3 ms·

This is the classic result of the problem with democracy and “concentrated benefits and disperse costs”. Legal gambling is a HUGE money making opportunity for c

This is the classic result of the problem with democracy and “concentrated benefits and disperse costs”. Legal gambling is a HUGE money making opportunity for casinos, and for most voters it is just a minor negative. Of course, utility wise, the minor cost times the number of voters is much higher than the concentrated benefit, but the concentration makes it worth it for casinos to keep fighting for legalization. The cost of fighting for it is less than the benefit when it is legalized. Now that it is legalized, though, there is no one who has a concentrated enough cost to fight for its reversal. It is more rational to just suffer the small cost of gambling instead of fighting hard for its repeal. So as you say, they only have to win the fight once, and it is won forever, and society is slightly worse off. This is the exact same reason Intuit keeps winning the tax battle… it matters more to them than anyone else, even though it makes it a little bit worse for everyone.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
It also doesn't help that these days the stwte/country is probably large enough to gather ebouygh of a petition for whatever you want. Just word it nicely and you can get 10k, 100k people to say "sure why not?" Apathy reigns as usual.
- cortesoft 2y ago
  It isn’t apathy, it is rationality. Why would I spend a ton of time fighting against a problem that is a minor inconvenience to me? I have a lot of important things going on in my life, and a limited amount of time and energy to do things. It isn’t rational for me (or most people) to spend a bunch of time, money, and effort fighting against legalized gambling. There literally isn’t enough time in the day for me to fight against everything, so you pick and choose where to spend your energy.
  - akoboldfrying 2y ago
    Agree. I like the idea of policy changes like this having an expiry date a few years in the future, which forces a periodic revote if some party wants to keep the new policy. Like a political office term, this should be long enough to give businesses a timeframe they can plan around, and an opportunity for voters to see how the policy played out. Perhaps it would lead to an ever-increasing pile of legal "confirmation dialog boxes" that bore the public. But I like that the default action (doing nothing) would lead to regulations being deleted, as there are few forces that act to reduce regulation, and having too many regulations is another slow-burn energy sink for everyone.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      We have this in WA and it's arguably very dysfunctional, particularly because due to property tax caps it has kind of turned into government-by-renewed-levy, and causes all sorts of headaches when one particular levy to fund one project has a surplus and another has a deficit due to completely normal deviations in tax projections.
      - akoboldfrying 2y ago
        Thanks for the data point!
    - cortesoft 2y ago
      How would that work for something like legalize gambling? The default state would be for gambling to be legal (since a law is required to make it illegal). So in a few years when the `legalize gambling` law was up for review, what would happen? Which policies would be up for review? Everything? Do we have to re-outlaw murder ever 5 years?
      - akoboldfrying 2y ago
        I don't see a problem with having to re-criminalise gambling every few years -- do you? Regarding murder, I don't have a problem with having to periodically re-criminalise that either, though I think that for cases like this where there's enough of a consensus, the ban could be either permanent or much longer-term (e.g., every 50 years). In fact, having overly frequent votes on such serious crimes might encourage people to try to overturn them as a prank.
        cortesoft 2y ago
        I don't think I trust our government on this. Look how many times they threaten shut down for routine things like increasing the debt ceiling; I can just imagine representatives threatening to not renew the outlawing of murder unless something else is added to the bill.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >Why would I spend a ton of time fighting against a problem that is a minor inconvenience to me That's ideally why we elect proper representatives and have advocacy groups who can expend that energy. We don't do too much better there, spending a fee hours researching who will actually fight in our interest instead of enabling the armies of minor inconveniences to stack up. Sad thing about the US is that it's a reactive country, not a preventative one. It really doesn't try to act on stuff until it's arguably too late.
  - keybored 2y ago
    That you don’t have the power to fight for or against these measures is explained by you not living in a sufficiently democratic society. A democratic society would have democratic organizations that deliberate on these matters. Professional lobbying is the opposite of that due to concentration of wealth.
- Spivak 2y ago
  As someone who has done signature collection this is mostly correct but it ignores what the actual barrier is which is proof of work which is proof of money. The idea that a ballot initiative that's just a good idea someone had winding up on your voting paper will never happen because no one has money to collect signatures from millions of people and the annoying ceremony related to it. And this is working as designed because citizen ballot initiatives are despised by legislatures because the only reason to need them is because your representatives are fucking up that badly. So there's two kinds of ballot initiatives generally * Coalition of nonprofits desperately trying to actually represent the will of the people in defiance of the legislature. Good recent example would be abortion amendments that pass without too much trouble in red states. Democrats might need to adjust their barometer on how Americans actually feel about immigration but Republicans have refused to acknowledge the Overton Window on abortion is passing them by. * Cash grabs because some financially interested party realized the money to get legislation this way is worth the investment.
- BeFlatXIII 2y ago
  Like inflation messing with fines, but population growth undermining signature-gathering to be a pointless formality.
Y_Y 2y ago
Externalities
keybored 2y ago
It’s more of a problem with oligarchy and oligarchic tendencies. Don’t make things into a game theory problem. It’s a power problem.
- cortesoft 2y ago
  I am not “making” anything into a game theory problem, game theory is simply explaining WHY it becomes a problem. How to solve the problem is a separate issue, but the problem can be described with game theory.
  - keybored 2y ago
    Many supposed explanations of the problems with democracy are really about the nominative democracy not being democratic enough. Concentrated power of a non-democratic entity. That’s the parsimonious explanation.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

It also doesn't help that these days the stwte/country is probably large enough to gather ebouygh of a petition for whatever you want. Just word it nicely and you can get 10k, 100k people to say "sure why not?" Apathy reigns as usual.

cortesoft 2y ago
It isn’t apathy, it is rationality. Why would I spend a ton of time fighting against a problem that is a minor inconvenience to me? I have a lot of important things going on in my life, and a limited amount of time and energy to do things. It isn’t rational for me (or most people) to spend a bunch of time, money, and effort fighting against legalized gambling. There literally isn’t enough time in the day for me to fight against everything, so you pick and choose where to spend your energy.
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  Agree. I like the idea of policy changes like this having an expiry date a few years in the future, which forces a periodic revote if some party wants to keep the new policy. Like a political office term, this should be long enough to give businesses a timeframe they can plan around, and an opportunity for voters to see how the policy played out. Perhaps it would lead to an ever-increasing pile of legal "confirmation dialog boxes" that bore the public. But I like that the default action (doing nothing) would lead to regulations being deleted, as there are few forces that act to reduce regulation, and having too many regulations is another slow-burn energy sink for everyone.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    We have this in WA and it's arguably very dysfunctional, particularly because due to property tax caps it has kind of turned into government-by-renewed-levy, and causes all sorts of headaches when one particular levy to fund one project has a surplus and another has a deficit due to completely normal deviations in tax projections.
    - akoboldfrying 2y ago
      Thanks for the data point!
  - cortesoft 2y ago
    How would that work for something like legalize gambling? The default state would be for gambling to be legal (since a law is required to make it illegal). So in a few years when the `legalize gambling` law was up for review, what would happen? Which policies would be up for review? Everything? Do we have to re-outlaw murder ever 5 years?
    - akoboldfrying 2y ago
      I don't see a problem with having to re-criminalise gambling every few years -- do you? Regarding murder, I don't have a problem with having to periodically re-criminalise that either, though I think that for cases like this where there's enough of a consensus, the ban could be either permanent or much longer-term (e.g., every 50 years). In fact, having overly frequent votes on such serious crimes might encourage people to try to overturn them as a prank.
      - cortesoft 2y ago
        I don't think I trust our government on this. Look how many times they threaten shut down for routine things like increasing the debt ceiling; I can just imagine representatives threatening to not renew the outlawing of murder unless something else is added to the bill.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Why would I spend a ton of time fighting against a problem that is a minor inconvenience to me That's ideally why we elect proper representatives and have advocacy groups who can expend that energy. We don't do too much better there, spending a fee hours researching who will actually fight in our interest instead of enabling the armies of minor inconveniences to stack up. Sad thing about the US is that it's a reactive country, not a preventative one. It really doesn't try to act on stuff until it's arguably too late.
- keybored 2y ago
  That you don’t have the power to fight for or against these measures is explained by you not living in a sufficiently democratic society. A democratic society would have democratic organizations that deliberate on these matters. Professional lobbying is the opposite of that due to concentration of wealth.
Spivak 2y ago
As someone who has done signature collection this is mostly correct but it ignores what the actual barrier is which is proof of work which is proof of money. The idea that a ballot initiative that's just a good idea someone had winding up on your voting paper will never happen because no one has money to collect signatures from millions of people and the annoying ceremony related to it. And this is working as designed because citizen ballot initiatives are despised by legislatures because the only reason to need them is because your representatives are fucking up that badly. So there's two kinds of ballot initiatives generally * Coalition of nonprofits desperately trying to actually represent the will of the people in defiance of the legislature. Good recent example would be abortion amendments that pass without too much trouble in red states. Democrats might need to adjust their barometer on how Americans actually feel about immigration but Republicans have refused to acknowledge the Overton Window on abortion is passing them by. * Cash grabs because some financially interested party realized the money to get legislation this way is worth the investment.
BeFlatXIII 2y ago
Like inflation messing with fines, but population growth undermining signature-gathering to be a pointless formality.

Y_Y 2y ago

Externalities

keybored 2y ago

It’s more of a problem with oligarchy and oligarchic tendencies. Don’t make things into a game theory problem. It’s a power problem.

cortesoft 2y ago
I am not “making” anything into a game theory problem, game theory is simply explaining WHY it becomes a problem. How to solve the problem is a separate issue, but the problem can be described with game theory.
- keybored 2y ago
  Many supposed explanations of the problems with democracy are really about the nominative democracy not being democratic enough. Concentrated power of a non-democratic entity. That’s the parsimonious explanation.