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Bernie Sanders' 404 page

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Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#101

Post by pluma »

pilif wrote: post #78
Someone1234 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a natively speaker let me just confirm: English is a very inconsistent language, where rules just as often result in doing the wrong thing as they do the right. Many native speakers get the 's/'/s/ies thing wrong, as well as two/too/to, and so on. I feel bad for anyone learning this language.

> I feel bad for anyone learning this language. clearly you have never tried out German :-) As a German native speaker who generally has a lot of difficulty learning languages, I can assure you that English was a lot more feasible for me compared to anything else I tried. (Of course you'll find an error in this comment - that is bound to happen in any comment talking about language mistakes)

I've heard a nice explanation of the difference between learning English and learning German:

The rules of English are relatively simple but there are a ton of exceptions that take a long time to get right and will give it away you're not a native speaker.

German doesn't have as many exceptions so you can easily reach near-native levels of fluency once you know all the rules, but there are far more rules you need to be aware of (and even then you'll need to keep track of grammatical gender).

In other words, you can learn German by simply following all the rules and memorizing the vocabulary, but it's far easier to do for English (where you'll miss a ton of exceptions if you only do that).

Let's just say I'm happy I'm a native German speaker already -- I probably couldn't be bothered to become as fluent in it as I'm in English as a second language.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#102

Post by Yhippa »

acslater00 wrote: post #20
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

I'll bet we've got a lot of "political experts" but probably not that many political experts.

What exactly is a "political expert"?

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#103

Post by res0nat0r »

enraged_camel wrote: post #69
philwelch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't. Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Even he probably knows this and is only running to make a statement.

Sanders is a social democrat, not a socialist. The differences are nuanced but quite important. https://spfaust.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/socialism-vs-social...

That doesn't matter to most of America. They hear "socialist", "social something", and they are going to be against it.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#104

Post by voyou »

enraged_camel wrote: post #69
philwelch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't. Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Even he probably knows this and is only running to make a statement.

Sanders is a social democrat, not a socialist. The differences are nuanced but quite important. https://spfaust.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/socialism-vs-social...

Bernie Sanders is a socialist,[1] and social democracy is a type of socialism.[2] That blog you linked to is, at best, advocating a very idiosyncratic use of terminology.

1: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11... 2: http://www.britannica.com/topic/social-democracy

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#105

Post by Someone1234 »

jerf wrote: post #22
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

At this phase in the run, the punditariat is greatly, greatly more confident than the facts justify. I don't mean that specific to this year... I mean generically at this phase of the campaign. If the punditariat was correct at this phase, Hillary Clinton would not currently be able to run, because she'd be finishing out her second term, having defeated Rudy Guiliani in the 2008 campaign by a small but significant ma…

Sanders and Trump are doing well for similar reasons, they've both rejected the corruption which has become so commonplace in American politics. Trump is famously self-funded, and Sanders has a great grassroots campaign which has help keep him afloat. Neither has yet really resorted to corporate bribes.

That's why you're seeing them do so well with their own respective bases. While it is undeniable that the general public doesn't care about corporate bribery within politics, it is clear that enough people do to seriously bump the limited candidates that fight against it up in the polls.

Do I think either can win? I think, in theory, both could win their respective primary. But I also think that if either did win their respective primary then their "message" would be considered too extreme by the moderates which have the biggest swing vote in American elections, Republicans always vote Republican, Democrats always vote Democrat, it is the moderates that are the kingmakers.

So ultimately what I think will happen is that both will continue gaining in popularity, but when it comes right down to it, someone more "electable" will win the primary since neither party can afford to actually lose the presidency completely. That means maybe Hillary and Marco Rubio.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#106

Post by hyperbovine »

matwood wrote: post #100
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

I'm genuinely curious why you like him. I don't really understand the appeal because whenever I listen to him speak it is along the lines of 'we have people starving and oh we have millionaires.' Okay, great so what? Should we not have either? How does one fix the other? Anyways, I've been asking people who like him to really explain because I don't get it and often just see 'he speaks truth, you are an idiot if you…

He favors European style social democracy. His whole point is that there actually exist functioning countries where health care is universal and free, college is accessible to all, gay people have rights, etc etc., and that America could be one of those countries if we wanted to. Btw I learned this by spending five minutes last night reading about him and watching a short interview, so I think your comment gives him the short shrift.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#107

Post by r3bl »

pilif wrote: post #78
Someone1234 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a natively speaker let me just confirm: English is a very inconsistent language, where rules just as often result in doing the wrong thing as they do the right. Many native speakers get the 's/'/s/ies thing wrong, as well as two/too/to, and so on. I feel bad for anyone learning this language.

> I feel bad for anyone learning this language. clearly you have never tried out German :-) As a German native speaker who generally has a lot of difficulty learning languages, I can assure you that English was a lot more feasible for me compared to anything else I tried. (Of course you'll find an error in this comment - that is bound to happen in any comment talking about language mistakes)

In my experience, German was a piece of cake. Sure, it's a bit difficult at first, but pronunciation is easy once you figure it out and the grammar is not that hard.

Dutch, on the other hand... :)

I've been trying for five or six months now to pronounce 'Groningen' right, but I never succeeded. If there's one 'g' in a word, I can pronounce it. If there are two letters 'g' in one word, it's practically impossible for me.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#108

Post by amyjess »

philwelch wrote: post #21
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

He doesn't. Not even most of the Democratic base will vote for a white male socialist in his 70's over Hillary, and he has no chance of winning the general election even if he were nominated. Even he probably knows this and is only running to make a statement.

Sanders is going to end up like Ron Paul: he'll make a big splash on social media (well, he already did), but he'll crash and burn in the primaries.

There are actually a lot of similarities between Sanders and Paul: they made the splash they made for the same reason (they're honest politicians who put their values before the party line), and they'll crash and burn for the same reason (no support from party elites, most "supporters" are just people who share Facebook posts and don't vote).

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#109

Post by res0nat0r »

gerty wrote: post #89
pweissbrod wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking back to the 2012 election, the sentiment of reducing government/cutting taxes in this country is palpably strong. The word "socialist" itself gradually became established as an anti-american insult. Republicans worked hard to place this label on obama as an affront to american freedom reminiscent of communism. Bernie Sanders is a self-described socialist. His ideals dont align with the prevailing american va…

> His ideals dont align with the prevailing american values. That's not exactly true. I recall an article in the Washington Post explaining that his propositions are actually supported by majority of Americans. Sanders is not a real socialist, he's just a New Deal Democrat.

Most of America is for the ACA, but against Obamacare, it all depends on how you phrase the question.

The issue is that most of America isn't represented when it comes time to vote, only a small subset of people do, and those who do are not going to be voting for Sanders when it comes time to choose which Democrat to get behind.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#110

Post by littletimmy »

matwood wrote: post #100
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

I'm genuinely curious why you like him. I don't really understand the appeal because whenever I listen to him speak it is along the lines of 'we have people starving and oh we have millionaires.' Okay, great so what? Should we not have either? How does one fix the other? Anyways, I've been asking people who like him to really explain because I don't get it and often just see 'he speaks truth, you are an idiot if you…

One fixes the other through redistribution. Tax the billionaires, close tax loopholes, etc. Use that money for a fiscal stimulus, and also for public benefit.
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