Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#711

Post by joeclark77 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:31 AM UTC

mozumder wrote: post #165

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

I don't get the appeal of term limits on Congress. Why would you vote for an amateur politician instead of a professional career politician? Aren't career politicians better than amateur politicians? If a politician is doing a good job, why would you artificially limit their term? The branch of government with the highest approval rate is the Judicial branch, where Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life.

The other appeal (aside from what has already been stated) is that it would eliminate the problem of Congressmen obsessing about the next election as soon as they arrive. Lots of problems in our government are due to legislators wanting to avoid accountability, avoid having to take a position, or kicking the can down the road. But imagine if you only have two years and then go home! You'd be willing to really do something.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#712

Post by jonathankoren » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:32 AM UTC

arzt wrote: post #702

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

The tariff stuff freaks me out - it's a total idealogical paradigm shift. Re the point of reducing regulation, Larry page actually recommended a variation of this to the president of South Korea to reduce legal complexity of its government: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/07... "Reducing complexity, in fact, was a theme throughout the talk. Page recounted how when he was trying to simplify t…

Larry Page is not a pubic policy expert. He's a CS grad school drop out that got lucky.

This is as stupid as having the president of South Korea say, "You should keep the code to Google to a page and half. It would make it easier to understand."

Seriously, this makes no sense beyond claptrap. Why 50 pages? Why not 1? Why not 5 million? Why an arbitrary limit at all? The whole idea hinges on the idea that somehow this is obvious and an intrinsic good. It's not. It's not even a metric worth optimizing for, because it has zero concern about actual societal effects.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#713

Post by joeclark77 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:34 AM UTC

manicdee wrote: post #369

arcticfox wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a little harsh. There's no first principle that the average citizen should know that says "clean coal" isn't possible. In fact, in 5-10 minutes of specifically looking at the topic I still don't see why you're mocking the concept.

Simple thermodynamics. We get energy from coal by burning it then extracting some of the heat. The waste products are basically carbon dioxide and heat. Clean coal is about capturing that carbon dioxide, which means spending energy to separate the CO2 from other gasses, then liquefy it. This sequestration process costs about 30% of the energy originally extracted from the coal. I fully support clean coal since it inc…

No, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. The pollutants from coal burning are waste products like CO and NO2. If you can capture those, or find ways to burn the coal "cleaner" to only produce beneficial CO2 and heat, the problem is solved.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#714

Post by finiter » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:35 AM UTC

dmfdmf wrote: post #198

ainot wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority High brow smack (condescension) like that and "basket of deplorables" are what America revolted against. If the liberal left was truly smart, why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined?

You beat me to it. Indeed, it was a Dunning-Kruger election but not in the way that the OP meant it. Also, following on your second point, if the Dems are so smart how could they not see that Clinton was a fatally flawed candidate. We'll never know but I think its likely Sanders would have won versus Trump.

>how could they not see that Clinton was a fatally flawed candidate

Interesting theory when she got more votes.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#715

Post by anonbanker » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:35 AM UTC

Figs wrote: post #191

CountSessine wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is literally handing Russia and China the keys to the global economy Well, ok. Aside from the misuse of literally , that's certainly a metaphor I haven't heard being applied to this problem domain before...

So many people used 'literally' sarcastically and hyperbolically, that it has literally taken on the additional meaning in most dictionaries. :| http://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-liter...

Relevant David Cross rant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ly1UTgiBXM

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#716

Post by laichzeit0 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:37 AM UTC

esotericsean wrote: post #614

anondon wrote: post #569

His stand on climate change scares me. What can the public do to prevent him from opening energy reserves and backing out of climate change agreements? Are there efforts going on to prevent this? Building a wall along the Mexican border...I don't see the thinking behind the decision.

The climate change one scares me the most as well. We should be focused on renewable energy more than anything right now. It's a much bigger threat than terrorism. And building a wall and kicking out immigrants is so backwards. We need to be more united as humans and work together, not put up more barriers.

What's wrong with making people come through a door in a wall? You realize some people have homes with walls around them and they actually prefer visitors to ring the doorbell and wait for you to let them in. It's the exact same principle. If you lose sight of this very simple concept then you need to go back and see where you overcomplicated it. You don't see people like Richard Feynman going "oh this quantum mechanics, it's just too complicated, you can never explain in simply. Forget it." That's being intellectually lazy. The concept of borders, walls, immigration, visas must be simple to explain. There's a wall, there's a door. You want to come in, you go through the door. Done. If you think this is backward, then just remove the locks on the doors to your house while you're at it.

He's specifically talking about ILLEGAL immigrants. People that did not come in through the door. If you fail to prefix the word immigrant with illegal in any immigration discussion you're deliberately distorting Trumpian policies.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#717

Post by tribune » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:37 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #630

bmmayer1 wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is campaign finance reform really that big an issue, considering Trump just proved it's possible to win an election without any big money or support from special interests?

That's a lie. Trump courted and accepted money from special interests - there was even a Planet Money podcast on it.

Sure he did - but nearly as much as did Clinton. This election absolutely proved that a candidate can't simple "buy" an election

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#718

Post by joeclark77 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:38 AM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #224

stcredzero wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the term "clean coal" can be bandied about with a straight face says something about the state of science education of the general public. (Pretty much the same knowledge needed to instantly realize that various wind/solar operated water-from-air devices and Solar Freakin Roadways aren't viable from back of the envelope calcs.)

“Sunlight is abundant beyond the energy needs of the entire human race”. (Los Alamos National Laboratory [ http://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/1663/2015-may/pero... ].) This is their back of the envelope calculation.

Well, if any President would ever propose a Dyson Sphere, it would be Trump.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#719

Post by sfblah » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:39 AM UTC

theptip wrote: post #462

> FIRST, propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress. I've debated this approach with friends in the past. From a game-theory perspective, does this promote or hinder political corruption? I'm inclined to believe that term limits would actually encourage corruption. 1) If senators have to find a job after 8 years, surely that encourages the revolving door between industry and g…

Ok but what if the term limit was, say, 16 years for the House and 18 for the Senate?

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#720

Post by finiter » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:39 AM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #351

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #43

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

>Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal >regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is >that considered feasible by any rational person? It might >sound great if you don't think too hard about it. I think that's the reason Trump becomes president of the US. It may sound ridiculous to you but he is 100% correct with that point. Everybody knows that there are too many government regulation…

>Everybody knows that there are too many government regulations, people across the whole political spectrum agree on that

But they don't agree on which ones should be removed. It's why "everybody knows" Congress is terrible but they keep getting re-elected. It's because everyone likes their representatives but hate all the others.