5 ms·

> political donation the highest form of return of investment that exists Which is why it should be banned.

nordsieck 4y ago
> Which is why it should be banned. Functionally, this isn't possible. If the open method is banned, people will start using layers of indirection. It's fundamentally a problem with democracy.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  "There's no point in passing laws, because people will get around them." Why does anyone believe this?
  - nordsieck 4y ago
    > "There's no point in passing laws, because people will get around them." > Why does anyone believe this? Good laws are great. And there are plenty of them. But passing bad laws just because "we need to do something" is worse than doing nothing.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    Mostly despair from seeing it happen far more often than it really should due to rampant corrupting "in high places" I'd imagine…
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    Because ultimately a “law” is nothing other than words on paper that only exist in reality because the government is willing to use force to make it so. Some people seem to think that people are like computers and “law” is the programming. No, people will continue to mine Bitcoin, or do drugs, or whatever other illegal thing up until the point where the FBI breaks down a door and some people get shot or (best case) thrown behind bars. My opinion is that laws are nothing other than a form of violence. If you support violence against people for running a computer program I don’t know what to say.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Law is like computer code, adding more of it to your application doesn't necessarily make it better.
    - derac 4y ago
      What if the computer program hurts people / violates their rights?
  - gojomo 4y ago
    When you pass laws that can't practically be enforced, or that everyone figures the insiders/incumbents have already tilted in their favor with de jure or de facto immunities – such that they're only ever used unevenly against disfavored upstarts/outsiders – it erodes confidence in laws & law-enforcement more generally. Under a majoritarian system, even if >50% claim to want a law in polls or ballots, but far-more-than-50% of the same people (or even just: the relevant targets of the law) can flout it without consequences, that's typically a bad law.
- hagy 4y ago
  Yep, if direct political donations are banned or highly limited, then SBF (and Thiel) will just fund a bunch of media startups that promote their preferred policies and candidates. These firms can appear to be profit seeking ventures while staffed with ideologues who are incentivized to optimize reach and influence.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    You: "Nothing we can ever do will ever change anything. Best to give up before we start."
    - hagy 4y ago
      There's plenty we can do to improve things and therefore fighting a losing war against money in politics is a distraction that simply wastes our limited time and effort.
- cesarb 4y ago
  As they say, "perfect is the enemy of good". Adding layers of indirection makes it less efficient, which lessens its impact.
  - nordsieck 4y ago
    > Adding layers of indirection makes it less efficient, which lessens its impact. Maybe. It'll make it less effective. But it'll also make it more difficult to detect.
- intelVISA 4y ago
  > If the open method is banned, people will start using layers of indirection. Noo it's spreading!!
- PoignardAzur 4y ago
  Speaking as someone living in France, where campaign budget limitations are a pretty big deal (to the point a former president is facing jail time for breaking them), I don't see how this is impossible. Yes, powerful people flout them (Sarkozy) or find ways to pass off contributions as gifts (Fillon's suits) or use the support of media oligarchs without a direct monetary contribution (Macron, Zemmour) but overall, the end result is that there's a lot less money in politics, and politicians aren't completely dependent on the funding of industry lobbies for their election. Same thing with political advertising. I'm seeing scandal after scandal about Facebook censoring or not censoring this or that political ad, and I'm just thinking "I'm so glad this is the kind of bullshit we don't need to deal with".
  - gojomo 4y ago
    How do you know there's less money in politics if it's gone dark in harder-to-measure ways?
    - PoignardAzur 4y ago
      Well I don't know for sure. It's not like private interests have disappeared, and I'm not privy to how they manifest. But if nothing else, we can assume that there's less money in politics because campaigns are less expensive. Macron's last campaign cost 16 millions euros. Biden's last campaign cost 1.06 billion dollars. That money has to come from somewhere. In theory, Macron's campaign could have hidden costs not reported in accounting (which is what Sarkozy did) but in practice it's hard to hide that (hence Sarkozy getting caught). Big campaign meetings in expensive stadiums are, by design, hard to hide. Also, since you can't spend money getting your candidate on TV ads, there's not a huge incentive to blow up your campaign budget. Regulators also ensure that TV outlets spend an equal amount of time on each candidate. (Though there are also ways to game that, eg CNews got fined for putting Zemmour on prime time and every other candidate in night slots). So while power games still exist (the key to becoming French president is basically being friends with Xavier Niel), we can assume there's less money overall because parties have fewer things to spend money on.
      - 4y ago
- PontifexMinimus 4y ago
  You might equally argue that murder should be legal, as banning it won't stop it happening. Making something illegal rarely prevents it completely, but very often reduces it.
  - cwalv 4y ago
    It very often reduces it, and also often has unintended consequences (e.g. prohibition era in the US). In the context of the parent's point, that when "the open method is banned, people will start using layers of indirection", it's not hard to think of some unintended consequences that could end up worse than the original problem.
ergocoder 4y ago
Elon Musk can solve this. He could just tweet how easy it is to lobby for electric vehicles and how he will spend a fraction of his money maybe a couple billions on lobbying. Maybe name a specific senate he may or may not donate to. He could specify donald trump or a certain republican senate for maximum impact. There's no need to spend anything. There will be a push to ban political donation immediately.
trappist 4y ago
Of all the possible reasons, the ROI is why it should be banned?

> Which is why it should be banned. Functionally, this isn't possible. If the open method is banned, people will start using layers of indirection. It's fundamentally a problem with democracy.

TomSwirly 4y ago
"There's no point in passing laws, because people will get around them." Why does anyone believe this?
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > "There's no point in passing laws, because people will get around them." > Why does anyone believe this? Good laws are great. And there are plenty of them. But passing bad laws just because "we need to do something" is worse than doing nothing.
- blooalien 4y ago
  Mostly despair from seeing it happen far more often than it really should due to rampant corrupting "in high places" I'd imagine…
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  Because ultimately a “law” is nothing other than words on paper that only exist in reality because the government is willing to use force to make it so. Some people seem to think that people are like computers and “law” is the programming. No, people will continue to mine Bitcoin, or do drugs, or whatever other illegal thing up until the point where the FBI breaks down a door and some people get shot or (best case) thrown behind bars. My opinion is that laws are nothing other than a form of violence. If you support violence against people for running a computer program I don’t know what to say.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Law is like computer code, adding more of it to your application doesn't necessarily make it better.
  - derac 4y ago
    What if the computer program hurts people / violates their rights?
- gojomo 4y ago
  When you pass laws that can't practically be enforced, or that everyone figures the insiders/incumbents have already tilted in their favor with de jure or de facto immunities – such that they're only ever used unevenly against disfavored upstarts/outsiders – it erodes confidence in laws & law-enforcement more generally. Under a majoritarian system, even if >50% claim to want a law in polls or ballots, but far-more-than-50% of the same people (or even just: the relevant targets of the law) can flout it without consequences, that's typically a bad law.
hagy 4y ago
Yep, if direct political donations are banned or highly limited, then SBF (and Thiel) will just fund a bunch of media startups that promote their preferred policies and candidates. These firms can appear to be profit seeking ventures while staffed with ideologues who are incentivized to optimize reach and influence.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  You: "Nothing we can ever do will ever change anything. Best to give up before we start."
  - hagy 4y ago
    There's plenty we can do to improve things and therefore fighting a losing war against money in politics is a distraction that simply wastes our limited time and effort.
cesarb 4y ago
As they say, "perfect is the enemy of good". Adding layers of indirection makes it less efficient, which lessens its impact.
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > Adding layers of indirection makes it less efficient, which lessens its impact. Maybe. It'll make it less effective. But it'll also make it more difficult to detect.
intelVISA 4y ago
> If the open method is banned, people will start using layers of indirection. Noo it's spreading!!
PoignardAzur 4y ago
Speaking as someone living in France, where campaign budget limitations are a pretty big deal (to the point a former president is facing jail time for breaking them), I don't see how this is impossible. Yes, powerful people flout them (Sarkozy) or find ways to pass off contributions as gifts (Fillon's suits) or use the support of media oligarchs without a direct monetary contribution (Macron, Zemmour) but overall, the end result is that there's a lot less money in politics, and politicians aren't completely dependent on the funding of industry lobbies for their election. Same thing with political advertising. I'm seeing scandal after scandal about Facebook censoring or not censoring this or that political ad, and I'm just thinking "I'm so glad this is the kind of bullshit we don't need to deal with".
- gojomo 4y ago
  How do you know there's less money in politics if it's gone dark in harder-to-measure ways?
  - PoignardAzur 4y ago
    Well I don't know for sure. It's not like private interests have disappeared, and I'm not privy to how they manifest. But if nothing else, we can assume that there's less money in politics because campaigns are less expensive. Macron's last campaign cost 16 millions euros. Biden's last campaign cost 1.06 billion dollars. That money has to come from somewhere. In theory, Macron's campaign could have hidden costs not reported in accounting (which is what Sarkozy did) but in practice it's hard to hide that (hence Sarkozy getting caught). Big campaign meetings in expensive stadiums are, by design, hard to hide. Also, since you can't spend money getting your candidate on TV ads, there's not a huge incentive to blow up your campaign budget. Regulators also ensure that TV outlets spend an equal amount of time on each candidate. (Though there are also ways to game that, eg CNews got fined for putting Zemmour on prime time and every other candidate in night slots). So while power games still exist (the key to becoming French president is basically being friends with Xavier Niel), we can assume there's less money overall because parties have fewer things to spend money on.
    - 4y ago
PontifexMinimus 4y ago
You might equally argue that murder should be legal, as banning it won't stop it happening. Making something illegal rarely prevents it completely, but very often reduces it.
- cwalv 4y ago
  It very often reduces it, and also often has unintended consequences (e.g. prohibition era in the US). In the context of the parent's point, that when "the open method is banned, people will start using layers of indirection", it's not hard to think of some unintended consequences that could end up worse than the original problem.

ergocoder 4y ago

Elon Musk can solve this. He could just tweet how easy it is to lobby for electric vehicles and how he will spend a fraction of his money maybe a couple billions on lobbying. Maybe name a specific senate he may or may not donate to. He could specify donald trump or a certain republican senate for maximum impact. There's no need to spend anything. There will be a push to ban political donation immediately.

trappist 4y ago

Of all the possible reasons, the ROI is why it should be banned?