i'll address your original analogy. if people *truly* don't care about what pizza we order, they won't go to the polling booth. this isn't australia. you know i've never argued more people voting was a good thing. i've only argued that voting is so important that it needs to be easy for poor and rich alike. ~a
a: Like, it feels like everybody is all "rah rah" democracy now a few days after their team won bigly, but was everybody just as jazzed about democracy in 2024 and 2016? -Paul
a: I'm curious what you think of my original analogy, though, since you didn't really address it. Doesn't it make sense on some level that encouraging everybody to vote no matter how uninformed or dispassionate they are about something might not yield ideal results? -Paul
To extend my pizza analogy, if one friend is wearing a fancy suit and suggests we all eat poop pizza and everybody agrees because the friend is dressed nicely. Whose fault is that? -Paul
And even if we assume that there's significant causation... it still ultimately comes down to voters, right? Voters could choose not to be swayed by money. Shouldn't some fingers be pointed at voters? -Paul
Back to the money thing: I don't doubt that higher funded candidate win a higher percentage of races, but wouldn't it follow that more popular candidates get more funding? How much is causation and how much is correlation? -Paul
One more example I thought of that I realize those without kids might not even know: I need to present my ID every time I want to go to my kids' school or even just volunteer for a field trip. -Paul
pierce: "why would your apathy be confused for opinion, to people who know you?" It's apathy about what THEY want to argue about. I do have opinions on related things (like how I don't think it's completely unreasonable to require an ID for voting). -Paul
a: "that the person with the most money gets to decide which pizza we order?" Does it? I feel like we have more examples of it NOT working than it working. Either way I feel like it's an imperfect analogy because even if it's true the fault lies with voters for being swayed by money. -Paul
hal 9000 is a very interesting costume, and i love it. did you sing the song? my memory was that you hated that movie. ~a
pierce: i won't speak for miguel, but i think you misunderstood his take. it's not that money in advertising (and political advertising) is a placebo, it's that money in advertising (and political advertising) will affect results, and that it is not a bad thing. (i have my reservations of course: there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. citizens united v. fec creates some problems, and i hope it is overturned) ~a
mig: "how it's supposed to work" is up to us... Tesla's stock value or the specific ink used to print Ben Franklin's face on a piece of paper are neither fundamental forces of physics nor intrinsic to human nature. - pierce
I was HAL 9000 for Halloween this year, so depending on procrastination I might just swap lettering and make it HAL 9001 next year. I hope to come up with something more creative, though. - pierce
sometimes money doesn't serve all of the desired outcomes, and in specific situations of embarrassingly opulent and callous donations it can backfire (hence efforts to obscure the sources). but those failures are notable because they're uncommon. - pierce
mig: "money in politics is a fake issue" is genuinely an incredible take. I'm stopping short of saying money is everything, obviously, but your statement is functionally equivalent to saying the advertising industry is fully a placebo. people aren't affected by the (literal and figurative) volume of messages? almost every "fact" we know (correct or not) was shared with us. sharing costs resources. money can spread "facts". - pierce
(this was not a case of double-backwards-triple-secret-probation phrasing... the simple text of the measure was clear that future ballot measures should be at an eighth-grade reading level. the insidiousness was in the ambiguity: it doesn't say how to decide that, and therefore sets up a system where well-funded groups can drown any ballot text they don't like in legal challenges) - pierce
paul: regarding the political alignment of the "make ballots simpler" proposal, you guessed incorrectly. it was by a conservative group, Advance Colorado, who were also responsible for half our fourteen statewide ballot measures (including quite a banger, a consitutional right to purchase natural gas, which fortunately failed). we don't have to pretend to be stupider than we are, their purpose was not simplifying ballots. - pierce
(I think I might coin "Arrow's Inevitability Theorem" for the possibility that our election debates will never be resolved and nevertheless they persist) - pierce
paul: introspection is important. I'll admit that my offhand mea culpa about "diving in antagonistically" was glib, and you weren't totally wrong about the accusation about my "drive-by" participation (I mean that. It's not just as a setup to the following). If people have been debating with you for years about something you don't care about, why might that be? why would your apathy be confused for opinion, to people who know you? - pierce
what are all you guys doing for halloween. it falls on a sunday this year so everybody can't stay up all night long partying if they have classes the next day.
paul: do you feel the same way? ~a
at the end of the day, voters pull the lever on their own accord, and if Musk's megaphone does convince them to vote his way, that's how it's supposed to work. - mig
a: no matter how much money he spends the bad tesla man cannot compel or coerce or mindtrick anyone into voting the way he would prefer them to."money in politics" is a fake issue. - mig
paul: now that we've put that to bed (that you can't get worked up about changing the rules for voter id) can we focus on the much larger problem that we do all care about? that the person with the most money gets to decide which pizza we order? sure it doesn't always work obviously (see how much money the motorcar robber baron and cosmonaut spent trying to get us to order a hamberder pizza), but it works more often than it doesn't. ~a
pierce: "I also don't think you should intrinsically need ID to check into a hotel." Right, it wouldn't be my first choice to require an ID for all of these different things. But given that we already DO for things that seemingly are much less important, then I just can't get that worked up over requiring it for voting. -Paul
pierce: "Shall the commonwealth remove a ban which prohibited banning the idea that gay marriage is only between a man and a woman?" Uh.... what? -Paul
pierce: "I'm also curious what partisan alignment you would assume was behind that initiative" I would assume Democrat. I'm not against the idea. I can't tell you the number of ballot initiatives I've seen with double and triple negatives that I have trouble sussing out what it means. -paul
If people want to vote, then by all means vote. I'm not suggesting we stop anybody. I just think that we get the best outcomes when a high percentage of voters are informed and I don't think we get better outcomes when low information voters who don't have strong opinions vote. -Paul
Because in terms of pure representation, it would be pepperoni. But I think most reasonable people could look at that and say maybe because the majority don't know about the pepperoni allergy and vegetarianism and don't strongly care, we can just do cheese? -Paul
pierce: "if you believe in representation" I believe in representation for those who care. If 5 friends are ordering pizza and one person is a strict vegetarian and one has a pepperoni allergy and the other 3 are like, "meh, I don't really care, I guess pepperoni?"... what's the ideal outcome there? -Paul
pierce: In fact, it's kind of crazy that we on the message board have been going back and forth for so long about this considering my not very strong feelings on the need for legislation for it. I don't think there are epidemics of voter fraud which need to be fixed. -Paul
pierce: "again, the amount of personal voter fraud you can do in the current system is negligible" Yes, and I've agreed with that multiple times. I've also mentioned a few times that this whole thing is hardly a priority to me. It likely wouldn't make a top 100 of things a President Paul would be trying to do. -Paul
a: To the point where the (at the time) third place finisher had a teary speech that many people took as a concession speech before she got a hugely outsized percentage of the remaining vote to pull into second. -Paul
a: "this is evidence of voter irregularities?" I'm not saying there was fraud, but you don't think the way that election played out was pretty irregular? Not only did it take days to count all the votes but the same day voting results were drastically different from what got counted afterwards. -Paul
a: "he does know we're all gonna rename this shit back the second he's gone, right?" Politicians on both sides seem to be constantly operating under the delusion that the other side will never get into power again and use the same tools (executive orders, etc) to completely undo everything. -Paul
a: "would these be a compromise you would accept?" Sure. Virginia's requirements have always felt completely acceptable to me. Presenting my driver's license is something I do multiple times a month (maybe even a week sometimes) so to require it for voting seems like a nothing-burger to me. -Paul
(my ID photo was described as "a lego man" and I'll never unsee it) - pierce
regarding data centers... I had to show up in person to register to vote, so when the data center shows up at the DMV and waits in line and gets an ID with an embarrassing photo of it, then it can have one vote like I do. 🙃 - pierce
I also don't think you should intrinsically need ID to check into a hotel. Also, when travelling internationally you often have to give the hotel your passport to keep while you're staying there. Don't worry, surely no one in the hotel would abuse their access and no one outside the hotel would demand that ID. Well, they wouldn't demand it of me. - pierce
paul: finally, I wonder how those answers align with the institutional motivations about deciding who is a "no-information" voter. I think a lot of our current predicaments are related to bad information for voters, but I think more of them are related to removing their access to voting, while pretending the powerful aren't actively/passively/reactively "low information" themselves, just with a lot more influence - pierce
paul: (I'm also curious what partisan alignment you would assume was behind that initiative) - pierce
paul: we just had a ballot amendment here to amend the CO constitution to say all ballot titles should be written at an eighth-grade reading level. curious what you think about that, because it's simultaneously proposing that one shouldn't have to be too smart to understand what you're voting for, and also creating an ambiguous situation where you have to dumb things down (with unclear requirements) to get something on the ballot. - pierce
paul: if you believe in representation, then paranoid proven non-issues like in-person voter fraud should be recognized for what they are: ways to distract from the inconveniences we've put in place for other things like having to pay for ID (or, you know, have a permanent residence) - pierce
paul: again, the amount of personal voter fraud you can do in the current system is negligible, borne out by the fact that there's almost none of it and its often by accident and never usefully affects outcomes. you had to register to vote, that proved you exist. you move and vote in both states? that was a lot of expense for one fraudulent vote with a potential felony charge, so it doesn't meaningfully happen. - pierce
paul: different systems require different levels of verification and they need that verification at different times. the question is always, "what is the actual risk profile?" - pierce
paul: on other points... "I have fingerprint unlock on my house. if I need a fingerprint to get into my house, why don't I need a fingerprint to vote?" "I need to be this tall to ride a rollercoaster, why don't I need to be this tall to vote?"... - pierce
paul: correct me if I'm wrong because it'll save us both a lot of time, but voting is to make a large group somehow represent the beliefs and interests of its people. those people are often dumb, misinformed, etc… but so are the leaders in non-democratic systems. If we enfranchised all residents (children, felons, etc) of the U.S. I think it'd cause less skew in representation than one Andreessen or Thiel in our system. - pierce
paul: s/dis/extremely /; I am extremely ingenuous. - pierce
paul: whenever i google "los angeles mayoral race vote irregularities" i seem to get nothing but articles about how trump's own justice department debunked the claims you're referring to. this is evidence of voter irregularities? because i don't give two shits about a false perception of voter irregularities. ~a
seems that republicans are fine saying they lost because of iran. and want to make pete hegseth the fall-guy. i'm totally fine with that, but everybody knows that pete hegseth isn't in the epstein files. they're making him the fall guy when we aren't in iran because of him, we're in iran because of trump and epstein. ~a
i heard the other night, that trump was thinking of renaming the reflecting pool to the trump pool, and he tried to rename the atlantic ocean to trump ocean on google maps. he does know we're all gonna rename this shit back the second he's gone, right? ~a
paul: i do wonder how someone without an id checks into a hotel. there's probably a proceedure for that. i did check into a hotel recently without an id, and it was an ordeal, but they did let me check in. are these rules acceptable to you? would these be a compromise you would accept? ~a
paul: "I JUST think it's not completely unreasonable to require some kind of ID when voting" hmm, i don't think i heard you say that explicitly. in general i agree with this. i WOULD prefer no id, but you're getting really close to the virginia laws for what constitutes a normal voting procedure. a fine compromise is "some kind of ID". ~a
pierce: "get some debate-y schadenfreude on an energizing night". i'll be the first to say it, the message board is dead. no more debate here. everybody seems to have left except paul, miguel, and andrew. the thousands of times i come here to see no posts has started to depress me. sometimes i think it's just me being emotional then i go and look at the post counts. ~a
boing: long time no see. i agree james carville is pretty dumb and we probably shouldn't care what he has to say. that being said, i'm not sure what haley stevens's deal is either. why do we care what she has to say? and why does her story keep changing? ~a
Also, I just ran into another super benign scenario which apparently requires that I present a photo ID: Checking into a hotel. Hard to argue that's a life threatening activity like buying cough syrup is. -Paul
paul: "staff [will] complete an assisted identity verification process". people ask you for an id, and you assume it's required? ~a
paul: i'm curious why you think it's easy to get a government issued photo id. you keep coming up with seemingly innocuous things where people have asked you for an id, but not all county school systems require an id, in fact YOUR county school system doesn't require an id. ~a
paul: i refuse to address your original analogy because it's not an issue you consider important. or want to talk about? i'll address your original analogy. if people *truly* don't care about what pizza we order, they won't go to the polling booth. this isn't australia. you know i've never argued more people voting was a good thing. i've only argued that voting is so important that it needs to be easy for poor and rich alike. ~a
a: Like, it feels like everybody is all "rah rah" democracy now a few days after their team won bigly, but was everybody just as jazzed about democracy in 2024 and 2016? -Paul
a: I'm curious what you think of my original analogy, though, since you didn't really address it. Doesn't it make sense on some level that encouraging everybody to vote no matter how uninformed or dispassionate they are about something might not yield ideal results? -Paul
To extend my pizza analogy, if one friend is wearing a fancy suit and suggests we all eat poop pizza and everybody agrees because the friend is dressed nicely. Whose fault is that? -Paul
And even if we assume that there's significant causation... it still ultimately comes down to voters, right? Voters could choose not to be swayed by money. Shouldn't some fingers be pointed at voters? -Paul
Back to the money thing: I don't doubt that higher funded candidate win a higher percentage of races, but wouldn't it follow that more popular candidates get more funding? How much is causation and how much is correlation? -Paul
One more example I thought of that I realize those without kids might not even know: I need to present my ID every time I want to go to my kids' school or even just volunteer for a field trip. -Paul
pierce: "why would your apathy be confused for opinion, to people who know you?" It's apathy about what THEY want to argue about. I do have opinions on related things (like how I don't think it's completely unreasonable to require an ID for voting). -Paul
a: "that the person with the most money gets to decide which pizza we order?" Does it? I feel like we have more examples of it NOT working than it working. Either way I feel like it's an imperfect analogy because even if it's true the fault lies with voters for being swayed by money. -Paul
hal 9000 is a very interesting costume, and i love it. did you sing the song? my memory was that you hated that movie. ~a
pierce: i won't speak for miguel, but i think you misunderstood his take. it's not that money in advertising (and political advertising) is a placebo, it's that money in advertising (and political advertising) will affect results, and that it is not a bad thing. (i have my reservations of course: there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. citizens united v. fec creates some problems, and i hope it is overturned) ~a
mig: "how it's supposed to work" is up to us... Tesla's stock value or the specific ink used to print Ben Franklin's face on a piece of paper are neither fundamental forces of physics nor intrinsic to human nature. - pierce
I was HAL 9000 for Halloween this year, so depending on procrastination I might just swap lettering and make it HAL 9001 next year. I hope to come up with something more creative, though. - pierce
sometimes money doesn't serve all of the desired outcomes, and in specific situations of embarrassingly opulent and callous donations it can backfire (hence efforts to obscure the sources). but those failures are notable because they're uncommon. - pierce
mig: "money in politics is a fake issue" is genuinely an incredible take. I'm stopping short of saying money is everything, obviously, but your statement is functionally equivalent to saying the advertising industry is fully a placebo. people aren't affected by the (literal and figurative) volume of messages? almost every "fact" we know (correct or not) was shared with us. sharing costs resources. money can spread "facts". - pierce
(this was not a case of double-backwards-triple-secret-probation phrasing... the simple text of the measure was clear that future ballot measures should be at an eighth-grade reading level. the insidiousness was in the ambiguity: it doesn't say how to decide that, and therefore sets up a system where well-funded groups can drown any ballot text they don't like in legal challenges) - pierce
paul: regarding the political alignment of the "make ballots simpler" proposal, you guessed incorrectly. it was by a conservative group, Advance Colorado, who were also responsible for half our fourteen statewide ballot measures (including quite a banger, a consitutional right to purchase natural gas, which fortunately failed). we don't have to pretend to be stupider than we are, their purpose was not simplifying ballots. - pierce
(I think I might coin "Arrow's Inevitability Theorem" for the possibility that our election debates will never be resolved and nevertheless they persist) - pierce
paul: introspection is important. I'll admit that my offhand mea culpa about "diving in antagonistically" was glib, and you weren't totally wrong about the accusation about my "drive-by" participation (I mean that. It's not just as a setup to the following). If people have been debating with you for years about something you don't care about, why might that be? why would your apathy be confused for opinion, to people who know you? - pierce
what are all you guys doing for halloween. it falls on a sunday this year so everybody can't stay up all night long partying if they have classes the next day.
paul: do you feel the same way? ~a
at the end of the day, voters pull the lever on their own accord, and if Musk's megaphone does convince them to vote his way, that's how it's supposed to work. - mig
a: no matter how much money he spends the bad tesla man cannot compel or coerce or mindtrick anyone into voting the way he would prefer them to."money in politics" is a fake issue. - mig
paul: now that we've put that to bed (that you can't get worked up about changing the rules for voter id) can we focus on the much larger problem that we do all care about? that the person with the most money gets to decide which pizza we order? sure it doesn't always work obviously (see how much money the motorcar robber baron and cosmonaut spent trying to get us to order a hamberder pizza), but it works more often than it doesn't. ~a
pierce: "I also don't think you should intrinsically need ID to check into a hotel." Right, it wouldn't be my first choice to require an ID for all of these different things. But given that we already DO for things that seemingly are much less important, then I just can't get that worked up over requiring it for voting. -Paul
pierce: "Shall the commonwealth remove a ban which prohibited banning the idea that gay marriage is only between a man and a woman?" Uh.... what? -Paul
pierce: "I'm also curious what partisan alignment you would assume was behind that initiative" I would assume Democrat. I'm not against the idea. I can't tell you the number of ballot initiatives I've seen with double and triple negatives that I have trouble sussing out what it means. -paul
If people want to vote, then by all means vote. I'm not suggesting we stop anybody. I just think that we get the best outcomes when a high percentage of voters are informed and I don't think we get better outcomes when low information voters who don't have strong opinions vote. -Paul
Because in terms of pure representation, it would be pepperoni. But I think most reasonable people could look at that and say maybe because the majority don't know about the pepperoni allergy and vegetarianism and don't strongly care, we can just do cheese? -Paul
pierce: "if you believe in representation" I believe in representation for those who care. If 5 friends are ordering pizza and one person is a strict vegetarian and one has a pepperoni allergy and the other 3 are like, "meh, I don't really care, I guess pepperoni?"... what's the ideal outcome there? -Paul
pierce: In fact, it's kind of crazy that we on the message board have been going back and forth for so long about this considering my not very strong feelings on the need for legislation for it. I don't think there are epidemics of voter fraud which need to be fixed. -Paul
pierce: "again, the amount of personal voter fraud you can do in the current system is negligible" Yes, and I've agreed with that multiple times. I've also mentioned a few times that this whole thing is hardly a priority to me. It likely wouldn't make a top 100 of things a President Paul would be trying to do. -Paul
a: To the point where the (at the time) third place finisher had a teary speech that many people took as a concession speech before she got a hugely outsized percentage of the remaining vote to pull into second. -Paul
a: "this is evidence of voter irregularities?" I'm not saying there was fraud, but you don't think the way that election played out was pretty irregular? Not only did it take days to count all the votes but the same day voting results were drastically different from what got counted afterwards. -Paul
a: "he does know we're all gonna rename this shit back the second he's gone, right?" Politicians on both sides seem to be constantly operating under the delusion that the other side will never get into power again and use the same tools (executive orders, etc) to completely undo everything. -Paul
a: "would these be a compromise you would accept?" Sure. Virginia's requirements have always felt completely acceptable to me. Presenting my driver's license is something I do multiple times a month (maybe even a week sometimes) so to require it for voting seems like a nothing-burger to me. -Paul
(my ID photo was described as "a lego man" and I'll never unsee it) - pierce
regarding data centers... I had to show up in person to register to vote, so when the data center shows up at the DMV and waits in line and gets an ID with an embarrassing photo of it, then it can have one vote like I do. 🙃 - pierce
I also don't think you should intrinsically need ID to check into a hotel. Also, when travelling internationally you often have to give the hotel your passport to keep while you're staying there. Don't worry, surely no one in the hotel would abuse their access and no one outside the hotel would demand that ID. Well, they wouldn't demand it of me. - pierce
paul: finally, I wonder how those answers align with the institutional motivations about deciding who is a "no-information" voter. I think a lot of our current predicaments are related to bad information for voters, but I think more of them are related to removing their access to voting, while pretending the powerful aren't actively/passively/reactively "low information" themselves, just with a lot more influence - pierce
paul: (I'm also curious what partisan alignment you would assume was behind that initiative) - pierce
paul: we just had a ballot amendment here to amend the CO constitution to say all ballot titles should be written at an eighth-grade reading level. curious what you think about that, because it's simultaneously proposing that one shouldn't have to be too smart to understand what you're voting for, and also creating an ambiguous situation where you have to dumb things down (with unclear requirements) to get something on the ballot. - pierce
paul: if you believe in representation, then paranoid proven non-issues like in-person voter fraud should be recognized for what they are: ways to distract from the inconveniences we've put in place for other things like having to pay for ID (or, you know, have a permanent residence) - pierce
paul: again, the amount of personal voter fraud you can do in the current system is negligible, borne out by the fact that there's almost none of it and its often by accident and never usefully affects outcomes. you had to register to vote, that proved you exist. you move and vote in both states? that was a lot of expense for one fraudulent vote with a potential felony charge, so it doesn't meaningfully happen. - pierce
paul: different systems require different levels of verification and they need that verification at different times. the question is always, "what is the actual risk profile?" - pierce
paul: on other points... "I have fingerprint unlock on my house. if I need a fingerprint to get into my house, why don't I need a fingerprint to vote?" "I need to be this tall to ride a rollercoaster, why don't I need to be this tall to vote?"... - pierce
paul: correct me if I'm wrong because it'll save us both a lot of time, but voting is to make a large group somehow represent the beliefs and interests of its people. those people are often dumb, misinformed, etc… but so are the leaders in non-democratic systems. If we enfranchised all residents (children, felons, etc) of the U.S. I think it'd cause less skew in representation than one Andreessen or Thiel in our system. - pierce
paul: s/dis/extremely /; I am extremely ingenuous. - pierce
paul: whenever i google "los angeles mayoral race vote irregularities" i seem to get nothing but articles about how trump's own justice department debunked the claims you're referring to. this is evidence of voter irregularities? because i don't give two shits about a false perception of voter irregularities. ~a
seems that republicans are fine saying they lost because of iran. and want to make pete hegseth the fall-guy. i'm totally fine with that, but everybody knows that pete hegseth isn't in the epstein files. they're making him the fall guy when we aren't in iran because of him, we're in iran because of trump and epstein. ~a
i heard the other night, that trump was thinking of renaming the reflecting pool to the trump pool, and he tried to rename the atlantic ocean to trump ocean on google maps. he does know we're all gonna rename this shit back the second he's gone, right? ~a
paul: i do wonder how someone without an id checks into a hotel. there's probably a proceedure for that. i did check into a hotel recently without an id, and it was an ordeal, but they did let me check in. are these rules acceptable to you? would these be a compromise you would accept? ~a
paul: "I JUST think it's not completely unreasonable to require some kind of ID when voting" hmm, i don't think i heard you say that explicitly. in general i agree with this. i WOULD prefer no id, but you're getting really close to the virginia laws for what constitutes a normal voting procedure. a fine compromise is "some kind of ID". ~a
pierce: "get some debate-y schadenfreude on an energizing night". i'll be the first to say it, the message board is dead. no more debate here. everybody seems to have left except paul, miguel, and andrew. the thousands of times i come here to see no posts has started to depress me. sometimes i think it's just me being emotional then i go and look at the post counts. ~a
boing: long time no see. i agree james carville is pretty dumb and we probably shouldn't care what he has to say. that being said, i'm not sure what haley stevens's deal is either. why do we care what she has to say? and why does her story keep changing? ~a
Also, I just ran into another super benign scenario which apparently requires that I present a photo ID: Checking into a hotel. Hard to argue that's a life threatening activity like buying cough syrup is. -Paul
i'll address your original analogy. if people *truly* don't care about what pizza we order, they won't go to the polling booth. this isn't australia. you know i've never argued more people voting was a good thing. i've only argued that voting is so important that it needs to be easy for poor and rich alike. ~a
a: Like, it feels like everybody is all "rah rah" democracy now a few days after their team won bigly, but was everybody just as jazzed about democracy in 2024 and 2016? -Paul
a: I'm curious what you think of my original analogy, though, since you didn't really address it. Doesn't it make sense on some level that encouraging everybody to vote no matter how uninformed or dispassionate they are about something might not yield ideal results? -Paul
To extend my pizza analogy, if one friend is wearing a fancy suit and suggests we all eat poop pizza and everybody agrees because the friend is dressed nicely. Whose fault is that? -Paul
And even if we assume that there's significant causation... it still ultimately comes down to voters, right? Voters could choose not to be swayed by money. Shouldn't some fingers be pointed at voters? -Paul
Back to the money thing: I don't doubt that higher funded candidate win a higher percentage of races, but wouldn't it follow that more popular candidates get more funding? How much is causation and how much is correlation? -Paul
One more example I thought of that I realize those without kids might not even know: I need to present my ID every time I want to go to my kids' school or even just volunteer for a field trip. -Paul
pierce: "why would your apathy be confused for opinion, to people who know you?" It's apathy about what THEY want to argue about. I do have opinions on related things (like how I don't think it's completely unreasonable to require an ID for voting). -Paul
a: "that the person with the most money gets to decide which pizza we order?" Does it? I feel like we have more examples of it NOT working than it working. Either way I feel like it's an imperfect analogy because even if it's true the fault lies with voters for being swayed by money. -Paul
hal 9000 is a very interesting costume, and i love it. did you sing the song? my memory was that you hated that movie. ~a
pierce: i won't speak for miguel, but i think you misunderstood his take. it's not that money in advertising (and political advertising) is a placebo, it's that money in advertising (and political advertising) will affect results, and that it is not a bad thing. (i have my reservations of course: there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. citizens united v. fec creates some problems, and i hope it is overturned) ~a
mig: "how it's supposed to work" is up to us... Tesla's stock value or the specific ink used to print Ben Franklin's face on a piece of paper are neither fundamental forces of physics nor intrinsic to human nature. - pierce
I was HAL 9000 for Halloween this year, so depending on procrastination I might just swap lettering and make it HAL 9001 next year. I hope to come up with something more creative, though. - pierce
sometimes money doesn't serve all of the desired outcomes, and in specific situations of embarrassingly opulent and callous donations it can backfire (hence efforts to obscure the sources). but those failures are notable because they're uncommon. - pierce
mig: "money in politics is a fake issue" is genuinely an incredible take. I'm stopping short of saying money is everything, obviously, but your statement is functionally equivalent to saying the advertising industry is fully a placebo. people aren't affected by the (literal and figurative) volume of messages? almost every "fact" we know (correct or not) was shared with us. sharing costs resources. money can spread "facts". - pierce
(this was not a case of double-backwards-triple-secret-probation phrasing... the simple text of the measure was clear that future ballot measures should be at an eighth-grade reading level. the insidiousness was in the ambiguity: it doesn't say how to decide that, and therefore sets up a system where well-funded groups can drown any ballot text they don't like in legal challenges) - pierce
paul: regarding the political alignment of the "make ballots simpler" proposal, you guessed incorrectly. it was by a conservative group, Advance Colorado, who were also responsible for half our fourteen statewide ballot measures (including quite a banger, a consitutional right to purchase natural gas, which fortunately failed). we don't have to pretend to be stupider than we are, their purpose was not simplifying ballots. - pierce
(I think I might coin "Arrow's Inevitability Theorem" for the possibility that our election debates will never be resolved and nevertheless they persist) - pierce
paul: introspection is important. I'll admit that my offhand mea culpa about "diving in antagonistically" was glib, and you weren't totally wrong about the accusation about my "drive-by" participation (I mean that. It's not just as a setup to the following). If people have been debating with you for years about something you don't care about, why might that be? why would your apathy be confused for opinion, to people who know you? - pierce
what are all you guys doing for halloween. it falls on a sunday this year so everybody can't stay up all night long partying if they have classes the next day.
paul: do you feel the same way? ~a
at the end of the day, voters pull the lever on their own accord, and if Musk's megaphone does convince them to vote his way, that's how it's supposed to work. - mig
a: no matter how much money he spends the bad tesla man cannot compel or coerce or mindtrick anyone into voting the way he would prefer them to."money in politics" is a fake issue. - mig
paul: now that we've put that to bed (that you can't get worked up about changing the rules for voter id) can we focus on the much larger problem that we do all care about? that the person with the most money gets to decide which pizza we order? sure it doesn't always work obviously (see how much money the motorcar robber baron and cosmonaut spent trying to get us to order a hamberder pizza), but it works more often than it doesn't. ~a
pierce: "I also don't think you should intrinsically need ID to check into a hotel." Right, it wouldn't be my first choice to require an ID for all of these different things. But given that we already DO for things that seemingly are much less important, then I just can't get that worked up over requiring it for voting. -Paul
pierce: "Shall the commonwealth remove a ban which prohibited banning the idea that gay marriage is only between a man and a woman?" Uh.... what? -Paul
pierce: "I'm also curious what partisan alignment you would assume was behind that initiative" I would assume Democrat. I'm not against the idea. I can't tell you the number of ballot initiatives I've seen with double and triple negatives that I have trouble sussing out what it means. -paul
If people want to vote, then by all means vote. I'm not suggesting we stop anybody. I just think that we get the best outcomes when a high percentage of voters are informed and I don't think we get better outcomes when low information voters who don't have strong opinions vote. -Paul
Because in terms of pure representation, it would be pepperoni. But I think most reasonable people could look at that and say maybe because the majority don't know about the pepperoni allergy and vegetarianism and don't strongly care, we can just do cheese? -Paul
pierce: "if you believe in representation" I believe in representation for those who care. If 5 friends are ordering pizza and one person is a strict vegetarian and one has a pepperoni allergy and the other 3 are like, "meh, I don't really care, I guess pepperoni?"... what's the ideal outcome there? -Paul
pierce: In fact, it's kind of crazy that we on the message board have been going back and forth for so long about this considering my not very strong feelings on the need for legislation for it. I don't think there are epidemics of voter fraud which need to be fixed. -Paul
pierce: "again, the amount of personal voter fraud you can do in the current system is negligible" Yes, and I've agreed with that multiple times. I've also mentioned a few times that this whole thing is hardly a priority to me. It likely wouldn't make a top 100 of things a President Paul would be trying to do. -Paul
a: To the point where the (at the time) third place finisher had a teary speech that many people took as a concession speech before she got a hugely outsized percentage of the remaining vote to pull into second. -Paul
a: "this is evidence of voter irregularities?" I'm not saying there was fraud, but you don't think the way that election played out was pretty irregular? Not only did it take days to count all the votes but the same day voting results were drastically different from what got counted afterwards. -Paul
a: "he does know we're all gonna rename this shit back the second he's gone, right?" Politicians on both sides seem to be constantly operating under the delusion that the other side will never get into power again and use the same tools (executive orders, etc) to completely undo everything. -Paul
a: "would these be a compromise you would accept?" Sure. Virginia's requirements have always felt completely acceptable to me. Presenting my driver's license is something I do multiple times a month (maybe even a week sometimes) so to require it for voting seems like a nothing-burger to me. -Paul
(my ID photo was described as "a lego man" and I'll never unsee it) - pierce
regarding data centers... I had to show up in person to register to vote, so when the data center shows up at the DMV and waits in line and gets an ID with an embarrassing photo of it, then it can have one vote like I do. 🙃 - pierce
I also don't think you should intrinsically need ID to check into a hotel. Also, when travelling internationally you often have to give the hotel your passport to keep while you're staying there. Don't worry, surely no one in the hotel would abuse their access and no one outside the hotel would demand that ID. Well, they wouldn't demand it of me. - pierce
paul: finally, I wonder how those answers align with the institutional motivations about deciding who is a "no-information" voter. I think a lot of our current predicaments are related to bad information for voters, but I think more of them are related to removing their access to voting, while pretending the powerful aren't actively/passively/reactively "low information" themselves, just with a lot more influence - pierce
paul: (I'm also curious what partisan alignment you would assume was behind that initiative) - pierce
paul: we just had a ballot amendment here to amend the CO constitution to say all ballot titles should be written at an eighth-grade reading level. curious what you think about that, because it's simultaneously proposing that one shouldn't have to be too smart to understand what you're voting for, and also creating an ambiguous situation where you have to dumb things down (with unclear requirements) to get something on the ballot. - pierce
paul: if you believe in representation, then paranoid proven non-issues like in-person voter fraud should be recognized for what they are: ways to distract from the inconveniences we've put in place for other things like having to pay for ID (or, you know, have a permanent residence) - pierce
paul: again, the amount of personal voter fraud you can do in the current system is negligible, borne out by the fact that there's almost none of it and its often by accident and never usefully affects outcomes. you had to register to vote, that proved you exist. you move and vote in both states? that was a lot of expense for one fraudulent vote with a potential felony charge, so it doesn't meaningfully happen. - pierce
paul: different systems require different levels of verification and they need that verification at different times. the question is always, "what is the actual risk profile?" - pierce
paul: on other points... "I have fingerprint unlock on my house. if I need a fingerprint to get into my house, why don't I need a fingerprint to vote?" "I need to be this tall to ride a rollercoaster, why don't I need to be this tall to vote?"... - pierce
paul: correct me if I'm wrong because it'll save us both a lot of time, but voting is to make a large group somehow represent the beliefs and interests of its people. those people are often dumb, misinformed, etc… but so are the leaders in non-democratic systems. If we enfranchised all residents (children, felons, etc) of the U.S. I think it'd cause less skew in representation than one Andreessen or Thiel in our system. - pierce
paul: s/dis/extremely /; I am extremely ingenuous. - pierce
paul: whenever i google "los angeles mayoral race vote irregularities" i seem to get nothing but articles about how trump's own justice department debunked the claims you're referring to. this is evidence of voter irregularities? because i don't give two shits about a false perception of voter irregularities. ~a
seems that republicans are fine saying they lost because of iran. and want to make pete hegseth the fall-guy. i'm totally fine with that, but everybody knows that pete hegseth isn't in the epstein files. they're making him the fall guy when we aren't in iran because of him, we're in iran because of trump and epstein. ~a
i heard the other night, that trump was thinking of renaming the reflecting pool to the trump pool, and he tried to rename the atlantic ocean to trump ocean on google maps. he does know we're all gonna rename this shit back the second he's gone, right? ~a
paul: i do wonder how someone without an id checks into a hotel. there's probably a proceedure for that. i did check into a hotel recently without an id, and it was an ordeal, but they did let me check in. are these rules acceptable to you? would these be a compromise you would accept? ~a
paul: "I JUST think it's not completely unreasonable to require some kind of ID when voting" hmm, i don't think i heard you say that explicitly. in general i agree with this. i WOULD prefer no id, but you're getting really close to the virginia laws for what constitutes a normal voting procedure. a fine compromise is "some kind of ID". ~a
pierce: "get some debate-y schadenfreude on an energizing night". i'll be the first to say it, the message board is dead. no more debate here. everybody seems to have left except paul, miguel, and andrew. the thousands of times i come here to see no posts has started to depress me. sometimes i think it's just me being emotional then i go and look at the post counts. ~a
boing: long time no see. i agree james carville is pretty dumb and we probably shouldn't care what he has to say. that being said, i'm not sure what haley stevens's deal is either. why do we care what she has to say? and why does her story keep changing? ~a
Also, I just ran into another super benign scenario which apparently requires that I present a photo ID: Checking into a hotel. Hard to argue that's a life threatening activity like buying cough syrup is. -Paul