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It's easy to believe that rich people "outright buy political influence" when you only pay attention to examples of when they happen to get what they want, and

by Aunche 4y ago

It's easy to believe that rich people "outright buy political influence" when you only pay attention to examples of when they happen to get what they want, and don't care about the examples of when they don't: - Bloomberg spent almost $1 billion dollars in his presidential campaign and barely got any delegates - Google constantly gets blocked from rolling out Google Fiber, despite being richer than all the telecom companies combined - Facebook really wants to outsource moderation decision making, so they can point their finger at something when it comes to unpopular moderation decisions. To do so, they created an independent oversight board that cost them $130 million, which is more than their total spending on lobbying. If they could outright buy political influence, they would have Congress make rules instead, which would not only give them more distance, but would have the added benefit (for Facebook) of creating regulatory capture. - Abortion rights got rolled back despite being overwhelmingly championed by billionaires. For example, Warren Buffet has donated over $1 billion to pro-choice charities, and Mackenzie Bezos has donated $300 million. Of course, there are plenty of examples of large-scale outright corruption in American politics, but you're naive if you believe that it would be any better than in countries where you can bribe police officers.

Aerroon 4y ago
This reminds me of the article[0] by Scott Alexander where he makes the case that Americans spend less money on an election cycle than they spend on almonds. You would think that if money ruled the day then a lot more would be spent on politics. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  “Scott Alexander” demonstrating that he’s a high-IQ idiot once again. > In this model, the difference between politics and almonds is that if you spend $2 on almonds, you get $2 worth of almonds. In politics, if you spend $2 on Bernie Sanders, you get nothing, unless millions of other people also spend their $2 on him. People are great at spending money on direct consumption goods, and terrible at spending money on coordination problems. Okay, so develop that train of thought just a tiny bit more inside that fermented brain of yours. Coordinating problems are a lot easier if you are “the ten percent”, “the five percent” or “the one percent” depending on how you wanna slice it: you have more resources and you are fewer people. But if you are the rest? Massively more difficult. First of all, who do you trust? People have fallen in and out of trust with Sanders these last six years many times. Is he just a puppet of the Dems? Is he “controlled opposition”? What if a Sanders run just amounts to “raising awareness” that a lot of Americans are struggling (“duh”, they said) as he capitulates to his “good friend” Biden/Clinton/etc.? And what about all the other supposedly grassroots organizations and things that sprouted in his wake? Were they legitimate or just astroturfs? Were they perhaps legitimate and then got coopted? Is federal-level electoral politics even a viable path for the “99%”? Or will such efforts always get thwarted by team red and team blue? Does it help at all to get 100 candidates almost-elected? And what if a few of them do get elected? Will they just adapt to the machine (i.e. become “corrupted”)? What’s the critical mass of progressive or whatever else candidates that need to be elected at the same time in order for that not to happen? - - - The supposed fact that more money is spent on almonds is not in itself evidence of any damn thing, and this high-IQ idiot knows that his clickbait headline proves nothing. You don’t spend more on a problem then you need to. - - - Just an aside but it’s curious that “Scott” didn’t find data on something useless like ice cream. Almond is good food, and you need food to live. Some kind of food. > So when I hear stories like that Americans could end homelessness by redirecting the money they spend on Christmas decorations, I don’t think that’s because they’re evil or hypocritical or don’t really care about the issue. I think they would if they could but the coordination problem gets in the way. Upper-middle class nerds love these “X would end Y” statistics. It means that they can just throw money at the problem and don’t have to think about “politics”, because politics is too messy for them (too much people, too few numbers and stats). But ending homelessness is inherently a political project because you have to find the root cause for it. You can’t just give them money to rent apartments if they just become homeless in two years again. So what’s the issue? Is it mental illness? If that then you need to support the mentally ill directly, not just indirectly once they become homeless. Is it unaffordable rent and home ownership? Then that needs to be fixed. Except there are probably interests that would like rents and home prices to stay at their current levels. Competing interests i.e. a political problem. > This is one reason I’m so gung ho about people pledging to donate 10% of their income to charity. It mows through these kinds of problems. Right. These EA people exist, so I’ll just donate to them and let them figure it out. They have big IQs after all. Then I read in the yearly report that they spent 80% of my 10% on BS like safeguarding against run amock general AI. Sigh. “Scott Alexander” can pat himself on his own back all he wants for his 10%. But he’s confusing two different things. Politics is bigger than turning in your sworn 14 units of good-doing acts for the year–it’s about more than “being a good person”, or publishing “facts” about Christmas decorations and homelessness. If you are working two jobs and can still barely get by then the only long-term fix might be to help change some policies. And maybe five people that you know are in the same boat and so you donate your precious “almond money” to some politician that you think isn’t a fraud. You’re in a different situation than some upper-middle class blogger who world builds for a hobby.
avgcorrection 4y ago
Naivity is clinging to your just-world worldview based on mere examples, not empiricism.[1] Of course individual rich people don’t get what they want all the time when they have to compete with other rich people. And sometime the popular resistance is so overwhelming that they don’t get their way. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-ofamerican-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-averagecitizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... Maybe it’s the verb “buy” that you are railing against? Well of course. You can’t buy 2,000 units of political influence for 200MUSD. You got me there. You have to take your chances in the short term. But you could on average get a nice return on your investment in the long run. > Abortion rights got rolled back despite being overwhelmingly championed by billionaires. For example, Warren Buffet has donated over $1 billion to pro-choice charities, and Mackenzie Bezos has donated $300 million. There are rich people who are in favor of anti-abortion. > Of course, there are plenty of examples of large-scale outright corruption in American politics, but you're naive if you believe that it would be any better than in countries where you can bribe police officers. How about you look at the comment that I was replying to. Rejecting federal-level political corruption as “not endemic” since it’s not petty bribery is ludicrous.
- Aunche 4y ago
  Elites do tend to be... elite. That's not what I was objecting to. My contention is that this has little to do with corruption. Rather, the government happens to be a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy. Regular people have little interest in navigating it, while the rich can pay others to do so. IMO, the biggest problem is that people are increasing confusing politics for entertainment, so you get a lot of noise that doesn't translate into policy. I view vague disdain towards things like lobbying as one such example of such noise. It's always, "a corporation got something that I don't like. Must be legalized bribery!" There is never any discussion to the myriad regulations of lobbying or even have any clue how it operates. People don't even realize that lobbying money is primarily an operating expense that pays for the work of lobbyists. I found one section in the paper you shared interesting: > A possible objection to populistic democracy is that average citizens are inattentive to politics and ignorant about public policy... > But we tend to doubt it. We believe instead that—collectively—ordinary citizens generally know their own values and interests pretty well, and that their expressed policy preferences are worthy of respect. This was written before the massive wave of populism. We got Trump and his attempt of protectionism. The UK got Brexit. Both were overall opposed by the rich as the largest corporations are multinational. Neither achieved the goals that the populists were hoping for. Later, we got the stimulus checks and student loan changes, but both of these were easily hijacked by lobbyists thanks to the economic ignorance of the the population. Small business owners managed to convince people that PPP forgiveness money would go towards keeping people on payroll. Universities and lenders are delighted that forgiveness and income-based repayment will increase the willingness to pay for tuition, which would make them more dependent on private loans. > There are rich people who are in favor of anti-abortion. Not really. You have rich people who are against abortion as the means to achieve an end. An example of this is Trump coincidentally becoming against abortion when has he was preparing for his presidential campaign. You don't see any billionaires as dedicated as Buffet is to pro-choice. > How about you look at the comment that I was replying to. Rejecting federal-level political corruption as “not endemic” since it’s not petty bribery is ludicrous. The comment was saying that corruption isn't endemic in America... because it's not particularly endemic. There isn't a fundamental difference between petty and federal corruption. If you can pay a police officer to forgive a traffic infraction, a billionaire can easily pay the entire police department to look the other way when they hire thugs to block a polling station.

by Aunche 4y ago

Aerroon 4y ago

This reminds me of the article[0] by Scott Alexander where he makes the case that Americans spend less money on an election cycle than they spend on almonds. You would think that if money ruled the day then a lot more would be spent on politics. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...

avgcorrection 4y ago
“Scott Alexander” demonstrating that he’s a high-IQ idiot once again. > In this model, the difference between politics and almonds is that if you spend $2 on almonds, you get $2 worth of almonds. In politics, if you spend $2 on Bernie Sanders, you get nothing, unless millions of other people also spend their $2 on him. People are great at spending money on direct consumption goods, and terrible at spending money on coordination problems. Okay, so develop that train of thought just a tiny bit more inside that fermented brain of yours. Coordinating problems are a lot easier if you are “the ten percent”, “the five percent” or “the one percent” depending on how you wanna slice it: you have more resources and you are fewer people. But if you are the rest? Massively more difficult. First of all, who do you trust? People have fallen in and out of trust with Sanders these last six years many times. Is he just a puppet of the Dems? Is he “controlled opposition”? What if a Sanders run just amounts to “raising awareness” that a lot of Americans are struggling (“duh”, they said) as he capitulates to his “good friend” Biden/Clinton/etc.? And what about all the other supposedly grassroots organizations and things that sprouted in his wake? Were they legitimate or just astroturfs? Were they perhaps legitimate and then got coopted? Is federal-level electoral politics even a viable path for the “99%”? Or will such efforts always get thwarted by team red and team blue? Does it help at all to get 100 candidates almost-elected? And what if a few of them do get elected? Will they just adapt to the machine (i.e. become “corrupted”)? What’s the critical mass of progressive or whatever else candidates that need to be elected at the same time in order for that not to happen? - - - The supposed fact that more money is spent on almonds is not in itself evidence of any damn thing, and this high-IQ idiot knows that his clickbait headline proves nothing. You don’t spend more on a problem then you need to. - - - Just an aside but it’s curious that “Scott” didn’t find data on something useless like ice cream. Almond is good food, and you need food to live. Some kind of food. > So when I hear stories like that Americans could end homelessness by redirecting the money they spend on Christmas decorations, I don’t think that’s because they’re evil or hypocritical or don’t really care about the issue. I think they would if they could but the coordination problem gets in the way. Upper-middle class nerds love these “X would end Y” statistics. It means that they can just throw money at the problem and don’t have to think about “politics”, because politics is too messy for them (too much people, too few numbers and stats). But ending homelessness is inherently a political project because you have to find the root cause for it. You can’t just give them money to rent apartments if they just become homeless in two years again. So what’s the issue? Is it mental illness? If that then you need to support the mentally ill directly, not just indirectly once they become homeless. Is it unaffordable rent and home ownership? Then that needs to be fixed. Except there are probably interests that would like rents and home prices to stay at their current levels. Competing interests i.e. a political problem. > This is one reason I’m so gung ho about people pledging to donate 10% of their income to charity. It mows through these kinds of problems. Right. These EA people exist, so I’ll just donate to them and let them figure it out. They have big IQs after all. Then I read in the yearly report that they spent 80% of my 10% on BS like safeguarding against run amock general AI. Sigh. “Scott Alexander” can pat himself on his own back all he wants for his 10%. But he’s confusing two different things. Politics is bigger than turning in your sworn 14 units of good-doing acts for the year–it’s about more than “being a good person”, or publishing “facts” about Christmas decorations and homelessness. If you are working two jobs and can still barely get by then the only long-term fix might be to help change some policies. And maybe five people that you know are in the same boat and so you donate your precious “almond money” to some politician that you think isn’t a fraud. You’re in a different situation than some upper-middle class blogger who world builds for a hobby.

avgcorrection 4y ago

Naivity is clinging to your just-world worldview based on mere examples, not empiricism.[1] Of course individual rich people don’t get what they want all the time when they have to compete with other rich people. And sometime the popular resistance is so overwhelming that they don’t get their way. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-ofamerican-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-averagecitizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... Maybe it’s the verb “buy” that you are railing against? Well of course. You can’t buy 2,000 units of political influence for 200MUSD. You got me there. You have to take your chances in the short term. But you could on average get a nice return on your investment in the long run. > Abortion rights got rolled back despite being overwhelmingly championed by billionaires. For example, Warren Buffet has donated over $1 billion to pro-choice charities, and Mackenzie Bezos has donated $300 million. There are rich people who are in favor of anti-abortion. > Of course, there are plenty of examples of large-scale outright corruption in American politics, but you're naive if you believe that it would be any better than in countries where you can bribe police officers. How about you look at the comment that I was replying to. Rejecting federal-level political corruption as “not endemic” since it’s not petty bribery is ludicrous.

Aunche 4y ago
Elites do tend to be... elite. That's not what I was objecting to. My contention is that this has little to do with corruption. Rather, the government happens to be a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy. Regular people have little interest in navigating it, while the rich can pay others to do so. IMO, the biggest problem is that people are increasing confusing politics for entertainment, so you get a lot of noise that doesn't translate into policy. I view vague disdain towards things like lobbying as one such example of such noise. It's always, "a corporation got something that I don't like. Must be legalized bribery!" There is never any discussion to the myriad regulations of lobbying or even have any clue how it operates. People don't even realize that lobbying money is primarily an operating expense that pays for the work of lobbyists. I found one section in the paper you shared interesting: > A possible objection to populistic democracy is that average citizens are inattentive to politics and ignorant about public policy... > But we tend to doubt it. We believe instead that—collectively—ordinary citizens generally know their own values and interests pretty well, and that their expressed policy preferences are worthy of respect. This was written before the massive wave of populism. We got Trump and his attempt of protectionism. The UK got Brexit. Both were overall opposed by the rich as the largest corporations are multinational. Neither achieved the goals that the populists were hoping for. Later, we got the stimulus checks and student loan changes, but both of these were easily hijacked by lobbyists thanks to the economic ignorance of the the population. Small business owners managed to convince people that PPP forgiveness money would go towards keeping people on payroll. Universities and lenders are delighted that forgiveness and income-based repayment will increase the willingness to pay for tuition, which would make them more dependent on private loans. > There are rich people who are in favor of anti-abortion. Not really. You have rich people who are against abortion as the means to achieve an end. An example of this is Trump coincidentally becoming against abortion when has he was preparing for his presidential campaign. You don't see any billionaires as dedicated as Buffet is to pro-choice. > How about you look at the comment that I was replying to. Rejecting federal-level political corruption as “not endemic” since it’s not petty bribery is ludicrous. The comment was saying that corruption isn't endemic in America... because it's not particularly endemic. There isn't a fundamental difference between petty and federal corruption. If you can pay a police officer to forgive a traffic infraction, a billionaire can easily pay the entire police department to look the other way when they hire thugs to block a polling station.