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Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

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Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#191

Post by barney54 »

xyst wrote: post #34
andy_ppp wrote: post #5

I think rich people have too much influence, I probably agree with Garry Tan on a lot but we need to get money out of politics. Let’s face it we’re all meant to get one vote but rich people spend money on this stuff so that they manipulate what and who can be voted for. I do think that if this current system is the result of democracy + the internet we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s cur…

System is broken af. Politicians don’t want to reign in on campaign financing because it will hurt their own re-election and campaign fundraising. Republicans have bought/installed the SCOTUS which allowed for favorable decision in Citizens United v FEC. This corporation dominated landscape is quite awful. Corporations have more rights than woman right now.

Are you saving that an organization should be able to put together a documentary to criticize Trump and his supporters? Because that’s what Citizen’s United allowed. If you don’t support that, then the criticism will only come from rich individuals.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#192

Post by [deleted] »

supjeff wrote: post #122
andy_ppp wrote: post #5

I think rich people have too much influence, I probably agree with Garry Tan on a lot but we need to get money out of politics. Let’s face it we’re all meant to get one vote but rich people spend money on this stuff so that they manipulate what and who can be voted for. I do think that if this current system is the result of democracy + the internet we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s cur…

I agree with you, in spirit, but I think the true issue lies elsewhere. Rich people can spend money to influence elections, yes, but how can they do it? through political donations, super-pacs and bribes. Bribes are already illegal. political donations and super-pacs can give politicians the juice they need to get their messaging out, but getting the message across isn't enough to win an election. The people need to…

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#193

Post by toraway »

magicalist wrote: post #178
driverdan wrote: post #19

Every single article I looked at seems to be generated from a tweet. The latest is a blatant attempt at promoting one of YC's privacy invasive investments Flock: https://garryslist.org/posts/atlanta-solved-35-homicides-wit... That tells you all you need to know about how trustworthy the site is.

> The privacy absolutists will tell you that license plate cameras are “Orwellian.” But here’s what I know: unsolved crime means more innocent people get hurt and maimed and killed. Flock has audit trails. There’s accountability. The people who benefit from keeping murders unsolved aren’t victims—they’re criminals. jesus christ. assuming he's not going to start syndicating this, who is this even pandering to?

  The only question is whether your city has the courage to use it.

  Take Action

  Share this with your city officials—demand they adopt Flock Safety
Unless I missed it they don't even bother with the pretense of disclosing his financial self-interest in promoting Flock anywhere on the site.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#194

Post by chr1 »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #106
terminalshort wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you believe in democracy or not? And I do not mean this as a loaded question because the value of democracy is a legitimately arguable point. If the majority of Californians want caps on property tax, then I do not see a good argument that they should not get it that is also compatible with democracy.

If you put a question to the electorate like 'should we tax only people whose last name begins with an X, Y or Z?' , it's liable to pass. Nobody really advocates for Direct Democracy. It isn't viable: 'tyranny of the majority' etc. Most Western governments are Liberal Democracies - where some issues aren't subject to a vote - partly so that the mob can't persecute outnumbered subgroups.

If majority of people in a country want to persecute an outnumbered subgroup, then what prevents the majority of delegates wanting the same as well?

You have an implicit assumption that the delegates are going to be smarter and better people that are going to lie to the majority to get elected and then will valiantly protect the subgroup.

But that have not happened anywhere. In fact in every case it is the delegates who organize persecution of various subgroups, even in situations when the share of population truly wanting to persecute subgroup is far from being a majority.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#195

Post by kmeisthax »

terminalshort wrote: post #78
xyst wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

System is broken af. Politicians don’t want to reign in on campaign financing because it will hurt their own re-election and campaign fundraising. Republicans have bought/installed the SCOTUS which allowed for favorable decision in Citizens United v FEC. This corporation dominated landscape is quite awful. Corporations have more rights than woman right now.

Citizens United was the correct decision. I don't understand how you can legitimately restrict political activity. The constitution contains the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Why should certain groups of people not have this right? The constitution also contains the right to freedom of the press. Why should the government get to decide who gets to exercise this right?

Because democracy is "one person one vote", not "one dollar one vote".

Around the same time Citizens United was decided, we also got McCutcheon v. FEC, which invalidated campaign contribution limits basically completely. If we take the logic of Citizens United at its word - that money is speech - then letting someone drop billions of dollars to change an election is like firing a sonic weapon at a bunch of protesters to silence them. So, right off the bat, we have a situation where protecting the "speech" of the rich and powerful directly imperils the speech of everyone else.

But it gets worse. Because we got rid of campaign financing limitations, there has been an arms race with campaign funding that has made all speech completely, 100% pay-to-play. We have libre speech, but not gratis speech.

This isn't even a problem limited to merely political speech. Every large forum by which speech occurs expects you to buy advertising on their own platform now before you are heard. If you, say, sell a book on Amazon or post a video on TikTok, you're expected to buy ads for it on Amazon or TikTok. You are otherwise shut out of the system because discovery algorithms want you keep you in your own bubble and you're competing with lots and lots of spam.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#196

Post by femiagbabiaka »

terminalshort wrote: post #189
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. X is not, and has never been, "the press". 2. If you were to have categorized them this way previously, botting and pay-for-reach have made it definitely not that way now. 3. It is bad when any individual can shift the politics of the entire globe simply because they have enough money. Feel free to insert your most hated left-wing billionaire instead of Elon, I still believe the same thing.

[flagged]

> I believe this because it is his fundamental right as a citizen of the republic.

This is kind of exactly my point though. Citizen of what republic? Soros and Elon are both wealthier than most states and affect politics globally. They literally cannot be prosecuted, they are barely accountable to any legal bodies.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#197

Post by terminalshort »

Teever wrote: post #155
terminalshort wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Elon's editorial control of X something the government needs to (or even should have the power to) "reign in?" How is that not freedom of the press just like the owner of the New York Times having editorial control over his newspaper? Same goes for his donation to the PAC. What is the nefarious activity they are engaged in? Why are they not allowed to exercise their freedom of the press in the same way as any…

What's wrong with a sovereign nation taking steps to reduce or eliminate the influence of a non-citizen who they feel is acting against the best interests of that nation? If a nuclear capable country like France decides that someone like Elon Musk is acting against the best interests of their country they can ask him nicely to stop and if he continues they can use force to reduce the perceived threat. This all seems…

He is a citizen of the US and has full political rights. There is only one legal distinction between a foreign born citizen and a natural born citizen and that is that he can't serve as president. France is absolutely capable of using force against Elon Musk up to and including their nuclear arsenal. However, they would need to decide whether it is worse for their interests to tolerate Elon or to detonate a nuke on US soil, and that's a pretty easy choice.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#198

Post by dmoy »

a_t48 wrote: post #163
w4yai wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. It has actually been scientifically proven otherwise in crowd theory : with the right setup, the crowd is more effective to take a good decision that the top1 best decision maker. Exemple : a crowd playing chess may beat the top1 chess player, even though the crowd individually cannot beat him.

A crowd playing chess can absolutely not beat a top chess player.

Yea in fact this thing has been done before multiple times as exhibitions (Kasparov vs 50k, Carlsen vs 132k, etc).

And yea, no surprise, the masses do not win. Even when in the latter case, a huge chunk of the 132k was obviously using stockfish cranked to the gills (though the did get a draw out of it?).

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#199

Post by fainpul »

andy_ppp wrote: post #5

I think rich people have too much influence, I probably agree with Garry Tan on a lot but we need to get money out of politics. Let’s face it we’re all meant to get one vote but rich people spend money on this stuff so that they manipulate what and who can be voted for. I do think that if this current system is the result of democracy + the internet we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s cur…

Every "democracy" I know, has become a plutocracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#200

Post by smashah »

techbro92 wrote: post #64
Computer0 wrote: post #26

[flagged]

This reads as completely schizophrenic

You must know nothing about Garry Tan. Actually OPs, rant is quite reasonable.

Garry Tan aligns himself with Genociders and genocide supporters.

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