Live data from Hacker News

The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

gfintegrity.org

71–80 of 255 posts

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#71
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them. My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school. A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised. In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vot…

It’s not unusual among modern democracies for voters to provide proof of identity. We’re (and the UK?) the outliers in that, so no, I think it’s unrelated to authoritarianism. It’s got more to do with ensuring integrity of votes. India, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil, Iceland, Costa Rica, etc, require it. Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.

Australia doesn’t require voter ID either. Voter ID is a vehicle for voter suppression (and generally called for by the politically conservative).

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#73

Went to rent a mailbox at the UPS Store. My drivers license and passport weren't enough identification. I needed something additional. The owner suggested I get a library card and then he could rent me the mailbox. What did the library accept as identification? My drivers license. That was all. Seemed like a weird little bit of bureaucratic red tape that accomplished pretty much nothing.

Preponderance of evidence. If you had a fake drivers license and UPS hadn't caught it, perhaps the one at your library could catch it.

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#74
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them. My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school. A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised. In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vot…

It’s not unusual among modern democracies for voters to provide proof of identity. We’re (and the UK?) the outliers in that, so no, I think it’s unrelated to authoritarianism. It’s got more to do with ensuring integrity of votes. India, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil, Iceland, Costa Rica, etc, require it. Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.

Authoritarianism always claims to be about ensuring the integrity of something or other. The question is always: is that the right goal, and is the proposal really the best way to accomplish that goal? Making election day a national holiday, for example, would do more to allow citizens to accurately express their voting preferences than any removal of non-citizen votes could ever do.

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them. My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school. A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised. In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vot…

> A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. All rights exist independent on the government, because the government doea not grant rights. The government infringes on rights for the purpose of governing, and the limits to what it is allowed are the US constitution. None of that means that there isn't a legitimate interest, of the government and public at large, in ensuring that elections are condu…

Parent is a factual statement about how the Anglo-American legal system works. Other systems may work differently.

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#76
post #4

I don't see any particular reason why the identification process for a corporation should be more stringent than a library card. What is astonishing to me is that both are meaningfully more stringent than voting. In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them. https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/register-to-vot...

In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them. My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school. A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised. In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vot…

Umm the 1700's in America were the era of needing to have land ownership to vote (more than half of white men couldn't vote), poll taxes, exclusion of blacks, native Americans, and women, religious tests, and so on. The 15th Amendment that changed some of that wasn't even passed until 1870.

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

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#77
post #66

Great, I'll get my kids corporations for their 7th birthday.

This could actually be a really fun project to do with your child. It's a pretty inexpensive way to teach them about how companies work, the basics of organization, and even introduce them to the idea of taxes. Registering a simple company in your local state, issuing stock, designating your board, doing your meetings and minutes, filing your $0 tax return, then dissolving it would probably only cost you ~$100 - $200…

Not in California, where you pay $800 annually just for existing.

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#78
post #53
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not unusual among modern democracies for voters to provide proof of identity. We’re (and the UK?) the outliers in that, so no, I think it’s unrelated to authoritarianism. It’s got more to do with ensuring integrity of votes. India, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil, Iceland, Costa Rica, etc, require it. Among Americans all major demographics show majority support for voter ID reqs.

Other modern democracies have different traditions with respect to documentation; we don't have a national identity card either, nor do we require people to carry identification with them. Lots of voters, particularly elderly voters, don't have formal identification. Instances of voter fraud in the US are vanishingly rare. It's a really dumb crime; stiff penalties, lots of legwork, and an infinitesimal likelihood of…

it is really interesting that in US and countries like that where voter fraud is relatively easy it's almost nonexistant, but in Russia, for example (where you need your passport to vote and where you can't vote just anywhere, but on a particular station in the region you have a stamp of residence in your passport, and yeah, there's a list of voters everywhere, in advance)... Well, bussing exist there.

Buses with "voters", who have "out of home voting permit" papers on them, are coming to the "problematic" voting stations, to tip elections for the "proper candidate". Usually it's organized by managers of political indifferent or loyalist workers of government institution.

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them. My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school. A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised. In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vot…

> My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school. A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised. How do we ensure non-citizens aren’t voting? We accept many visitors - refugees, H1B, tourists, F1/I-20, etc. None are granted voting rights.

If you’re physically in a jurisdiction, you are subject to its laws. Isn’t the supposed point of democracy to give people a voice in the government that rules over them?

Re: The Library Card Project: The Ease of Forming Anonymous Companies in the U.S.

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Minnesota for example, all one needs is another registered voter to vouch for them. My thoughts on this are old school. Like 1700's old school. A person's right to vote exists with or without documentation. A piece of paper, an entry in a ledger, or a row in a database has no bearing on whether that right exists, or should be exercised. In many of the states where I've lived (13 so far), all that was needed to vot…

Do you think voting should be limited to citizens of the country? Or that each person should only get 1 vote? If so that seems impossible to implement without requiring identification, if not that seems tantamount to infringing on people's right to vote, if someone can vote twice against me while I only get 1 vote because I'm following the rules then that means my vote effectively wasn't counted.

Instead of just assuming that requiring ID leads to better representation, shouldn't we objectively analyze what choices lead to the best representation?

Requiring ID has the obvious tradeoff that it prevents some people who should be allowed to vote from voting. Furthermore, it can potentially lead to a system where people's votes are unfairly discounted because of administrative "errors" (e.g. interstate cross-check). From the evidence I've seen those problems are more significant than double voters or non-citizen voting.

Post reply on HN