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Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

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Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#351

Post by throwaway-blaze »

refulgentis wrote: post #111
bpodgursky wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If rich techies had too much influence in California, the state government would not look like what it does. I mean I just don't see how you get to this opinion after any real review of the evidence.

> I mean I just don't see how you get to this opinion after any real review of the evidence. Graybeard here: took me a while to get it, but, usually these are chances to elucidate what is obvious to you :)* ex. I don't really know what you mean. What does the California state government look like if rich techies had even more influence? I can construct a facile version (lower taxes**) but assuredly you mean more than…

There's simply no way to look at the governing going on in California and think this is what the tech industry or movie industry or (formerly) oil industry wants for one of its traditional homes.

The government there has suffered since it went to basically one-party rule. There's no counterbalance for any bad policy ideas.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#352

Post by asdff »

zozbot234 wrote: post #201
asdff wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 wouldn't lead to those incentives if property prices didn't increase so aggressively. Once again comes back to zoning as the root cause. Is prop 13 bad? Only in the face of inappropriate zoned capacity, it seems. Which begs the question of what prop 13 removal would even do in such a situation? Zoning capacity isn't changing so prices will still go up beyond what is affordable for the median worker. The only…

Property prices are increasing so aggressively because assessed property taxes are low and people are significantly deterred from selling.

No they are increasing because of job growth and restrictive zoning.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#353

Post by toraway »

josefresco wrote: post #328
echelon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Garry Tan, the local venture capitalist who has for years railed against progressive politicians on social media You mean Garry, who has protested the dumbing down of schools? Garry, who protests removing math from the curriculum? He's "railed against progressive politicians" by supporting education and high achievement? You know China and Asia are laughing at us, right? They do schooling right. We are so backwards…

So are Elon, JPMorgan Chase and IBM "anti-education"? From the article you linked: “I think the value of a college education is somewhat overweighted,” Musk said in a video he later reposted on X. “Too many people spend four years, accumulate a ton of debt, and often don’t have useful skills that they can apply afterwards.” And because some young people have already caught on—and begun exploring alternative education…

It's certainly ... convenient that any criticism of a wealthy tech oligarch can be dismissed as "anti-education" as a rhetorical cudgel. It's not like others may actually have problems with say, his actual beliefs, the specific methods Tan uses to "promote" education (attacking school teachers/etc), further concentration of power to SV billionaires, etc.

And as you say, somewhat comical to lob that accusation given the current crop of tech oligarchs are firmly aligned with a overtly intellectual/anti-education movement on the right and are systematically working to dismantle higher education at this very moment.

As an aside, there has been a crazy amount of (brigaded?) flagging/downvoting of comments critical of Tan in this thread. Each time I check back I see fairly anodyne comments go back and forth from grey, with a few eventually nuked by flagging). Can't think of a similar recent example of an HN thread with the same patterns even with highly charged/controversial topics.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#354

Post by chr1 »

f30e3dfed1c9 wrote: post #350
chr1 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good question, for instance for most of its republican period Rome did not have secret ballot, and voting was open. That have changed in 138BC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_laws_of_the_Roman_Repub... and have caused major instability, political violence and eventually demise of the republic. The issue was that the poor people could vote for Gracchi brothers, but were too afraid to protect them, a…

Gosh, you make it sound like the near-universal use of secret ballots is all just some sort of misunderstanding that could be rectified if only everyone would listen to you. Tilt away if that's your favorite windmill, I guess.

Well if you knew a good reason for secret ballots you could tell us that, instead of telling that you are smarter than me. You really should take another look at hn commenting guidelines, it is useful outside of hn too https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#355

Post by chr1 »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #249
chr1 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you will agree that the overall goal is maximizing freedom and autonomy, that is allowing every person or group to pursue happiness the way they want make mistakes or good choices and bear the consequences. The representative democracy has a problem with delegates not faithfully representing the people they are supposed to represent. It allows politician to be elected by campaigning for issue X which is popula…

No one in this thread have suggested to completely replace everything with direct voting I take the original comment to imply exactly that, since it positions someone taking issue with any direct vote as being against Democracy wholesale. If I missed something, @terminalshort can reply to clarify. the only way to improve situation is adding some elements of direct voting that would improve efficiency of communication…

That is the same argument proponents of planned economy use. It doesn't work in reality because no one knows what other people need and no one cares. Representatives care about being reelected, but they have a very hard time figuring out what people want of them because vote ones in 4 years, or angry people on social media is too unreliable channel of communication.

More direct voting allows representatives to better represent people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy so it is a part of the first issue too.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#356

Post by refulgentis »

throwaway-blaze wrote: post #351
refulgentis wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean I just don't see how you get to this opinion after any real review of the evidence. Graybeard here: took me a while to get it, but, usually these are chances to elucidate what is obvious to you :)* ex. I don't really know what you mean. What does the California state government look like if rich techies had even more influence? I can construct a facile version (lower taxes**) but assuredly you mean more than…

There's simply no way to look at the governing going on in California and think this is what the tech industry or movie industry or (formerly) oil industry wants for one of its traditional homes. The government there has suffered since it went to basically one-party rule. There's no counterbalance for any bad policy ideas.

Tbh I think its awesome here, arrived 6 weeks ago. (both of these comments suffer from...I think begging the question?...basically, like, what's so clearly _not_ what tech/film/almond growers/whatever want in California?)

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#357

Post by thomassmith65 »

chr1 wrote: post #355
thomassmith65 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one in this thread have suggested to completely replace everything with direct voting I take the original comment to imply exactly that, since it positions someone taking issue with any direct vote as being against Democracy wholesale. If I missed something, @terminalshort can reply to clarify. the only way to improve situation is adding some elements of direct voting that would improve efficiency of communication…

That is the same argument proponents of planned economy use. It doesn't work in reality because no one knows what other people need and no one cares. Representatives care about being reelected, but they have a very hard time figuring out what people want of them because vote ones in 4 years, or angry people on social media is too unreliable channel of communication. More direct voting allows representatives to better…

The monetary system under capitalism is not the same as direct democracy.

A planned economy under direct democracy would be at least as bad as a planned economy under a representative democracy because the average voter has even less knowledge about economics and business than a government planner.

The best thing about direct democracy is that, unlike representative democracy, we don't have it and therefore cannot instantly think of its flaws.

The average person reads under a sixth grade level, cannot perform long division, and quite possibly couldn't tell you how many years have passed since Jesus was born.

Whether a direct vote is appropriate for an issue depends on which is a greater danger: the corruption of a politician, or the ignorance and flakiness of the average voter.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#358

Post by sa-code »

terminalshort wrote: post #326
sa-code wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get points for effective use of rhetoric, but it's more of a solvable challenge and not a deal breaker. The goal of a borrowing tax would be to prevent someone with a a $200 mil stock portfolio living off the "buy, borrow, die" strategy and not home equity loans on mere middle class millionaires. Capital gains, for example, on a primary residence already have an exclusion of a certain amount. There's no reason a…

The buy borrow die strategy is made up and absolutely laughable to anybody who knows anything about finance. It is not used by anybody.

Were you able to understand the explanation in the link?

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#359

Post by ethbr1 »

terminalshort wrote: post #207
kmeisthax wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because democracy is "one person one vote", not "one dollar one vote". Around the same time Citizens United was decided, we also got McCutcheon v. FEC, which invalidated campaign contribution limits basically completely. If we take the logic of Citizens United at its word - that money is speech - then letting someone drop billions of dollars to change an election is like firing a sonic weapon at a bunch of protesters…

But it is still one person one vote. Money doesn't allow you to buy votes, but it does make it easier to persuade them. Freedom of the press has always guaranteed you the right to print or otherwise publish what you want, but it never said everyone will have the same amount of printing presses or the same amount of ink. Freedom of speech does not guarantee you an audience. You think you are reducing the influence of…

There's a fundamental difference between allowing an unlimited amount of opaque money to support arbitrary political campaigns and buying a media company.

The latter does business under its name, is regulated by the FCC, and if publicly traded has financial disclosure requirements.

The former is effectively anonymous, unregulated, and has no requirement to disclose any of its finances.

If folks want post-Citizens, fine -- just require public, transparent disclosure of what individuals are spending on political speech, above a floor ($10,000?).

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#360

Post by user_7832 »

hobs wrote: post #17
echelon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Garry Tan, the local venture capitalist who has for years railed against progressive politicians on social media You mean Garry, who has protested the dumbing down of schools? Garry, who protests removing math from the curriculum? He's "railed against progressive politicians" by supporting education and high achievement? You know China and Asia are laughing at us, right? They do schooling right. We are so backwards…

He seems like a great guy https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/y-combinator-ceo-garry-tans...

Have a look at this thread:

https://x.com/decadimitry/status/2023652073905287207?s=20

He was recently calling philanthropies that get money from Scott McKenzie "ants rushing to get fallen sugar".

Forget values, the guy has no tact or emotional intelligence.

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