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Stay Gold, America

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: Stay Gold, America

#191

Post by singlepaynews »

My worldview was challenged by linked Wikipedia page re: The American Dream, specifically this quote:

“ a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life.[2] … different meanings over time. Originally, the emphasis was on democracy, liberty and equality, but more recently has been on achieving material wealth and upward mobility.[4]”

It seems like the article—and many of popular complaints (including mine)—are primarily grappling with the lack of upward mobility. Versus the older meaning, “democracy, liberty and equality”, which IMO would be a much more severe loss.

An argument could be made that loss of material equality threatens access to democracy and liberty, but imo the article—and charity recommendations-are focused on bandaids, where the [Citizens United](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) decision is the known mechanism by which inequality threatens democracy and liberty.

When/if I think of a corporation as a legitimate group of citizens, (much less dissonance when I think of a labor union this way), I wonder if the democracy and liberty are better protected by allowing inequality to be weaponized against the government. The “fact” that weaponizing inequality against the government is the effect of Citizen’s United remains unchanged?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#192

Post by watwut »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #105
watwut wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We have systematically annihilated the traditional alternative sources of community that would put people in contact with local, on-the-ground politics. Individuals, left isolated, often end up participating in a bastardized facade of politics built on media consumption. If you want to improve this you have to address the systems creating the isolation. If it’s not people who study policy as a hobby, then who ought t…

Pretty much everyone who wants to and is old enough for it. That would include people who have families they spend time to, friends they priorities and who have variety of hobbies and jobs.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#193

Post by coryfklein »

> We are a democracy, but 144 million Americans – 42% of the adults who live here – do not vote and have no say in what happens.

Why do we worry so much about voter turnout? A 58% voter turnout is a statistically significant sampling of the population; aren't we getting a pretty accurate measurement of the actual vote with that high of voter turnout?

Now if voter turnout is skewed, then that's a problem worth talking about. But with how much time and effort it takes to vote, it seems like such a waste of time with how we do it today.

We could get the same results with much less effort if we made it work like jury duty; at each election we select 10% of the population at random and it's their job to actually do the research and go to the work of voting (research candidates, wait 3 hours at the ballot box, etc), and the remaining 90% of us get to go watch a movie or something that day.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#194

Post by coryfklein »

JeremyNT wrote: post #175
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…

Right, this system of government is obviously not working very well at representing the will of the people currently, nor has it ever. You can debate why turnout is so low in this country for something so high stakes. The obvious things to reach for are the electoral college (where votes simply don't matter unless you live in a swing state) and the two party "system" (where you have to vote for an omnibus which will…

> You can debate why turnout is so low in this country for something so high stakes.

Maybe because statistically speaking your individual vote does not in fact matter? And that's a principle that applies equally to the left/right. For every marginal non-voter in your preferred party you get to vote, there's a marginal non-voter in the opposite party that somebody else is trying to get out to vote.

Put another way, we could intentionally reduce the sample size and mandate that only 33% of adults vote in any given election, and we'd reduce the statistical confidence in the election result very little.

Any given individual's singular vote (which is likely nullified by the marginal person in the opposite party) just has so little impact compared to Atwood's $8m political contribution that it's a rounding error.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#195

Post by coryfklein »

disambiguation wrote: post #168
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…

On top of that, swing state turn out was like 70%. Goes to show more people turn up when their vote could make a difference.

I wonder how much real difference you get in the statistical sampling margin of error when going from 58% to 70%. How much accuracy does that buy in the election outcome for the extra time that additional 12% of the population spent?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#196

Post by micromacrofoot »

jongjong wrote: post #134
jbaber wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is his alternative?

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…

How about UBI? give everyone enough help to live and everything else you do is a bonus

Re: Stay Gold, America

#197

Post by pas »

euroderf wrote: post #178
JeremyNT wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this system of government is obviously not working very well at representing the will of the people currently, nor has it ever. You can debate why turnout is so low in this country for something so high stakes. The obvious things to reach for are the electoral college (where votes simply don't matter unless you live in a swing state) and the two party "system" (where you have to vote for an omnibus which will…

> The only people this seems to work for consistently are the wealthy. Well, that's because they know how to invest wisely in lawmakers. Fabulous ROI.

meh, not really.

maybe it's good when you are at that level. Jeff and Elon both spent a ridiculous amount, but arguably smart money like the Koch brothers are just making nice influence campaigns with a lot less, and of course the same goes for state-level actors.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...

Re: Stay Gold, America

#198

Post by JeremyNT »

coryfklein wrote: post #193

> We are a democracy, but 144 million Americans – 42% of the adults who live here – do not vote and have no say in what happens. Why do we worry so much about voter turnout? A 58% voter turnout is a statistically significant sampling of the population; aren't we getting a pretty accurate measurement of the actual vote with that high of voter turnout? Now if voter turnout is skewed , then that's a problem worth talkin…

> A 58% voter turnout is a statistically significant sampling of the population

Voters are not randomly sampled so this is impossible to state due to selection bias. If a plurality of potential voters are saying "none of the above" when asked to vote, that itself is a noteworthy signal.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#199

Post by angoragoats »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #160
angoragoats wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 argumen…

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

I agree, but it's also true that 1) strict ID requirements inconvenience poor and other disadvantaged people the most, and 2) there have been multiple studies on the effectiveness of voter ID laws which have found them to have little impact on voter fraud.

Additionally, if my data is correct, only 11 US states have strict voter ID requirements. This means that for a majority of Americans, an apples to apples comparison would be "signing a ballot" vs. "giving a poll worker your name/address." Of those two options, I would argue that signing something is actually a higher bar than giving your name to a poll worker, because it could later be more reliably verified to be fraud, if necessary.

So, I don't accept that mail-in ballots are "the most open to abuse."

Re: Stay Gold, America

#200

Post by geraldwhen »

dijit wrote: post #38
geraldwhen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Since this is illegal in most western democracies, I would have told the police if I had witnessed this. In fact, in the UK the polling staff are told that they need to assess the competence of the person voting ahead of time and that the person voting must do so alone and without duress, else they should not permit the vote to be accepted. https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/... > You’ll talk…

In the US I suspect it’s common. In states with mail in voting, I suspect the fraud is even worse.

Yes a real person voted. But no they did not have any clue what they were doing when they did.

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