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A few thoughts: 1. I love stuff like this. I think about it with elections all the time; even in the biggest landslide elections there’s always about a third o

A few thoughts: 1. I love stuff like this. I think about it with elections all the time; even in the biggest landslide elections there’s always about a third of the population that wasn’t on board. A good reminder about winners writing history books. 2. I’m in my 30s. The first time I ever was given an idea that people weren’t all about the Moon landing was a Larry Norman song[0], of all things. (“They brought back a big bag of rocks / Only cost thirteen billion. Must be nice rocks”) I was definitely an adult by this point. 3. I’m curious about the wording, but it seemed like the survey question was focused on cost. Americans never like things when you ask about cost. If the question was “should we develop rockets strong enough to beat the Commies” it probably would have polled a lot better. 4. Americans also always seem to be cool with public works-y stuff once it’s actually built. No one liked the Big Dig until it was done. Part of that is the cost concern, but I think there’s also the disbelief that things are possible, and fears about what the bad side of the thing could be. [0]: https://genius.com/Larry-norman-readers-digest-lyrics https://genius.com/Larry-norman-readers-digest-lyrics

lapcat 3y ago
> I think about it with elections all the time; even in the biggest landslide elections there’s always about a third of the population that wasn’t on board. You're actually vastly underestimating the amount of the population that wasn't on board. In 1972, Nixon was reelected with 60.7% of the vote from 56.2% voter turnout, which amounted to only 34% of eligible voters. In 1984, Reagan was reelected with 58.8% of the vote from 55.2% voter turnout, which amounted to only 32% of eligible voters. Incidentally, Biden in 2020 was also 34%: 51.3% of the vote from 66.6% voter turnout.
- amrocha 3y ago
  You can't make the voter turnout argument because the US election system is awful, and people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote Why would you count these people as "on board"? Moreover, even among the people who do vote, there are a lot who plug their noses and vote for what they consider to be the lesser evil, against the other candidate rather than with enthusiasm for their own candidate.
    - toast0 3y ago
      It's not really possible to know if non-voters are on board or not. Because of how the elections are setup, we also don't get any real actionable information about how people might vote under different rules either. Some voters will vote in most elections, and some voters only turn out if they think there's a vote somewhere on the ticket where their vote counts.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        What it means to be "on board" is to endorse the leader's agenda. The context here is supporting the Moon landings rather than supporting any particular political candidate. (And recall that JFK only barely edged out Nixon in the extremely close 1960 election.) The question is not which candidate a non-voter would vote for, if forced to choose. That's why I mentioned the lesser of evils phenomenon. Also, non-voters are consistently at least 1/3 of the population, regardless of the "closeness" of the election, and there's not necessarily a correlation between closeness and turnout.
        toast0 3y ago
        If that's the definition of "on board", we really don't have any useful information on if citizens (or residents) are on board or not. Other than if they stage a protest, they're probably not on board, but then again we don't know how many of the people who didn't attend the protest aren't on board but didn't go to the protest for whatever reason. I don't think there were protests about the moon landing, but maybe some small ones I never heard about.
- Brendinooo 3y ago
  Point taken, but I would assume that non voters have a mix of reasons ranging from “I hate everyone” to “I like things enough to not do anything about it”
ghaff 3y ago
The Big Dig was also a horrific pain when it was going on. (Oh, and Boston traffic is also still horrific.) Nonetheless, once done, it was a nice transfer payment to Boston that the Speaker of the House (Tip O'Neill) arranged for the rest of the country to make that reversed the also horrifying neighborhood-splitting overhead highway decision. Boston is better for it.
- moojd 3y ago
  We need to do "The Stitch" next https://thestitchatl.com/project https://thestitchatl.com/project
  - ghaff 3y ago
    The Big Dig almost certainly resulted in less bad traffic than would have existed otherwise--and eliminated some really painful traffic patterns like getting to the airport. But elevated 93 which cut off the North End from downtown was just a blight generally even if it took years to get the greenway plan approved. I guess SF had the "advantage" of an earthquake to eliminate its issue.

lapcat 3y ago

> I think about it with elections all the time; even in the biggest landslide elections there’s always about a third of the population that wasn’t on board. You're actually vastly underestimating the amount of the population that wasn't on board. In 1972, Nixon was reelected with 60.7% of the vote from 56.2% voter turnout, which amounted to only 34% of eligible voters. In 1984, Reagan was reelected with 58.8% of the vote from 55.2% voter turnout, which amounted to only 32% of eligible voters. Incidentally, Biden in 2020 was also 34%: 51.3% of the vote from 66.6% voter turnout.

amrocha 3y ago
You can't make the voter turnout argument because the US election system is awful, and people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote
- lapcat 3y ago
  > people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote Why would you count these people as "on board"? Moreover, even among the people who do vote, there are a lot who plug their noses and vote for what they consider to be the lesser evil, against the other candidate rather than with enthusiasm for their own candidate.
  - toast0 3y ago
    It's not really possible to know if non-voters are on board or not. Because of how the elections are setup, we also don't get any real actionable information about how people might vote under different rules either. Some voters will vote in most elections, and some voters only turn out if they think there's a vote somewhere on the ticket where their vote counts.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      What it means to be "on board" is to endorse the leader's agenda. The context here is supporting the Moon landings rather than supporting any particular political candidate. (And recall that JFK only barely edged out Nixon in the extremely close 1960 election.) The question is not which candidate a non-voter would vote for, if forced to choose. That's why I mentioned the lesser of evils phenomenon. Also, non-voters are consistently at least 1/3 of the population, regardless of the "closeness" of the election, and there's not necessarily a correlation between closeness and turnout.
      - toast0 3y ago
        If that's the definition of "on board", we really don't have any useful information on if citizens (or residents) are on board or not. Other than if they stage a protest, they're probably not on board, but then again we don't know how many of the people who didn't attend the protest aren't on board but didn't go to the protest for whatever reason. I don't think there were protests about the moon landing, but maybe some small ones I never heard about.
Brendinooo 3y ago
Point taken, but I would assume that non voters have a mix of reasons ranging from “I hate everyone” to “I like things enough to not do anything about it”

ghaff 3y ago

The Big Dig was also a horrific pain when it was going on. (Oh, and Boston traffic is also still horrific.) Nonetheless, once done, it was a nice transfer payment to Boston that the Speaker of the House (Tip O'Neill) arranged for the rest of the country to make that reversed the also horrifying neighborhood-splitting overhead highway decision. Boston is better for it.

moojd 3y ago
We need to do "The Stitch" next https://thestitchatl.com/project https://thestitchatl.com/project
- ghaff 3y ago
  The Big Dig almost certainly resulted in less bad traffic than would have existed otherwise--and eliminated some really painful traffic patterns like getting to the airport. But elevated 93 which cut off the North End from downtown was just a blight generally even if it took years to get the greenway plan approved. I guess SF had the "advantage" of an earthquake to eliminate its issue.