Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's 2016
what compels someone to downvote this?
It's not clear what point you're making and it doesn't seem to add much to the conversation.
Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
191–200 of 234 posts
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#192Why do I have to be "for" or "against" anything? Why can't people evaluate the evidence and THEN decide?!? It feels like these sorts of things make polarization worse.
The tool seems to be intended for those who are already polarized and don't have much interaction with those on the other side.
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#193Seems to be no "ambivalent" option on Mest :(
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#194While I think that tech tools like this have the potential to be great, so far I think technology has made the problem worse. My conclusion from my recent experiences over the last year or so with the election and before (and volunteering/organizing volunteers therefor) is that people don't just need to communicate, we need to interact, and my observation is that this needs to happen (or at the very least works best)…
> so far I think technology has made the problem worse I think this statement is completely untrue. Compare to how people were divided around the world a hundred years ago. Technology has gathered people together, but it also makes differences clearer to see.
Through technology, groups of people have gathered together virtually. I think this is to the detriment of improved relationships between people physically, geographically closer together. The internet lets would-be community-builders act as if geography doesn't matter. But it does.
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is stupid. One side is saying "we want to get rid of all the immigrants." My disagreement with that is not a communication problem, it's that that position is a red line. There's no chance of me being convinced that forcibly removing immigrants is a good idea. So why even have the conversation? What good could that possibly do?
I've had what I thought were pretty constructive and interesting conversations about this topic right here on Hacker News. Maybe you could talk about smaller and more specific aspects of the issue with people, like * How has present-day opposition to immigration in the U.S. developed? Was there always strong anti-immigrant sentiment in this country? How were immigrants viewed in different eras? Were parts of those vi…
And if this were a normal election we would have time for genteel debate about this subject, but currently, the President-elect is preparing a plan to send armed paramilitary troops into neighborhoods like mine to try to forcibly remove 11 million people. So those are all real cute cocktail party questions and all but all of them are meaningless until I can answer the question of how can I prevent the promised onslaught of violence in communities like mine? How do I keep my friends and neighbors safe? How do we keep families together? It's pretty unseemly to be asking abstract, philosophical questions about immigration generally when, across the street, armed goons with assault rifles are physically separating families from each other and dragging people off to detention centers.
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's 2016
What a horrible place 2016 is. The JavaScript is uncompressed and has 6 columns of comment characters on every line. There's really no excuse. This site did not even need JavaScript.
> 6 columns of comment characters on every line
The reinvention of COBOL?
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#197Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for mentioning Instant Runoff Voting. I've been trying to get anyone IRL to have any interest in it at all. Even the third party nerds weren't interested even though it'd benefit them.
IRV is better but not perfect. If third parties actually start to become viable, then they would start to steal first votes away from the moderate parties. Eventually they would steal enough votes to cause them to be eliminated. So you are still better off selecting the two major parties as your first vote, even if you don't really like them. If you have full tactical voting, it ends up exactly the same as plurality…
> If third parties actually start to become viable, then they would start to steal first votes away from the moderate parties.
Unless I misunderstand IRV, there is no "vote stealing" due to your vote automatically dropping off to your next-preferred candidate.
> Eventually they would steal enough votes to cause them to be eliminated.
I assume by "them" you're referring to a (previous) major party. In that case, I don't see an issue at all. This will simply mean that the voters get better options and the top two parties will be pulled more towards the median at threat of being surpassed by a third party.
> And you get only 2 viable parties.
This either contradicts the first point or is completely meaningless. Of course there will be two top parties by definition for any specific election. However, IRV allows voters who align themselves more with a particular third party to show their support for that party without possibly spoiling their next favorite candidate and resulting in one they oppose winning.
I looked at your link, and I'm unconvinced by this argument that IRV is no better than FPTP:
> A lot of voters will, in an election like Bush v Gore v Nader 2000, exaggerate their good and bad opinions of Bush and Gore by artificially ranking them first and last, even if they truly feel the third-party candidate Nader is best or worst. They will do this in order to give their vote the "maximum possible impact" so it is not "wasted". Once they make this decision, in IRV, Nader automatically has to go in the middle slot, they have no choice about him. If all voters behave this way, then automatically the winner will be either Bush or Gore. Nader can never win an IRV election with this kind of strategic voters.
This seems to assume that voters will not understand how the system works. What reason would voters have to rank Gore over Nader when there is no risk of spoiling anything and having the candidate farthest from them win? It's not like the ranks are worth more or anything. I can't think of any situation where putting Gore over Nader would result in "maximum possible impact" compared to the opposite ranking. This whole argument just seems very silly and misleading.
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which side is saying they want to get rid of all immigrants?
Donald Trump's side. Trump has repeatedly said he wants to remove all 11 million undocumented men, women, and children, by force if necessary. And that means more armed paramilitary shock troops in U.S. cities, more families held in immigrant detention centers, more children being condemned to violence and deprivation in countries they've never known, college students getting torn away from nearly-finished educations…
You're being disingenuous by equating illegal immigrants with all immigrants - he never said he wanted to get rid of all immigrants. Those illegal immigrants are and were already breaking the law by the way, so his (apparent) intention is merely to enforce it more thoroughly. You knew this. When you engage in dishonest behaviour to prevent any form of concession, then indeed there is no point in conversation.
Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with
#200Your bundle.js file is 4.4MB and took 30 seconds to load (given several attempts). I would consider getting that under control, at the very least gzip the file.
Good lord you're right. The question on the landing page should be "are you for/against massive over engineering of client side apps?"