4 ms·

> if you ban stock trading high quality candidates will just become lawyers and lobbyists instead. What are your criteria for a "high quality candidate"? I pe

by lapcat 1y ago

> if you ban stock trading high quality candidates will just become lawyers and lobbyists instead. What are your criteria for a "high quality candidate"? I personally would start with honest, ethical, and selfless.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
RajT88 1y ago
Vote in people who do not want the job, lol (Yes, I have no idea how you could architect such a system without having it easily gamed)
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  It's true though, probably the people you want are the ones least likely to run. Or maybe the other way around: the ones most likely to run are the ones that shouldn't be in office. Yeah, either way, you could probably do a lot worse than a national lottery. (Perhaps requiring some level of education but that's about it.)
rayiner 1y ago
So religious nuts and ideologues?
- lapcat 1y ago
  > So religious nuts and ideologues? I'll await your answer to my question about your criteria before I answer this unfortunately phrased follow-up. Actually, I won't wait: Democracy depends on voters getting what they voted for. It's essential that there's consistency between a candidate's election campaign and the elected representative's behavior in office, otherwise you might as well vote for Mickey Mouse for all it matters. So yes, I'd take a consistent "religious nut" any day over someone who sells their soul to the highest bidder. I have respect for people who do what they say and say what they mean, even if they don't agree with me. I have no respect for liars and con artists, regardless of their "intelligence" or "skill". The latter will always screw over the people they were elected to represent.
  - LeafItAlone 1y ago
    >Democracy depends on voters getting what they voted for. That only works if each vote has the same worth in the election and governing. Otherwise the whole population might be getting something that only a small number voted. Do you think that is the case today in the United States? Or are you unaware of all of the gerrymandering currently going on throughout the country?
    - lapcat 1y ago
      Of course I'm aware of gerrymandering. Do you think that I'm somehow in favor of it? Or perhaps you were thinking that I was presenting a sufficient condition for democracy rather than a necessary condition for democracy?
    - rayiner 1y ago
      I don’t know how “gerrymandering” became such a meme. Currently, Democrats have 6 more seats than their two-party share of the House popular vote. That’s only 1.3% off. The differences have been pretty small since the 1990s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_seats_gained.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_...
      - gs17 1y ago
        You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. I'm in Tennessee, and Republicans gerrymandered the districts so that Nashville is divided across three, leading to the state only having one blue district instead of the two or three it should have (by votes, it should have two with a third competitive district). They were forced to keep Memphis' district around only as the minority-majority one (a federal court even ruled that it was a clear political gerrymander, but not a racial one, so it was upheld).
        rayiner 1y ago
        > You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. But Congress is a national body. Maryland is almost the exact flip of Tennessee (2:1 democrat) and democrats have gerrymandered the state so there's only 1 GOP district. Republicans have 35% of the vote, but only 12% of the representatives. At the end of the day, Congressional votes aren't taken state-by-state, and the delta between each party's share of the two-party popular vote and their share of seats typically is small. There's no fair way to do districting. "Independent" redistricting commissions don't work. In California, which has an independent redistricting commission, republicans have just 17% of the seats despite getting 39% of the vote. It's not that much better than Illinois's extreme gerrymander, where the GOP got only 17% of seats with 46% of the popular vote. If we mandated districts be drawn by independent commissions in every state, they'd get taken over by democrats, just like every other non-elected institution (everything from NPR to the ABA). At least the adversarial political process we have now results in relatively small, non-permanent advantages to either side. The only solution would be to ban districts all together and have a statewide vote for a party slate of candidates.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  They did say selfless.
- sumeno 1y ago
  That sure would be different than now
tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago
> honest, ethical, and selfless. We're talking about politics. It's a game that simply does not select for those attributes. We all would like altruistic bankers and energetic, ambitious DMV workers, too. There are many people with those qualities, but you will not find them in those fields.
- lapcat 1y ago
  > We're talking about politics. It's a game No, it's deadly serious. > that simply does not select for those attributes. I agree that it does not select for those attributes. Whether that's a simple matter is debatable, though perhaps it is simple: in the political system I live under, elections are pay-to-play and self-funded, inherently favoring candidates who can raise vast sums of money and thereby encouraging political corruption. > We all would like altruistic bankers and energetic, ambitious DMV workers, too. Note that these are not elected positions.
  - tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago
    Of course it's deadly serious. Politicians could end the entire world with nuclear weapons. (They might still!). It is also a game, with players and objectives, and zero-sum outcomes for the players. You either get elected, or you don't, and it's up to each player to decide what they are willing to do in order to win.
    - lapcat 1y ago
      It's interesting how you don't consider the voters to be among the players.
talobbylobby2 1y ago
> What are your criteria for a "high quality candidate"? In this case, start with knowing that rayiner is a lawyer who was a lobbyist for telcos… so his definition may be biased.

by lapcat 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

RajT88 1y ago

Vote in people who do not want the job, lol (Yes, I have no idea how you could architect such a system without having it easily gamed)

JKCalhoun 1y ago
It's true though, probably the people you want are the ones least likely to run. Or maybe the other way around: the ones most likely to run are the ones that shouldn't be in office. Yeah, either way, you could probably do a lot worse than a national lottery. (Perhaps requiring some level of education but that's about it.)

rayiner 1y ago

So religious nuts and ideologues?

lapcat 1y ago
> So religious nuts and ideologues? I'll await your answer to my question about your criteria before I answer this unfortunately phrased follow-up. Actually, I won't wait: Democracy depends on voters getting what they voted for. It's essential that there's consistency between a candidate's election campaign and the elected representative's behavior in office, otherwise you might as well vote for Mickey Mouse for all it matters. So yes, I'd take a consistent "religious nut" any day over someone who sells their soul to the highest bidder. I have respect for people who do what they say and say what they mean, even if they don't agree with me. I have no respect for liars and con artists, regardless of their "intelligence" or "skill". The latter will always screw over the people they were elected to represent.
- LeafItAlone 1y ago
  >Democracy depends on voters getting what they voted for. That only works if each vote has the same worth in the election and governing. Otherwise the whole population might be getting something that only a small number voted. Do you think that is the case today in the United States? Or are you unaware of all of the gerrymandering currently going on throughout the country?
  - lapcat 1y ago
    Of course I'm aware of gerrymandering. Do you think that I'm somehow in favor of it? Or perhaps you were thinking that I was presenting a sufficient condition for democracy rather than a necessary condition for democracy?
  - rayiner 1y ago
    I don’t know how “gerrymandering” became such a meme. Currently, Democrats have 6 more seats than their two-party share of the House popular vote. That’s only 1.3% off. The differences have been pretty small since the 1990s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_seats_gained.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_...
    - gs17 1y ago
      You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. I'm in Tennessee, and Republicans gerrymandered the districts so that Nashville is divided across three, leading to the state only having one blue district instead of the two or three it should have (by votes, it should have two with a third competitive district). They were forced to keep Memphis' district around only as the minority-majority one (a federal court even ruled that it was a clear political gerrymander, but not a racial one, so it was upheld).
      - rayiner 1y ago
        > You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. But Congress is a national body. Maryland is almost the exact flip of Tennessee (2:1 democrat) and democrats have gerrymandered the state so there's only 1 GOP district. Republicans have 35% of the vote, but only 12% of the representatives. At the end of the day, Congressional votes aren't taken state-by-state, and the delta between each party's share of the two-party popular vote and their share of seats typically is small. There's no fair way to do districting. "Independent" redistricting commissions don't work. In California, which has an independent redistricting commission, republicans have just 17% of the seats despite getting 39% of the vote. It's not that much better than Illinois's extreme gerrymander, where the GOP got only 17% of seats with 46% of the popular vote. If we mandated districts be drawn by independent commissions in every state, they'd get taken over by democrats, just like every other non-elected institution (everything from NPR to the ABA). At least the adversarial political process we have now results in relatively small, non-permanent advantages to either side. The only solution would be to ban districts all together and have a statewide vote for a party slate of candidates.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
They did say selfless.
sumeno 1y ago
That sure would be different than now

tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago

> honest, ethical, and selfless. We're talking about politics. It's a game that simply does not select for those attributes. We all would like altruistic bankers and energetic, ambitious DMV workers, too. There are many people with those qualities, but you will not find them in those fields.

lapcat 1y ago
> We're talking about politics. It's a game No, it's deadly serious. > that simply does not select for those attributes. I agree that it does not select for those attributes. Whether that's a simple matter is debatable, though perhaps it is simple: in the political system I live under, elections are pay-to-play and self-funded, inherently favoring candidates who can raise vast sums of money and thereby encouraging political corruption. > We all would like altruistic bankers and energetic, ambitious DMV workers, too. Note that these are not elected positions.
- tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago
  Of course it's deadly serious. Politicians could end the entire world with nuclear weapons. (They might still!). It is also a game, with players and objectives, and zero-sum outcomes for the players. You either get elected, or you don't, and it's up to each player to decide what they are willing to do in order to win.
  - lapcat 1y ago
    It's interesting how you don't consider the voters to be among the players.

talobbylobby2 1y ago

> What are your criteria for a "high quality candidate"? In this case, start with knowing that rayiner is a lawyer who was a lobbyist for telcos… so his definition may be biased.