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> thus the overall function of voting is actually to make winning voters think More generally, the specific implementation of "democracy" in America was probab

> thus the overall function of voting is actually to make winning voters think More generally, the specific implementation of "democracy" in America was probably done with the best of intentions, but the rise of various forms of communication have now enabled and created the need/desire for more sophisticated forms. I would propose some reasonable form of more direct democracy, or at least comprehensive direct polling (non-binding) on individual issues - this way we'd at least have a half decent model about what people's beliefs are. Unfortunately, this may be unpalatable to certain parties who enjoy the ability to project what they want people to think other people's beliefs are. That people have not been provided this improved (over one vote every 4 years, and then some other low-resolution voting here and there at other levels, all of which rarely results in changing much, or pleasing a large portion of the public) seems to have resulted in a situation where people have decided to take influence into their own hands, with the tools they have available: meme wars. > This does not represent my perspective at all. I may have estimated you erroneously. >> Do you automatically presume any conservative group is white supremacists by default? > Given the way Trump has captured the following of the conservative community, despite being a radical populist and having few policy accomplishments besides inflaming racial tensions, yes. It's reasonable starting assumption about any group that continues to express support for Trump. Upon reconsideration, my interpretation has not changed. Can you possibly explain where you think I may have gone wrong in interpreting the above exchange? My sense of what you are saying is that because I have awareness of racist tendencies in Trump's model, then therefore I should reject him (as opposed to considering his racism as just one dimension among millions of others). > And lastly no, my decision to support Biden does not come from modus ponens on policies. Rather, I've been trying to find any reason why it would make sense to support Trump, to give his supporters the benefit of the doubt. I interpret this to mean that you are unable to see how someone could possibly evaluate the multidimensional nature of Donald Trump and (all things considered) decide to vote for him, without ~being similarly racist, or at least to some noteworthy degree? This is literally how I interpret your words, did you mean something completely different and I missed it? > He's continued to reject expert advice regarding Covid, leading to 210,000 American deaths. I don't like the manner in which he's done this, but I am very displeased with the way this pandemic has been marketed (for many reasons), so I am "ok" with his buffoon-like performance. > He's setup tariffs that could only have worked twenty years ago, and has chosen to compete with China by adopting China's app censorship totalitarianism. Here we disagree, significantly. > He's withdrawn from foreign diplomacy to let China and Russia conquer unhindered. Also here. Other than these points, and then also our final decision on who to vote for, I believe you and I are largely in agreement on everything else you've written.

mindslight 6y ago
> My sense of what you are saying is that because I have awareness of racist tendencies in Trump's model, then therefore I should reject him (as opposed to considering his racism as just one dimension among millions of others). No, but you did get what I'm saying with this next quote: > I interpret this to mean that you are unable to see how someone could possibly evaluate the multidimensional nature of Donald Trump and (all things considered) decide to vote for him, without ~being similarly racist, or at least to some noteworthy degree? Every individual decision is moderated by noise, lag, etc, but fundamentally yes this conclusion seems to be getting more and more valid. I've been trying to see the other dimensions but have been coming up increasingly short. For example when he's asked about his Covid response - he always comes back to talking about banning travel from China. It seems the only way he knows how to make policy is to claim some group is responsible for the problem, and exclude them. The concept of attacking the details of problem itself is beyond him. So the deeper problem isn't merely that Trump has racist tendencies, but rather than it's the only lens through which he sees the world. In his mind, every problem is due to bad people disrupting things for good people. Stop the bad people and things will be good. But the world is much more complex than that. I guess if you still believe his China policies, then it's possible to support his approach without being racist yourself. The problem is those policies also reek of the simple minded thinking of racism - tariffs to keep out bad Chinese goods, don't care about Hong Kong because it's Chinese, blaming Chinese apps specifically rather than data collection in general - and they will all be long term strategic failures that miss the big picture. > I don't like the manner in which he's done this, but I am very displeased with the way this pandemic has been marketed (for many reasons), so I am "ok" with his buffoon-like performance. If it were just the way he communicated I would get over it. But the real problem is the rejection of experts. He basically kneecapped the entire federal response, for which we've been paying a large amount of taxes, in favor of letting Covid spread unchecked. He's the leader and his job is to lead everyone - the "both sides" argument doesn't hold water. The standard politician thing would have been to defer to the experts and make sure he himself couldn't be blamed for errors. This culture is itself suboptimal, but would have produced much better results than what we got. If he had listened to any experts, Trump could have easily gotten the wartime president boost rather than presiding over a needless disaster. The lack of PPE specifically would have dovetailed nicely into his call for domestic manufacturing, but instead crickets. If he were anything besides an empty suit, he would have figured this out by now.

mindslight 6y ago

> My sense of what you are saying is that because I have awareness of racist tendencies in Trump's model, then therefore I should reject him (as opposed to considering his racism as just one dimension among millions of others). No, but you did get what I'm saying with this next quote: > I interpret this to mean that you are unable to see how someone could possibly evaluate the multidimensional nature of Donald Trump and (all things considered) decide to vote for him, without ~being similarly racist, or at least to some noteworthy degree? Every individual decision is moderated by noise, lag, etc, but fundamentally yes this conclusion seems to be getting more and more valid. I've been trying to see the other dimensions but have been coming up increasingly short. For example when he's asked about his Covid response - he always comes back to talking about banning travel from China. It seems the only way he knows how to make policy is to claim some group is responsible for the problem, and exclude them. The concept of attacking the details of problem itself is beyond him. So the deeper problem isn't merely that Trump has racist tendencies, but rather than it's the only lens through which he sees the world. In his mind, every problem is due to bad people disrupting things for good people. Stop the bad people and things will be good. But the world is much more complex than that. I guess if you still believe his China policies, then it's possible to support his approach without being racist yourself. The problem is those policies also reek of the simple minded thinking of racism - tariffs to keep out bad Chinese goods, don't care about Hong Kong because it's Chinese, blaming Chinese apps specifically rather than data collection in general - and they will all be long term strategic failures that miss the big picture. > I don't like the manner in which he's done this, but I am very displeased with the way this pandemic has been marketed (for many reasons), so I am "ok" with his buffoon-like performance. If it were just the way he communicated I would get over it. But the real problem is the rejection of experts. He basically kneecapped the entire federal response, for which we've been paying a large amount of taxes, in favor of letting Covid spread unchecked. He's the leader and his job is to lead everyone - the "both sides" argument doesn't hold water. The standard politician thing would have been to defer to the experts and make sure he himself couldn't be blamed for errors. This culture is itself suboptimal, but would have produced much better results than what we got. If he had listened to any experts, Trump could have easily gotten the wartime president boost rather than presiding over a needless disaster. The lack of PPE specifically would have dovetailed nicely into his call for domestic manufacturing, but instead crickets. If he were anything besides an empty suit, he would have figured this out by now.