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> GRAHAM: No, no, no, politics. The problems with San Francisco are entirely due to a small number of terrible politicians. It’s all because Ed Lee died. The ma

> GRAHAM: No, no, no, politics. The problems with San Francisco are entirely due to a small number of terrible politicians. It’s all because Ed Lee died. The mayor, Ed Lee, was a reasonable person. Up till the point where Ed Lee died, San Francisco seemed like a utopia. It was like when Gates left Microsoft, and things rapidly reverted to the mean. Although in San Francisco’s case, way below the mean, and so it’s not that it didn’t take that much to ruin San Francisco. It’s really, if you just replaced about five supervisors, San Francisco would be instantly a fabulously better city. > COWEN: Isn’t it the voters you need to replace? Those people got elected, reelected. > GRAHAM: Well, the reason San Francisco fundamentally is so broken is that the supervisors have so much power, and supervisor elections, you can win by a couple hundred votes. All you need to do is have this hard core of crazy left-wing supporters who will absolutely support you, no matter what, and turn out to vote. > Everybody else is like, “Oh, local election doesn’t matter. I’m not going to bother.” [laughs] It’s a uniquely weird situation that wasn’t really visible. It was always there, but it wasn’t visible until Ed Lee died. Now, we’ve reverted to what that situation produces, which is a disaster. https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/paul-graham/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/paul-graham/

micromacrofoot 3y ago
the sage wisdom of "the problem with politics is that the people who get the most votes win"
- nemothekid 3y ago
  I get you are being sarcastic, but the real problem is people don't vote and you see this at every level of government office. Other than the president, it's hard to engage people (which I don't really fault them for) and so you end up with politicians - all across the field - who do nothing but pander to the most extreme voters.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    That's not what he's saying in the quote though, he's mad that the people who are engaged are people that don't agree with him and dismisses voters as "crazy" He even goes as far to call this "broken" — it's literally democracy.
    - Zak 3y ago
      A political and electoral system can have elections that are fair in principle but tend to produce results few are happy with in practice even when they voted for the winner. Is that democracy? Well, maybe, but I'd argue it's not doing democracy very well. US presidential elections come to mind; the likely nominees of both major parties are viewed unfavorably by a majority in polls, but one of them is almost certainly going to win.
      - micromacrofoot 3y ago
        US presidential elections aren't "really" democracy IMO, we've had a long string of presidents that didn't even win the popular vote
    - rstuart4133 3y ago
      > it's literally democracy. I guess it is the formal definition. In Australia we have a slightly different version. We don't prevent the crazies from voting. Instead we insist everyone must vote, including the crazies. Turns out when you do that the non-crazy voters outnumber the rest by a considerable margin. A weird thing happens when you make voting compulsory. Another bunch, which I now regard as crazy, insists they should be free to not vote. They get fined. (I have a vision of what would happen in the USA if someone proposed compulsory voting. It's far left and far right politicians who would be thrown out if the centre voted, inciting their following to riot in the streets, shouting "Freedom!") It's kinda funny, because they are allowed to not vote. The actual requirement isn't to vote because it's impossible to police. The requirement is to turn up at the polling place and have your name recorded. You can write whatever you damned well please on the voting slip. After most elections the country gets to have a laugh at the insults and pornographic images that have been inscribed on those slips. It's also funny because these crazies are insisting they have a right to not participate in the democracy. And they don't. Those that do participate then pass rules to fine them, and the non-participants get pissed off about that and demonstrate their now white hot anger by not voting again. And I bet you thought I was being harsh for calling them crazy. It's like watching someone put their hand in a fire, and not remove it because it hurts. And that is an excellent example of why compulsory voting works. The voices of the crazies literally get drowned out by the people who would otherwise be too lazy to vote. Or perhaps they just figure they are in the centre, know stuff all about the candidates, and most other people are reasonable like them so they won't change the outcome. But it turns out if most normal, reasonable, uninformed people remove themselves from machinery of democracy, what you get left with is crazies voting for crazies.
  - Affric 3y ago
    Compulsory voting is an option.
    - infamouscow 3y ago
      Most people already don't vote voluntarily. Forcing the uninformed and uninterested to vote has never yielded better results by any measure.
      - pas 3y ago
        it would at least help with making voting the default, also it would be normal to insert it into a schedule for employers, have enough polling places, etc. (okay, okay, I know, of course it's terminal naivete, fascist cumbombs would continue to smear their nastiness all over anyway. yet defaults matter. laws matter.)
        kjkjadksj 3y ago
        In california you have two weeks to vote in some precincts. Its more time consuming to buy milk than it is to vote for many.
      - EasyMark 3y ago
        that's an interesting theory but nearly impossible to prove, thus safe from scrutiny?
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      The issue is voters are uneducated. You get compulsory voting you get the same issue with the california prop system scaled out: where people are given a choice and vote on what feels right from the proposition name and two sentence description alone. Research and looking into bias be damned.
      - Affric 3y ago
        No, it's not. Compulsory voting drives engagement. Representative democracy saves the public from themselves. The vast majority of people vote for who they trust.
blendo 3y ago
GRAHAM> … It’s all because Ed Lee died To believe that Ed Lee is some kind of political white knight instead of merely a Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom/London Breed/Kamala Harris machine politician seems historically naive, if not blindly ignorant. Similar to Garry Tan in that.
- tim333 3y ago
  He didn't say he was a political white night, just a reasonable politician that got replaced with unreasonable ones. These things happen.
tim333 3y ago
Seems Graham and Tan had similar views of the problem, just Graham is diplomatic about it and doesn't go on drunk rants.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

the sage wisdom of "the problem with politics is that the people who get the most votes win"

nemothekid 3y ago
I get you are being sarcastic, but the real problem is people don't vote and you see this at every level of government office. Other than the president, it's hard to engage people (which I don't really fault them for) and so you end up with politicians - all across the field - who do nothing but pander to the most extreme voters.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  That's not what he's saying in the quote though, he's mad that the people who are engaged are people that don't agree with him and dismisses voters as "crazy" He even goes as far to call this "broken" — it's literally democracy.
  - Zak 3y ago
    A political and electoral system can have elections that are fair in principle but tend to produce results few are happy with in practice even when they voted for the winner. Is that democracy? Well, maybe, but I'd argue it's not doing democracy very well. US presidential elections come to mind; the likely nominees of both major parties are viewed unfavorably by a majority in polls, but one of them is almost certainly going to win.
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      US presidential elections aren't "really" democracy IMO, we've had a long string of presidents that didn't even win the popular vote
  - rstuart4133 3y ago
    > it's literally democracy. I guess it is the formal definition. In Australia we have a slightly different version. We don't prevent the crazies from voting. Instead we insist everyone must vote, including the crazies. Turns out when you do that the non-crazy voters outnumber the rest by a considerable margin. A weird thing happens when you make voting compulsory. Another bunch, which I now regard as crazy, insists they should be free to not vote. They get fined. (I have a vision of what would happen in the USA if someone proposed compulsory voting. It's far left and far right politicians who would be thrown out if the centre voted, inciting their following to riot in the streets, shouting "Freedom!") It's kinda funny, because they are allowed to not vote. The actual requirement isn't to vote because it's impossible to police. The requirement is to turn up at the polling place and have your name recorded. You can write whatever you damned well please on the voting slip. After most elections the country gets to have a laugh at the insults and pornographic images that have been inscribed on those slips. It's also funny because these crazies are insisting they have a right to not participate in the democracy. And they don't. Those that do participate then pass rules to fine them, and the non-participants get pissed off about that and demonstrate their now white hot anger by not voting again. And I bet you thought I was being harsh for calling them crazy. It's like watching someone put their hand in a fire, and not remove it because it hurts. And that is an excellent example of why compulsory voting works. The voices of the crazies literally get drowned out by the people who would otherwise be too lazy to vote. Or perhaps they just figure they are in the centre, know stuff all about the candidates, and most other people are reasonable like them so they won't change the outcome. But it turns out if most normal, reasonable, uninformed people remove themselves from machinery of democracy, what you get left with is crazies voting for crazies.
- Affric 3y ago
  Compulsory voting is an option.
  - infamouscow 3y ago
    Most people already don't vote voluntarily. Forcing the uninformed and uninterested to vote has never yielded better results by any measure.
    - pas 3y ago
      it would at least help with making voting the default, also it would be normal to insert it into a schedule for employers, have enough polling places, etc. (okay, okay, I know, of course it's terminal naivete, fascist cumbombs would continue to smear their nastiness all over anyway. yet defaults matter. laws matter.)
      - kjkjadksj 3y ago
        In california you have two weeks to vote in some precincts. Its more time consuming to buy milk than it is to vote for many.
    - EasyMark 3y ago
      that's an interesting theory but nearly impossible to prove, thus safe from scrutiny?
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    The issue is voters are uneducated. You get compulsory voting you get the same issue with the california prop system scaled out: where people are given a choice and vote on what feels right from the proposition name and two sentence description alone. Research and looking into bias be damned.
    - Affric 3y ago
      No, it's not. Compulsory voting drives engagement. Representative democracy saves the public from themselves. The vast majority of people vote for who they trust.

blendo 3y ago

GRAHAM> … It’s all because Ed Lee died To believe that Ed Lee is some kind of political white knight instead of merely a Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom/London Breed/Kamala Harris machine politician seems historically naive, if not blindly ignorant. Similar to Garry Tan in that.

tim333 3y ago
He didn't say he was a political white night, just a reasonable politician that got replaced with unreasonable ones. These things happen.

tim333 3y ago

Seems Graham and Tan had similar views of the problem, just Graham is diplomatic about it and doesn't go on drunk rants.