4 ms·

That's a good point. However, the narrative of "blame the boomers" is a con. Blow this off if you want, but just realize that unless you're a russian bot or a

by jmull 8y ago

That's a good point. However, the narrative of "blame the boomers" is a con. Blow this off if you want, but just realize that unless you're a russian bot or an ally of the American oligarchs you're working against your own self interests. The con is blame the problems of one group on another group to separate them and get them fighting each other. This distracts everyone from the real causes of the problems. It's the same as blaming the brown people, which is pretty popular right now too. (Not a coincidence: in both cases the groups have a hard time understanding each other and it's very easy to identify the other group.) Another big one is getting people to identify as Ds and Rs and letting them blame and fight each other. (They are somewhat harder to identify, but the red hats help.) It's important for millennials to understand this because without addressing the actual problem you are not going to end up with an actual working solution. You'll go after boomers and still see no improvements. No doubt the people benefitting from the con will say you simply need to go after them harder. Guess what? That other group of people aren't actually demons and anyone demonizing them is bs'ing you, whether wittingly or not. That's not to say boomers haven't benefited from the current system -- they have (generally). But their main advantage there is that they vote. (I don't know the full solution to that, but one thing is we have to make voting easier.) I think the main problem is the massive money in politics. The people with money have always used it to influence politics in order to get more money. But they seem to have basically won outright at this point, with firm control of congress and the supreme court. The executive is mostly under control. The guy at the top is a wild-card but can be managed and is incompetent in any case. Anyway, I wish I had a lot of answers but I don't. Just keep your eyes open and don't fall for the con. That's probably not enough to ensure a good outcome, but if you don't it's enough to ensure a bad outcome.

echelon 8y ago
> I don't know the full solution to that, but one thing is we have to make voting easier. I wholeheartedly agree. We need absolutely zero friction to onboard younger generations. What does this look like to you? Do we provide an app where people can input their social security, driver's license, or other ID number? How do we keep it from being abused if this information was stolen by a third party? Ideally we could have something as simple as download -> vote -> submit. And also provide a website version that doesn't even need to be downloaded. How do we get something like this approved? What states would be the most likely to go for this?
- jmull 8y ago
  > What does this look like to you? I don't know, really. An app & web site are great for convenience, but large-scale hacking needs to be very difficult to do and easy to detect and verify... vs. highly motivated & well-funded state-level actors. That's not easy. On a related note, people generally also have to have a level of trust and comfort with the system. While those "details" are worked out, maybe some enhancements to the existing mechanisms will help... * pre-paid postage on mail-in ballots? I've heard that the post office will deliver mail-in ballots even without postage, but when the envelope clearly says "postage required" not a lot of people are going to attempt that route. * Same day voter registration? There's some increased potential for fraud. But it's also the day where all the political officials & volunteers of all parties from big to small are mobilized and watching. It should be possible to have a system for this that is very difficult to perpetrate fraud against it at any scale. * Make voting day a Saturday or Sunday? (A national holiday is tricky. A lot of people don't get paid when they don't work, it doesn't matter if it's a national holiday or not. And I expect a new national holiday will be largely used for purposes other than the intended one.) * 6am to 9pm polling hours? This is tough. There are real people working the polls all day, from before they open until after they close, sometimes a long time after. IDK, maybe 6am to 8pm? * Give people a sandwich or a pizza when they vote? I guess more generally, get food trucks to come out and work the polling places which accept vouchers from the polling place? IDK. There are surely people who've worked on this for years so my off-the-top-of-my-head ideas are surely hopelessly naive, aside from the ones I've gotten from those people.
  - echelon 8y ago
    These are fantastic ideas (many I hadn't thought of), and I'll definitely advocate for them! Thanks for sharing.
rnernento 8y ago
You're acting as if all of this is deliberate and planned. I'll give you a hint, it isn't. Everything is not going to be ok. The responsibility of these problems is societal ignorance. I'll give you another hint, that isn't going to get any better. This isn't going to end well...

by jmull 8y ago

echelon 8y ago

> I don't know the full solution to that, but one thing is we have to make voting easier. I wholeheartedly agree. We need absolutely zero friction to onboard younger generations. What does this look like to you? Do we provide an app where people can input their social security, driver's license, or other ID number? How do we keep it from being abused if this information was stolen by a third party? Ideally we could have something as simple as download -> vote -> submit. And also provide a website version that doesn't even need to be downloaded. How do we get something like this approved? What states would be the most likely to go for this?

jmull 8y ago
> What does this look like to you? I don't know, really. An app & web site are great for convenience, but large-scale hacking needs to be very difficult to do and easy to detect and verify... vs. highly motivated & well-funded state-level actors. That's not easy. On a related note, people generally also have to have a level of trust and comfort with the system. While those "details" are worked out, maybe some enhancements to the existing mechanisms will help... * pre-paid postage on mail-in ballots? I've heard that the post office will deliver mail-in ballots even without postage, but when the envelope clearly says "postage required" not a lot of people are going to attempt that route. * Same day voter registration? There's some increased potential for fraud. But it's also the day where all the political officials & volunteers of all parties from big to small are mobilized and watching. It should be possible to have a system for this that is very difficult to perpetrate fraud against it at any scale. * Make voting day a Saturday or Sunday? (A national holiday is tricky. A lot of people don't get paid when they don't work, it doesn't matter if it's a national holiday or not. And I expect a new national holiday will be largely used for purposes other than the intended one.) * 6am to 9pm polling hours? This is tough. There are real people working the polls all day, from before they open until after they close, sometimes a long time after. IDK, maybe 6am to 8pm? * Give people a sandwich or a pizza when they vote? I guess more generally, get food trucks to come out and work the polling places which accept vouchers from the polling place? IDK. There are surely people who've worked on this for years so my off-the-top-of-my-head ideas are surely hopelessly naive, aside from the ones I've gotten from those people.
- echelon 8y ago
  These are fantastic ideas (many I hadn't thought of), and I'll definitely advocate for them! Thanks for sharing.

rnernento 8y ago

You're acting as if all of this is deliberate and planned. I'll give you a hint, it isn't. Everything is not going to be ok. The responsibility of these problems is societal ignorance. I'll give you another hint, that isn't going to get any better. This isn't going to end well...