Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#31

Post by denzil_correa »

M_Grey wrote: post #4
ythl wrote: post #2

I remember the last Thiel thread was a holy war filled with people who thought outspoken Trump supporters should lose their careers on grounds of bigotry and hate speech propagation (citing https://xkcd.com/1357/ among other things). Revisiting that thread with the knowledge that Trump would win and that Trump supporters were not some vocal minority is sobering.

Look at the numbers; they're still a vocal minority, they're just ones who vote as a bloc and have the geographic advantage. Trump got less than Romney after all. The real story is that with more than half of the country sitting out the voting process, the winner is always going to be decided by a "vocal minority".

> the winner is always going to be decided by a "vocal minority".

I hope, this is taken note. The job of a representative democracy is to get a representative. We could just use the concept of sortition - randomly sampled voters.

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

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#32

Post by ythl »

zecho wrote: post #23
problems wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you think ~half of the country is so horribly racist or sexist they should lose their jobs on grounds of bigotry and hate speech you've got bigger problems than the ability to do math. People just want change and Trump's offering more than just discrimination, he did well amongst white women and beat Romney's numbers with many non-white demographic groups. He might not be my first choice, but I won't discredit…

lol I never said that. I said people who work in computer science who say that <50% is a majority have a serious problem with math and should look for work elsewhere given the nature of our field.

The popular vote margin is razor thin and votes are still trickling in.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#33

Post by ythl »

zecho wrote: post #6
ythl wrote: post #2

I remember the last Thiel thread was a holy war filled with people who thought outspoken Trump supporters should lose their careers on grounds of bigotry and hate speech propagation (citing https://xkcd.com/1357/ among other things). Revisiting that thread with the knowledge that Trump would win and that Trump supporters were not some vocal minority is sobering.

Psst. 59,704,886 If you can't do basic arithmetic, you should lose your career in this field, imo.

By that logic Clinton's supporters are a minority too. After all,

59,938,290 < 59,704,886 + 4,072,835 + 1,218,065 + 804,228

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#35

Post by M_Grey »

sodafountan wrote: post #22
M_Grey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the numbers; they're still a vocal minority, they're just ones who vote as a bloc and have the geographic advantage. Trump got less than Romney after all. The real story is that with more than half of the country sitting out the voting process, the winner is always going to be decided by a "vocal minority".

As it should be, if you're not passionate enough to get to the polls and stand in line for a few minutes then you shouldn't have a voice in the election.

I'm not sure that being ruled by the most passionate is actually that effective. It seems to me that passion and a lack of intelligence seem strongly correlated. It's easy to work someone who can't see the broader picture, up into a frenzy than it is to convince people with complicated and diverse views into that same frenzy. It is frankly, why the Republican party could toe the same line for decades, echo that on radio stations and TV chat shows, and consistently whip their base into a frenzy over a predictable handful of issues. By contrast Democrats had to appeal to a fundamentally more diverse base with a similarly diverse set of issues, less open to sloganeering.

There is an essential asymmetry when you value passion over knowledge of the issues, intelligence, and education.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#36

Post by mrep »

muninn_ wrote: post #16
mrep wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real story is that with more than half of the country sitting out the voting process Are you surprised by that? Properly voting costs a lot of money. I spent hours researching my options and another hour just walking to and from the voting dropoff location. When you add up all the time it takes to research an election and vote, multiply that by your personal time value of money, multiply that by the probability…

"multiply that by the probability that it will change the election and then multiply it by the benefit of having 1 candidate over the other on your personal economic outlook" No you can't just loop that in there. The cost of walking to and from the polling location, fine, but these kinds of costs are the costs you have to pay to live in a democracy. I waited in line for over an hour before work. If I extrapolate my s…

> but these kinds of costs are the costs you have to pay to live in a democracy

Not really, we could randomly choose a few thousand people to vote and it would be practically just as effective without all the costs of having everyone vote. Better yet, you would probably get a better sample of the population too since it would not be biased towards people who normally vote.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#37

Post by M_Grey »

mrep wrote: post #36
muninn_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"multiply that by the probability that it will change the election and then multiply it by the benefit of having 1 candidate over the other on your personal economic outlook" No you can't just loop that in there. The cost of walking to and from the polling location, fine, but these kinds of costs are the costs you have to pay to live in a democracy. I waited in line for over an hour before work. If I extrapolate my s…

> but these kinds of costs are the costs you have to pay to live in a democracy Not really, we could randomly choose a few thousand people to vote and it would be practically just as effective without all the costs of having everyone vote. Better yet, you would probably get a better sample of the population too since it would not be biased towards people who normally vote.

You'd need perfect security... I mean perfect, or that would be a trivially easy system to control. The irony that the government subject to such a process would be needed to ensure the sanctity of that process should not be lost on you.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#38

Post by gjm11 »

muninn_ wrote: post #29
problems wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a good response, except you can still live in a democracy without voting. You're just accepting that generally a plurality of the voting population will make a reasonable decision rather than saying you need to take part in that yourself every time.

I'm not sure how this is related to the cost/benefit of voting? Yes you can not vote and still live here. And? (I'm not trying to be argumentative, just don't understand).

I think it's a reply to your description of voting as one of "the costs you have to pay to live in a democracy". You don't, strictly, have to pay that cost.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#39

Post by mrep »

M_Grey wrote: post #37
mrep wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but these kinds of costs are the costs you have to pay to live in a democracy Not really, we could randomly choose a few thousand people to vote and it would be practically just as effective without all the costs of having everyone vote. Better yet, you would probably get a better sample of the population too since it would not be biased towards people who normally vote.

You'd need perfect security... I mean perfect, or that would be a trivially easy system to control. The irony that the government subject to such a process would be needed to ensure the sanctity of that process should not be lost on you.

True, but our current system is more like security through size in that we hope the sheer number of votes drowns out voter fraud.

They both have problems and I'm not saying one is totally better than the other.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Pays Off

#40

Post by M_Grey »

gjm11 wrote: post #38
muninn_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this is related to the cost/benefit of voting? Yes you can not vote and still live here. And? (I'm not trying to be argumentative, just don't understand).

I think it's a reply to your description of voting as one of "the costs you have to pay to live in a democracy". You don't, strictly, have to pay that cost.

Have you seen Trump's EPA pick? We're all going to pay one way or another.
Post reply on HN