You get the politicians you vote for. If you hate this, vote for the other candidate next time you get a chance. People voting in corrupt, captured incumbents because they don't want to 'waste their vote', or because they only vote along party lines, is the reason this stuff keeps happening. You could count on the courts, but ultimately you have a responsibility as a voter and can only pass the buck for so long.
Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
131–140 of 176 posts
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it’s really about identifying rules that are anti majoritarian. You say this as if anti majoritarian is a bug. It's not. It's a feature. The US system is supposed to prevent tyranny of the majority. That's why there are checks and balances in it. That's why the Constitution limits the powers of the branches of government, and why further limits were put in place in the Bill of Rights. The US system is not supposed…
There were a whole lot of things in the US system of government that were put there on purpose but have turned out to definitely be bad. The fact that an element is a "feature" doesn't mean it didn't turn out to be a bad idea, in practice. If a tiny minority of rich people & companies can leverage our "anti-tyranny-of-the-majority" features so well that their use of it is practically the only use... that's broken. "I…
> There were a whole lot of things in the US system of government that were put there on purpose but have turned out to definitely be bad.
I don't agree that there were "a whole lot", but yes, some of the original features were bad. The founders knew they couldn't avoid that, which is why they included an amendment process. Which has been used to fix a number of the original features that turned out to be bad.
I also don't agree that the brokenness in the current US system is due to too much use of anti-majoritarian features. I think it's due to too little use of such features. (Well, that and simply ignoring the Constitution altogether when it is politically expedient.)
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#133What the word for a government system where large businesses write the laws?
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it’s really about identifying rules that are anti majoritarian. You say this as if anti majoritarian is a bug. It's not. It's a feature. The US system is supposed to prevent tyranny of the majority. That's why there are checks and balances in it. That's why the Constitution limits the powers of the branches of government, and why further limits were put in place in the Bill of Rights. The US system is not supposed…
> It's supposed to be a tool for protecting everyone's basic rights and limiting government to certain particular functions, not to allow it to do whatever a 51% majority wants. That was the original idea of the founders of the US system. The US Senate process to force an end to (previously unlimited) debate on an issue and hold a vote on the matter is not a feature put in place by the Constitution. It's a rule put i…
> This is literally how the Constitution specifies that the legislature will operate.
Yes, it is: each house of Congress is explicitly permitted to set its own rules of procedure. That is obviously not an anti-majoritarian feature of the Constitution. I didn't say every single provision in the Constitution was anti-majoritarian, or that the founders did a perfect job of implementing their ideas.
> The Senate sets it's own rules, by majority vote. This is how the "nuclear option" to change the Filibuster rule was recently implemented.
And also, of course, how the filibuster rule was put in place in the first place.
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#135You get the politicians you vote for. If you hate this, vote for the other candidate next time you get a chance. People voting in corrupt, captured incumbents because they don't want to 'waste their vote', or because they only vote along party lines, is the reason this stuff keeps happening. You could count on the courts, but ultimately you have a responsibility as a voter and can only pass the buck for so long.
>If you hate this, vote for the other candidate next time you get a chance.
More like if you hate this, run for office yourself or get heavily involved in local politics and make sure someone worthwhile is running in the primaries for your chosen political party. Unfortunately without heavy local involvement by citizens who understand and care about the issues the process gets taken over by political machines and corporate money, just like Congress. Then you end up with a choice between (aside from mostly inconsequential culture war issues) two mostly indistinguishable establishment stooges to choose between in the general election.
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean it’s really about identifying rules that are anti majoritarian. On the federal level, the filibuster is an obvious example of a an anti majoritarian rule that creates perverse incentives. Going deeper, the way that the individual houses are structured gives significant power to committee chairs who gain power through seniority and fundraising for their parties, which creates centralized points of leverage for…
> it’s really about identifying rules that are anti majoritarian. You say this as if anti majoritarian is a bug. It's not. It's a feature. The US system is supposed to prevent tyranny of the majority. That's why there are checks and balances in it. That's why the Constitution limits the powers of the branches of government, and why further limits were put in place in the Bill of Rights. The US system is not supposed…
Appeals to authority of dead people’s political documents is propaganda.
Just because we can invoke historical story does not mean we abide it today.
The majority inherently rules whether it’s US Constitution or the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Not really sure how you get to a system of material comfort and logistics we have without majority buy in to not fight and kill.
I wish people would realize how silly they sound reciting the dead peoples chants when the literal world clearly shows majority rule is not so bad literally. For whatever reason quite a few folks prefer to fight over which vain elders hallucinations and diatribes are the one true social system when the reality is providing real stuff to survive is all society really is about.
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#137We can blame big tech (or economic elites more generally) for prioritising their financial gain (hence what they can claim from the rest of society) over e.g., ther sustainability and welfare of the very same society on which they lay these claims. We can blame captured politicians for listening to powerful yet minority interests over the interests of the very people who appointed them to these roles. We can blame ci…
Most of the readers on HN are big tech.
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#138Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. I mean if you really wanted to get futuristic about it you could even have a sort of crypto sortition where everyone is completely anonymous and representatives don't even know each others identity.
> Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. A jury also gets to hear arguments from both the prosecution and the defense. For complex trials this can last weeks/months. Presumably for the "jury" legislature that you propose, you'd want lobbyists/bureaucrats to plead their case. How do you prevent them from being ho…
I should have been more precise. I don't have an issue with public information being accessible, in fact that's kind of necessary for any democratic deliberation. What I think is relevant is nothing going out. A lobbyist making their case openly to the public is fine, that's just speech essentially, although you can have a different discussion about the media around it.
But the important benefit of an anonymous sortition in particular to me is that there is no connection between individuals and lobbyists. You cannot trade personal favours down the line. The pernicious part to me is when the guy who regulates the arms industry gets a board seat ten years later.
Essentially what I think of as ideal is a sort of black box. Uncorrelated, impersonal, representative and random snapshot of the public opinion on an issue. Transparency is I think the worst celebrated value because it opens decision makers up for capture. If the policies are still braindead afterwards, well I think then we're democratically at our wits' end.
Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. I mean if you really wanted to get futuristic about it you could even have a sort of crypto sortition where everyone is completely anonymous and representatives don't even know each others identity.
> Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. A jury also gets to hear arguments from both the prosecution and the defense. For complex trials this can last weeks/months. Presumably for the "jury" legislature that you propose, you'd want lobbyists/bureaucrats to plead their case. How do you prevent them from being ho…
thats a good point
probably there would have to many kinds of concurrent reforms and adjustments to make something like that work...
some type of lobbying reform would have to take place, as well as some kind of basic reasoning/education tests for sortition... also perhaps candidates could be picked by sortition but you'd have to get a winning vote by a majority of people etc... i wonder if there are any studies/books about this kind of thing