"Obama says he inherited economic problems"

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[Post New]08/11/2011 08:59
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:...
BTW, my return to signing in and using an ID owes thanks to TMWAU.

Woops, my sign-in apparently lapsed.
Call me takoma.
[Post New]08/11/2011 11:20
TheManWithAUsername
Member Offline
Anonymous wrote:00:32 again. ManWithAUserName, I only have a couple of minutes so this will be quick but why are you getting so upset? I actually don't think you and I fundamentally disagree about much of anything other than the fact that I think your vote is needed to really prevent further Rep. inroads rather than to make a statement on principle. I generally actually really enjoy your posts.

Below is the list of things that were inflammatory just in your 00:32 post; there are many more if we go back to when you guys jumped on me.
“your ‘independent’ voting”
“confirming your membership in a glorious league of independent thinkers”
“your beautiful categorical imperative”
“The categorical imperative just makes you feel good, and perhaps superior”

I didn't start the inflammatory rhetoric (except possibly against Obama, but I assume you're not he). From the start of this, you and the other guy (impossible to distinguish, unfortunately) have accused me of being a poseur ruining the country to feed his ego. In one of the earlier threads someone – presumably not you – accused Jeff of racism for his opposition to Obama, while referring to my anonymous posts.

Not that I can defend my getting pissy; were I a better man, I would more consistently restrain myself even when attacked. I sincerely appreciate your unilateral disarmament. FYI, on a small point, I think some people take it as nasty to break up quotes; I just do it for clarity and ease of reference.
Anonymous wrote:1/"less evil" is better than "more evil" at the voting booth, to the extent that you know it will make a difference in the outcome. Otherwise might as well not vote. And polls before the election give you a fair idea of whether your vote has any chance of making a difference.

? I don't see how that responds to my question. Looking at it with the stuff below, I guess you're saying that there is no line.

Anonymous wrote:2/No, I can't see myself ever voting for the GOP at this point. I don't fundamentally care about making my vote count, just about the implications.

I'm not sure I follow this (I understand you were just answering quickly). I assume you would never vote for the Rep. My question is where is the line between me doing something wasteful and bad b/c my guy has .000000000000000000000000001% chance and your vote for a guaranteed loser Dem not being wasteful because his chances are marginally better. Exactly what percentage chance need my guy have for you to say that it's OK to vote for him?

Given what you say about not caring about making your vote count, the above question may be irrelevant. But if that isn't your issue with my voting, what is? If the problem isn't that I wasted my vote, how did I cause the Bush presidency? If we're agreeing that there isn't a practical effect, why shouldn't I vote for the person I actually want to be president?

Anonymous wrote:Regarding Obama, I actually never bought any of what I used to refer to as his "glittering rhetoric about change", about how these entities at loggerheads were going "to come together at the table and find solutions" and the rest of that BS. Really? Did he really think insurance companies were going to sacrifice billions in profits just by the sheer force of his personality? But apparently a lot of other people believed that. I can't think of an election in which I've felt any enthusiasm for any candidate (except maybe Kucinich, once in a while). But what else was I going to do?

Sounds like we're very close, actually. And you know my answer to that question.

This may help you understand my perspective. I think the best thing to do in 2008 would have been to go to a swing state (and there was one just a few miles away) and campaign like crazy for Obama, and then go home and vote for my actual preference in the booth. I didn't do the former, b/c I'm busy and lazy. I consider those who went to VA and campaigned for him and then voted for him as well - even if holding their noses - to have been morally superior to me, because the campaigning does far more real good than the act of individual voting (which does zero good). As I said, if I held 50,000 Ohio votes, my considerations and behavior would be very different.

Anonymous wrote:To use your metaphor, the people who would burn and eat the babies have a far greater incentive to do so because they get to eat them. If you have no other choice, you have to hope that those who would just burn the babies could one day say, "uh, why exactly should we do this?"

Wow. I gotta say, I didn't expect that answer. I'm not sure what to say other than that I would under no circumstances vote for someone who advocated burning all the babies. I guess we just have to call that a fundamental difference in approach.
[Post New]08/11/2011 11:31
TheManWithAUsername
Member Offline
Anonymous wrote:Here are some reasons I say that voting is irrational:
1. I have several times concluded that I was happier when I voted for the loser, because the disappointing performance allowed me to feel I had voted wisely, as opposed to just feeling disappointed when my candidate invariably fell short of my expectations.
2. I have never cast a deciding vote, so in that sense, I had wasted my time.
3. There is actually a mathematical proof (Arrow's Theorem) that there is no satisfactory voting procedure, subject to a small set of reasonable criteria, to choose among three or more candidates -- not that anyone needs mathematical proof that the primary system is chaos.

But I always vote, since it is the basis of democracy, which as Churchill said, is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Least of all evils, as 00:32 might say.

That's about where I am. I do it for the categorical imperative, but also because I'd find it more embarrassing to say that I didn't vote at all. Re #1, I've had that that satisfaction every presidential election, and have to acknowledge that I get away with a lot of smugness because my choices have never been tested - I don't have to defend my guys' failures.

I'm curious about #3. What about those systems where there's a kind of automatic runoff, where you rank your preferences on the ballot. I invented a system like that for an essay, then learned years later that it already existed. I think they may use it in SF...?

Anonymous wrote:BTW, my return to signing in and using an ID owes thanks to TMWAU.

Alright! I'm making a difference!
[Post New]08/11/2011 12:48
takoma
Member Offline
TheManWithAUsername wrote:...
I'm curious about #3. What about those systems where there's a kind of automatic runoff, where you rank your preferences on the ballot. I invented a system like that for an essay, then learned years later that it already existed. I think they may use it in SF...?
...!

If it's the one where you rank all candidates, and at each stage the candiate at the bottom of the most ballots is thrown out, then one example is five voters who rank them ABC, ABC, ACB, ACB, BCA, BCA, CBA. Although the majority make A their first choice, A is the first one eliminated. Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel-winning economist proved that if you make a few very natural assumptions, NO satisfactory scheme exists. His result has many other social and economic applications. The Wickipedia article is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem
[Post New]08/11/2011 13:02
Anonymous
Obama inherited AAA bond rating. If the economy he inherited ws so bad, why did he waste a year on hyper-partisan Obamacare. Because Obama is an idiot, thats why.
[Post New]08/11/2011 13:29
TheManWithAUsername
Member Offline
takoma wrote:
TheManWithAUsername wrote:...
I'm curious about #3. What about those systems where there's a kind of automatic runoff, where you rank your preferences on the ballot. I invented a system like that for an essay, then learned years later that it already existed. I think they may use it in SF...?
...!

If it's the one where you rank all candidates, and at each stage the candiate at the bottom of the most ballots is thrown out, then one example is five voters who rank them ABC, ABC, ACB, ACB, BCA, BCA, CBA. Although the majority make A their first choice, A is the first one eliminated. Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel-winning economist proved that if you make a few very natural assumptions, NO satisfactory scheme exists. His result has many other social and economic applications. The Wickipedia article is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem

Phew - that's a long, dense article. That will take a little while.

The I thought of does multiple rounds until there's a majority pick, so your example wouldn't be a problem. Take the candidates - let's say 5 - and rank them. Each one gets points corresponding to rank, with 5 for first, 4 for second, etc. If a candidate isn't on a voter's ballot, he gets no points from that voter. If there's no majority, The candidate with the fewest points gets dumped, and you check again.

From my quick look at the article, I can't see if that's covered. If he won the Nobel Prize, we can probably assume so. 1951 - I was even slower on the draw than I had realized.
[Post New]08/12/2011 01:16
takoma
Member Offline
TheManWithAUsername wrote:...
The I thought of does multiple rounds until there's a majority pick, so your example wouldn't be a problem. Take the candidates - let's say 5 - and rank them. Each one gets points corresponding to rank, with 5 for first, 4 for second, etc. If a candidate isn't on a voter's ballot, he gets no points from that voter. If there's no majority, The candidate with the fewest points gets dumped, and you check again.

From my quick look at the article, I can't see if that's covered. If he won the Nobel Prize, we can probably assume so. 1951 - I was even slower on the draw than I had realized.

I can't come up with an example for which your example "doesn't work". But I think a theoretical result that says any method will allow some anomalous situations means that some methods are not better than others. I think yours is better than allowing a winner by plurality of 20%, and also better than going to the expense of a run-off election between the top two. So if I were you, I would not give up on it.
[Post New]08/12/2011 08:37
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Obama inherited AAA bond rating. If the economy he inherited ws so bad, why did he waste a year on hyper-partisan Obamacare. Because Obama is an idiot, thats why.
Because health care is broken, we spend 14% of the economy on it when it should be half that. And if the GOP had not blocked the best cost cutting measures, it would have been a lot more effective.

Republicans want to fix our economy but there is such a long list of things they won't do. Omg can't cut defense can't fix health care. Can't regulate financial services to prevent the next crisis, can't raise taxes to pay our debt, can't spend on stimulus, can't even negotiate a big budget deal.

Wtf CAN they say yes to?

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