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We had one running for president just a couple years back. Sadly, I don't like him much, nor do many from his home state. But it's kind of cool that he went fro

We had one running for president just a couple years back. Sadly, I don't like him much, nor do many from his home state. But it's kind of cool that he went from hacker to political candidate.

octoberfranklin 5y ago
Isn't he running for governor there now? People might like him better if he didn't keep making 180-degree changes to his stance on major constitutional questions. Whichever side of that issue you find yourself on, it's disturbing how easily he could his tune.
- kbenson 5y ago
  My initial reaction to that is just that he likely was too green and not groomed enough. We expect normal people to not know everything already and be willing to change their stance on something when new information comes to light (even if it's just new to them). When that happens to someone in power, we're upset because how could they not already have thought deeply about all the specific aspects anyone could bring up about that topic, as well as the 20,000 other things that might be asked of them randomly. And the only thing that's worse for them than changing their mind is when they admit they haven't come to a decision on that yet, which is just admitting up front that they don't know as much as they should and are fallible. It's not just that we don't expect politicians to by truthful, we disincentivize and sometimes outright punish any natural and truthful behavior that we would expect in a normal person, and force them into the mold we so like to criticize.
  - Gollapalli 5y ago
    I think that goes to the matter of leadership. Politicans aren't normal people. They're supposed to be the best people, who surround themselves with the other kinda-best people. We expect them to be better than us. We want them to be better than us. We want elites. And then we ask them to not make us feel bad about it by pretending to be the same as the rest of us. But it's pretend. It's a game we play. At the end of the day, elites are supposed to act like elites, and that means knowing what they're talking about, and making us feel like someone competent is at the wheel and everything is going to be okay.

We had one running for president just a couple years back. Sadly, I don't like him much, nor do many from his home state. But it's kind of cool that he went from hacker to political candidate.

octoberfranklin 5y ago

Isn't he running for governor there now? People might like him better if he didn't keep making 180-degree changes to his stance on major constitutional questions. Whichever side of that issue you find yourself on, it's disturbing how easily he could his tune.

kbenson 5y ago
My initial reaction to that is just that he likely was too green and not groomed enough. We expect normal people to not know everything already and be willing to change their stance on something when new information comes to light (even if it's just new to them). When that happens to someone in power, we're upset because how could they not already have thought deeply about all the specific aspects anyone could bring up about that topic, as well as the 20,000 other things that might be asked of them randomly. And the only thing that's worse for them than changing their mind is when they admit they haven't come to a decision on that yet, which is just admitting up front that they don't know as much as they should and are fallible. It's not just that we don't expect politicians to by truthful, we disincentivize and sometimes outright punish any natural and truthful behavior that we would expect in a normal person, and force them into the mold we so like to criticize.
- Gollapalli 5y ago
  I think that goes to the matter of leadership. Politicans aren't normal people. They're supposed to be the best people, who surround themselves with the other kinda-best people. We expect them to be better than us. We want them to be better than us. We want elites. And then we ask them to not make us feel bad about it by pretending to be the same as the rest of us. But it's pretend. It's a game we play. At the end of the day, elites are supposed to act like elites, and that means knowing what they're talking about, and making us feel like someone competent is at the wheel and everything is going to be okay.