691–700 of 1001 posts
My greatest fear is for America. He undermined it's institutions last time and there's no telling how much he'll weaken it now. I suspect the DoJ will be first to get gutted and then education, health, science. NATO, WTO, UN. I'm sure he'll embed gerrymandering to ensure republican victories. At the end of this we'll have a radically different America, domestically and Globally.
2016 : Hilary Clinton - People felt that she was chosen because it was her turn 2020 : Kamala Harris - A candidate who never ever even did well in the primaries. I hope DNC learn from this and let people choose a candidate next time.
This is already the most commented post on HN. An intense thread for intense times...
My greatest fear is for America. He undermined it's institutions last time and there's no telling how much he'll weaken it now. I suspect the DoJ will be first to get gutted and then education, health, science. NATO, WTO, UN. I'm sure he'll embed gerrymandering to ensure republican victories. At the end of this we'll have a radically different America, domestically and Globally.
It's the economy, stupid: -Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Low inflation doesn't imply low prices. -Aggregate statistics don't necessarily explain individual outcomes. The Dems failed on this count massively, and have, for maybe the last 40 years, which is about the amount of time it took for my state to go from national bellwether (As goes Ohio, so goes the nation) to a reliably red stat…
What was their failure here? The failure to explain to the economically illiterate that while inflation is now about where it was prior to covid that prices won't be going down (unless there's some sort of major recession leading to deflation)?
People will say "I'd be a better person if only I were rich!", but predictably, the number of rich people willing to do those things is almost a rounding error.
The politics around gender (and however many there's supposed to be) makes people lose their frame of reference also IMO. For some, the world is changing too quick, or their neighbourhood is changing too quick.
Older generations who've witnessed the change perhaps see it most, as perhaps younger white men who have had the blowback of historical racism, misogyny and generally assumed to be the most privileged, though many (the majority) are not. I hear that the Trump campaign focused on them who generally do not vote.
I hope the USA moves on and accepts the result. In the end people vote with their desires, sometimes illogical but ultimately their desires are their motivations. The USA is also a good age now, as I was reminded by a Canadian taxi driver while living in Canada, regardless of what foreigners nebs think about US politics, better a world with the USA in it than without (though I'm probably biased as a Westerner).
Perhaps to an extent it's hard to keep an identity, like national pride or what a country stands for when things move so quickly.
Personally I thought Harris was a shoo in, but the people have spoken.
Insert caveat about big tech algos persuading people.
I'm gonna be honest, this is much closer to the future that humanity deserves than the AI utopia many of you were dreaming of. Look at the entirety of human history and all the evil things people have done, and look at your own consumption of factory-farmed meat/dairy/eggs. Look at how few people donate kidneys (less than 0.1% in USA, and even lower in countries like Japan). And of course people would rather spend th…
The data are unequivocal that liberal democracy, civil rights, and economic freedom lift people out of poverty, but this message is toxic in many parts of the world, and thus many countries live in unnecessary poverty, dependent upon donations from rich countries that follow the straightforwards, simple advice to be well off.
It's the economy, stupid: -Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Low inflation doesn't imply low prices. -Aggregate statistics don't necessarily explain individual outcomes. The Dems failed on this count massively, and have, for maybe the last 40 years, which is about the amount of time it took for my state to go from national bellwether (As goes Ohio, so goes the nation) to a reliably red stat…