Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau • Hacker News Board

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#161

Post by somenameforme » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #148

deaux wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zer…

You are saying the candidates are forced on us by someone else. But that's just wrong, we choose the candidates. Anybody can run, there is no secret cabal that decides who can run and who can't.

You do know the former head of the DNC was forced to retire after the leaked emails outed her, and basically all of the top of the DNC, extensively conspiring against Sanders in favor of Clinton? [1] You're right the cabal isn't secret - it's literally the DNC, and who they want to win is who will win, one way or the other. Just reading over that source - it's insane how blatant these people can be:

"In May 2016, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski accused the DNC of bias against the Sanders campaign and called on Wasserman Schultz to step down. Wasserman Schultz was upset at the negative media coverage of her actions, and she emailed the political director of NBC News, Chuck Todd, that such coverage of her "must stop". Describing the coverage as the "LAST straw", she ordered the DNC's communications director to call MSNBC president Phil Griffin to demand an apology from Brzezinski."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi...

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#162

Post by hristov » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #105

I think it should be noted that there was a lot of dissatisfaction from users of the census data as far as I know. So it's not been banned just for politicals sake or because they hate privacy... Some people I talked to in the privacy field even called the whole thing a total disaster and weren't shy to put blame on John Abowd who apparently pushed this through despite a lot of internal opposition and concerns. Not s…

Of course there will be dissatisfaction from users of the data. Anyone that wants to use census data will prefer less privacy in the data. And anytime privacy is enforced the data becomes less useful. It would be certainly very convenient for both advertisers and gerrymandering political consultants to have detailed data on every citizen.

As the article says anytime you want to enforce privacy, the data becomes somewhat less useful, there is just no way around that.

The point of rights is that we have them and that they should not be trampled upon when they become slightly inconvenient to someone in power.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#163

Post by patrick451 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

YeahThisIsMe wrote: post #154

estearum wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting and getting everyone you know to vote

The people in power now are doing everything they can to make that as hard as possible by any means necessary. Good luck.

No, they are doing everything they can to ensure that only the people who are legally allowed to vote are the ones voting.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#164

Post by gs17 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

deaux wrote: post #138

p-e-w wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. Clearly this isn’t the answer. And neither is protesting, considering that 4 of the 5 largest demonstrations in US history happened in the past 10 years and achieved nothing.

> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zer…

> The whole idea of "third-party voting is a complete waste in the US" is incredibly dumb because a vote for someone who loses isn't a wasted vote.

Yes, but with a caveat, if you had a strong preference between the top two actually-likely-to-win candidates (assuming the third party wasn't competitive), it's at least not voting the most in your interests for the outcome. Which is why we really need approval voting, so we can actually vote for the candidates we like, rather than needing to "strategically" hold our noses.

But I agree with the rest of it, if none of the candidates represent you, the third-party vote at least allows you to send a signal of "I vote, but you need to make me want to vote for you, and this is what I want".

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#165

Post by gambiting » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

Bratmon wrote: post #94

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #50

Coming from a certain european country, you never know what answer on the census might get you into trouble. "What is your religious affiliation". Seems perfectly innocuous, but turned out to be retroactively fatal if your answer could be attributed to you by a certain foreign occupier in the 1940s .

Surely any such foreign occupier would just demand the unredacted data?

Yes, which is why the government shouldn't have this data at all in the first place.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#166

Post by gs17 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #148

deaux wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zer…

You are saying the candidates are forced on us by someone else. But that's just wrong, we choose the candidates. Anybody can run, there is no secret cabal that decides who can run and who can't.

The ideal is that anyone can run, but it's not that easy to just start an independent campaign that has a decent chance of winning. Local races are the most realistic "anyone can run" arena, but once you need a lot of travel and logistics in a large region, you either need a lot of your own resources or the support of an existing large political organization.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#167

Post by kgwxd » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

deaux wrote: post #138

p-e-w wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. Clearly this isn’t the answer. And neither is protesting, considering that 4 of the 5 largest demonstrations in US history happened in the past 10 years and achieved nothing.

> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zer…

> Every time I've explained this I've gotten instantly downvoted

Because it's dumb. People don't want to hear dumb ideas, or take the time to try and convince someone that would spend however long it took to type that, apparently multiple times, without realizing it. Throwing away votes will never be the reasonable thing to do. I know you don't want to hear that, because it's too painful for you to admit there's no simple answer.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#168

Post by dualvariable » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

deaux wrote: post #138

p-e-w wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. Clearly this isn’t the answer. And neither is protesting, considering that 4 of the 5 largest demonstrations in US history happened in the past 10 years and achieved nothing.

> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zer…

> The whole idea of "third-party voting is a complete waste in the US" is incredibly dumb because a vote for someone who loses isn't a wasted vote. It shows the others that there's a voter there who can be convinced if catered to, if they select a better candidate.

Tried that in 2000, voting for Nader as a protest vote against Clinton/Gore third way neoliberalism. I did that in a state where the electoral votes for Dems were 100% safe. Still just got blamed for Bush and there was zero self-reflection on the part of the Democratic Party.

...

I would urge everyone to stop fixating on the Presidential vote as the only fight to win and everything being win/lose based on that outcome. If the Congressional Progressive Caucus in the House exceeds 50% of Democrats in the House, then we can start thinking about a world where e.g. AOC might be the speaker of the House rather than Nancy Pelosi.

> It's a symptom of the terminal disease which has infected all layers of American society and has gotten it to where it's at: short-termism. Everyone just looks at the next quarter, the next election.

Yeah, and the Office of the President is 4-8 years and is just more short-termism, along with individualism / cult of personality / CEO-leadership. If you want to make lasting change in the DNC, start by flipping more and more House seats to progressive from neoliberal.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#169

Post by ipaddr » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #148

deaux wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zer…

You are saying the candidates are forced on us by someone else. But that's just wrong, we choose the candidates. Anybody can run, there is no secret cabal that decides who can run and who can't.

Didn't happen last year when Kamila was selected by the leaders.

But in normal years candidates are successful because of the amount of money they can raise. The more they can raise the more brainwashing ads they can buy. The non so secret cabal is the donor class.

Anyone can run? You must meet requirements on age and how long you have lived in the US. You must pay fees and provide signatures for each state. If doing it through a party you have to meet their rules.

Cost to get on most states ballots at a basic level is a million. You could do it for free if you dont want to appear on any ballots.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#170

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #111

estearum wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting and getting everyone you know to vote

Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. Clearly this isn’t the answer. And neither is protesting, considering that 4 of the 5 largest demonstrations in US history happened in the past 10 years and achieved nothing.

[deleted]