful change for the average American on a timescale that is useful.

No amount of donating, voting, or protesting, or xyz will change this political vibe until there are real consequences for bad actors. Without this, this creates the dichotomy of "winners" and "suckers". When you are a sucker enough times, you don't want to play anymore. Noblesse obligee is for suckers. Voting is for suckers. Policy making? Suckers. Donating is for suckers. Working is for suckers.

When faced with extractionists, there is no building.

My savings is a megacorp's uncaptured/unallocated value. That is my only defense against the dark arts of our system, and it is at risk every day I am alive.

For my peers, they feel advancing their life goals (school, house, kids) has a non-zero possibility of blowing them up. This persistent insecurity is the result of decades of the American System. We can all look back at the last decades and see what outcomes look like for the average.

You see it and feel it at all levels, from local politics, to national politics.

You see it in tech, lord of the flies style corporatism is in vogue. It is expressed in people chasing promos, doing small scale company politics against their rivals, and doing absolutely unethical things while getting away with it. I have seen people who I thought were good people suddenly say and do ethically radioactive things to get ahead in their career. The trick is never getting caught, and always getting ahead.

If you raise your voice, everything you have worked for is at risk, if you're lucky, you're fired, if you're not, you're exiled from the industry.

I have optimism for America on the long term, but currently we have too many exploiters, a system that reacts too slowly / not effectively to those inputs, and seemingly no recourse due to the legal system not cleaning up. Note, normal is the guy at your coffee shop making you coffee, the person stocking shelves at your grocery, and the guy who fixes your car, not the "I sold my startup for 1B and I can't figure out my own life." guy.

As for me, early on my small surplus was blasted by one hospital bill due to flu (20k), and getting millstoned by college debt while working in academia. I recovered by going full megacorper, much to the chagrin of my old lab. No PhD meant always a pet and never a peer.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#159

Post by micromacrofoot »

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…

> If the 2024 vote didn’t represent everyone

I mean... is the definition of "everyone" really up for debate? 60% is only a little more than half

Re: Stay Gold, America

#160

Post by AnimalMuppet »

angoragoats wrote: post #131
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.

Even if there were a handful of fraudulent votes occurring with voting by mail (which I have yet to see a shred of evidence for), it allows many more people who can’t afford transportation, who work multiple jobs, or who otherwise can’t get to a polling place to vote, when they otherwise couldn’t. This is especially important in places like the south, where Republican-controlled governments have conducted widespread…

Between kids away at school, a friend who stayed with us for a time, and my invalid mother, my wife and I could have mail-in voted for six people last cycle. I mean, we literally had their ballots sitting on our kitchen counter. All we had to do was forge their signatures (which we didn't do).

Having to show an ID to a poll worker to get a ballot is a higher bar than signing something.

I mean, look, I get the arguments about mobility. My mother was not going to drive to a polling place. But it is also true that mail-in voting is more open to abuse and fraud by those who are inclined to do so.

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