The techlash that never happened • Hacker News Board

Re: The techlash that never happened

#71

Post by boondoggle16 » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

BirdieNZ wrote: post #68

boondoggle16 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bubbles are super common, and even more common on the internet. I find this phenomenon fascinating. For example, there are many people on HN who absolutely cannot comprehend why people prefer single family housing, with a yard, and a car. So much so, that I've considered writing an article from my perspective, about why I prefer low-density housing. The ratio of commenters to lurkers is super low, and (speaking from…

Who are these people who can't comprehend SFH car preferences? I'm pretty pro-urban-density and pro-transit/walking/cycling, but I definitely understand why people prefer SFH and cars and low density. Heck, I don't think we should ban any of those, we should just allow people to build denser if they want to and spend as much on mass transit and cycling and walking as we do on cars.

Not sure what to tell ya, but if you read thousands of HN comments under housing articles like I do, they are out there.

Re: The techlash that never happened

#72

Post by snowwrestler » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #64

snowwrestler wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers are for individual donations; donors are legally required to disclose employer, but that doesn’t mean their employer was directing their donations. To look at the “tech industry,” look at company-directed activity, primarily lobbying expenditures, corporate PAC donations, senior exec political donations, and especially the same categories at industry groups like trade associations. That picture is far m…

I’d also add that there were two events relatively close to each other which I think shaped this a lot: California proposition 8 blocking gay rights in 2008 and the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United to legalize dark money. The cruelty of Prop 8 spurred unusual levels of reputational consequences for backers (on HN, notably Mozilla’s Brendon Eich) and I think that really pushed Silicon Valley Republicans…

To be clear, donations from a person to a corporate PAC, and subsequent donations by that PAC, were not affected by Citizens United.

Citizens United removed limits on “outside expenditures,” but disclosure is still required. Netflix reported no outside expenditures in 2020, for expample (also viewable at Open Secrets).

Re: The techlash that never happened

#73

Post by andromeduck » Tue, May 16, 2023, 6:31 AM UTC

WeylandYutani wrote: post #69

chrisco255 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a chart for Silicon Valley. The Republican party fractured in California since the 70s, that much is certain. The Democrats have enjoyed a supermajority monopoly in that state for quite some time. But this is not an indication of the country as a whole. Of course, in other areas, the Republican base got stronger since the 70s.

In the US land votes. I looked it up once how many large cities have a Republican mayor. If the US ever abolishes the electoral college you'll see Democrats campaigning in rural Texas and Republicans in Silicon valley California because EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS. It would get both parties out of their comfort zone.

No. Abolishing the electoral college is a dumb idea akin to abolishing the European commission.

A large part of why Trump got so far and why the debt is so bad is because this institution intended as a forum for states and statesmen has become a shitty version of the the house of representatives it was intended to check because 17th amendment changed the franchise from the state as an institution to the state as a collection of people.