Felagund
20d ago
But, I think, bitcoin seems mostly secure, right?
I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics, but would crypto elections be pretty riggable? Could you pay miners to only include transactions that had votes for your candidate in their blocks? There are probably ways to avoid that if you design things right, though.
I can't remember where I heard it, I think it was EconTalk, maybe in their discussion of crony capitalism, but right now, when someone gives money to a politician's campaign, it's important to them that the politician knows that they, specifically, gave that money to the politician's campaign. If the politician couldn't tell who gave money to his campaign, he could be corrupt in many ways, but at least he couldn't act corruptly in the specific way of just looking to the people who gave the most money to his campaign and doing the things they tell him to do.
You can make it pretty clear that you're the one who gave the money if you tell them you're going to give them $648,355.27, and then, lo and behold, someone makes a donation the next day of exactly that amount.
Felagund
20d ago
Not sure. I know the Mises caucus of the libertarian party wasn't in favor of him.
Felagund
21d ago
what makes me useful is that I am willing to actually and consistently do it
And, sincerely, thank you for doing so. It sounds like a lot of work, and it provides a lot of value.
Felagund
23d ago
Are you in Wisconsin? That's the only one that had that list match exactly. It looks like their only write-in candidate available is Peter Sonski, of the American Solidarity Party.
I imagine De la Cruz is too extreme with you, wanting to abolish capitalism. I couldn't find identifiable policies for Terry.
If by "quantitative approaches to existential threats" you mean, not shutting down everything over climate change, while still caring about it, I imagine that rules out West and Stein. They're also just generally more extreme.
Of the remaining:
Oliver likes to handle things by just having the government leave the matter. He wants to let everyone in on immigration. He wants to help the climate only by stopping government actions that make things worse.
Trump's probably more anti-trade than you'd like, and cares less about the environment than you'd prefer (though he agrees that clean air and water are important).
RFK's now only listing things that he can agree with Trump on, which makes him hard for me to evaluate.
Sonski's not really a YIMBY, and wants to keep allowing in refugees.
I'd say, if you want to choose someone with a chance, definitely go Trump. Otherwise, your closest match is probably one of those last four, but I'm not sure which.
Felagund
23d ago
Yes, somehow Grants Pass was the most striking for me as well from this last term, in that it seemed the most tenuous and absurd. I was thinking the whole time, how did that position manage to attract three votes, when it was so transparently not what the 8th amendment is saying?
Felagund
24d ago
There's the in-universe order, and the order in which they were written. The former we can work out from clues from the text—most have some indication as to when they're set. The latter is mostly just divided into early, middle, and late, and I've generally heard people find it doubtful—a lot of that is just categorizing things in increasing order of complexity, rather than anything more demonstrable.
Felagund
30d ago
I've read most of them, but not well. That's quite a bit of reading in the next two months.
Some of them are connected to each other (e.g. Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman).
Felagund
1mo ago
Am I correct in recalling that it varies along a bell curve? (Not bimodally?)
Felagund
1mo ago
Eh, I've not infrequently had, like, seven at once—having books in several different genres or styles to switch between as your mood changes can be good. Twenty is a ton, though.
Felagund
1mo ago
I haven't seen anyone consider how the set of candidates on ballot in Nevada favors the democrats. Of course, Nevada is among the bluest of the swing states anyway, and the least relevant state, but that's a relevant factor in its outcome, I think.
Felagund
1mo ago
Seconded. Just keep it as is, and let mods, if they think it suitable, approve users on a per-user instead of a per-post basis.
Felagund
1mo ago
Today, you would end up with a system where you can't fill your gas tank by yourself
See: Oregon, New Jersey
Felagund
1mo ago
I think the argument would be that the vesting clauses imply separation of powers, which must inherently have built in some immunity (though likely not as much as here is attributed).
But they didn't really employ much founding-era evidence to support their position—Sotomayor was much better on that front.
I think Barrett, Gorsuch, and Thomas are the three I respect most.
Felagund
1mo ago
Thank you, that's more reasonable.
Barrett concurred with most of the opinion, but yeah, her opinion wasn't controlling. I fully expect though, if it makes it back to the court, that it be construed in a narrow fashion, rather than a broad one. I think they expected it to be considered with all future such cases in view (hence Gorsuch's quote of "a rule for the ages"), and it would equally well protect Biden from prosecution for carrying out the office of the President, but it clearly wasn't taken that way by the public.
I think the idea was that Presidents in general shouldn't be prosecuted just on Trumped up charges (ha, ha) when their political opponents come into power, that would be really bad. Similarly, Congress shouldn't constitutionally be able to take away from the President the things the Constitution commands him to do, like execute the laws, even if it can regulate the manner of doing so to some extent. Because of those two things, it's necessary that the president have some level of immunity from prosecution for some sorts of things related to the carrying out of his Presidential responsibilities. Did this ruling go too far? I'm currently leaning yes, especially with the evidence rule, which was, as far as I can tell, baseless. But no immunity, which seems to be what Jackson, at least, wanted, would also be bad.
My general sense of the conservative justices, which could be totally wrong, is that Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch have visions of what the law should ideally be, which are in many cases different from how it's been interpreted for half a century plus, and they want to restore it, and are not afraid to say so. They're also the most partisan. Roberts and Kavanaugh generally lean conservative, but are more pragmatists, and I think they seem to care more about the administrative state than about social issues. They like hedging. And Barrett is just over there trying to faithfully interpret the law—more socially conservative and slightly more of an idealist than Roberts and Kavanaugh, but wants to come to opinions on her own, and so joins the liberals sometimes, and is not a fan of Trump. I think the conservatives view their role as closer to restoring justice and the law of the land than helping a political team (but, of course, they think that a certain political team fits that better). I couldn't tell you the differences between Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson—Jackson's pretty clearly more willing to break with the other liberals than Sotomayor or Kagan are with each other, but I don't see differences in their philosophies all that much.
The court has ruled against Trump in the past, he just hasn't been before the court recently. He lost, for example, Trump v. Vance. Admittedly, the court has gotten more conservative since then.
Felagund
1mo ago
I just mean that Trump seems to mean what he's saying policy-wise a little more. I agree that a bunch of the things are bad. (e.g. no tax on tips)
Republicans are currently substantially more likely to support nuclear power, though the bigger gap is male-female.
Frankly, it's a bit crazy to me that you'd support the No Kings Act. Jurisdiction-stripping the courts, and instructing them to rule according to congressional directions is about as fast a path as you can get away from our constitutional order, and I happen to like the US having rule of law. I agree that Trump v. United States was not ideal, most notably in the evidence portions (I'm inclined to think Barrett was not far from the correct path), but blowing up the entire federal judiciary is not the right response to that. How would you feel if the next time a sufficiently Republican majority in Congress instructed the judiciary to shift all jurisdiction on abortion-related cases to the 5th circuit, and tells the judges to not consider arguments that the fetuses are not legal persons. Pass the No Kings Act, and you start seeing things like that.
Ah, those are reasonable cases to care about firing.
Felagund
1mo ago
I think Trump's at least somewhat sincere on a bunch of the things. That's not the impression I get from Harris.
I think it's more important that we prioritize growth than that we care about the climate—the usual policies aren't that effective, when China, etc. will just ignore them (and they make up a much larger share of global emissions), and technology can do an awful lot to nullify the bad effects, at least in wealthier countries. I generally don't expect climate regulations to be done in a manner that's at all efficient, which makes many of them a net negative—the best plan forward to slash emissions is to reduce regulations on nuclear somewhat and expand our power capacity that way, until it's cheaper than fossil fuels, and Trump seems more likely to push for that I think?
He's talked about clean air and water, but I think it's fair on your part to be skeptical of what that looks like in practice.
But you mentioned the Supreme Court. Did you see the various proposals from the democrats? The No Kings Act, for example, would lead us down a path of destroying the independence of the federal judiciary, which, needless to say, would be extremely bad—they seem to be the only branch that cares to any real extent what the constitution says.
I think workers being fired for unfair reasons isn't all that bad, when there are many other employers doing the same things. Preventing firing people is inefficient, which leads to more expensive goods, which makes us all poorer, including workers. Capitalism makes firing useful people for silly reasons a bad idea economically, so this isn't the hugest concern—the best run, and hence growing, companies will probably avoid doing that too much.
I'm not sure which programs you're worried about, but Trump has, unfortunately, pledged not to touch things like social security.
If you're in a state that matters, could you at least vote for a Republican senator? Should Trump win, Republicans are almost certainly going to take the senate, so additional senators isn't the most important thing. But if Harris wins, the Senate's the best way to stop a trifecta, and a majority-red Senate would force cooperation in decision making, making things more moderate.
Felagund
2mo ago
Well, don't go too overboard with that. Just because a word is used some way in one passage doesn't mean that it has that valence in every passage.
If you have Hebrew or Greek questions at some point, I've done a little of each, so feel free to message me, I won't mind. Can't guarantee that I'll know the answers to whatever question, but I'll probably have a bit better of a sense than someone who's done none.
Felagund
2mo ago
What sort of church do you go to? That might affect what's popular, as preferred translations shift, and some theological opinions. I believe knowableword.com rated a bunch of study bibles, but I haven't looked at that in a long time, and have no idea to what extent I'd agree with their rating system.
Felagund
2mo ago
I'm speaking regarding this site, where there is no algorithm to have to think about:
Generally, I upvote things that I think are good. I downvote things that I think are bad. Many things I don't vote either way on. Having good insights is one of the most common factors behind me thinking it's good.
Occasionally, if I get to something that's been around for long enough to see the results, I'll upvote someone who's been net-downvoted if it doesn't feel like their comment warranted the votes to be as negative as they are.
If I'm in a one-on-one conversation a few levels deep, I think I upvote people sometimes, because it's nice of them to keep engaging with me. I honestly can't recall how often I downvote people when I'm in the midst of an argument with them—I think I'm more likely to do so if it's unnecessarily bad, instead of merely disagreement. I only remove the auto-upvote if I retroactively think what I said wasn't actually very good.
Felagund
2mo ago
Somewhat—I think Florida's the closest R-leaning seat to being a democrat, besides Montana.
A Democrat trifecta would be bad.
Felagund
2mo ago
On your side:
Your vote, in all likelihood, will not matter. (If it does, it's far more likely to downballot, where people care less anyway.) If it does, it might be a big benefit, but the expected value of voting is probably quite low.
Voting well takes effort, as you point out. It has an opportunity cost.
Accordingly, voting is a net negative, and you should not do it.
On the other side, which I would prefer you followed:
Your vote may not matter much individually, but the vote of your people as a block does. You not voting is a defection against those most aligned with you—you really don't want to establish the norm that 50% of your side votes and 75% of your opponents do. People who agree with you are disproportionately going to follow the same reasoning and do the same.
I think these represent different decision theories, to some extent. The first is more like causal decision theory, the second is more like eternal decision theory.
Are you in a state where your vote will matter (especially presidential or senatorially)?
If you have a specific race or concerns, I could attempt to give thoughts.
We won't escape it. Duverger's law. What third party votes actually do is signal that there's a body of people who have a different set of preferences (with some very vague gesture as to what those might be) whose votes might be worth attempting to appeal to in future elections.
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