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> Instead, solutions should be developed through a public democratic process that includes elected officials, policymakers, educators, health workers, local off
by swed420 2mo ago
> Instead, solutions should be developed through a public democratic process that includes elected officials, policymakers, educators, health workers, local officials, and community leaders. Millions of people will have their lives disrupted, and we’ll need a stronger, more flexible social safety net to help them manage the transition. Local communities are already raising concerns about the energy and water needed for data centers. Without solutions, some groups will push for stopping AI development and deployment altogether.
Sounds great, except it ignores the fact that capital interests have controlled the levers of our faux democracies for decades, with no end in sight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty
- sophrosyne42 2mo ago[flagged]
- swed420 2mo ago> Election denialism is unbecoming of anyone with a brain Convincing argument you have there, but the choices we're provided between shit sandwich A and shit sandwich B are the problem, not which one wins.
- sophrosyne42 2mo agoThis is a well known mathematical property of first-past-the-post election systems, as opposed to evidence of your grand conspiracy theory
- nextaccountic 2mo agoMaybe then the US should abandon first past the post?
- sophrosyne42 2mo agoI would support that, and there are states that have already switched to different systems in their local or other elections
- swed420 2mo agoIt doesn't require a "grand conspiracy theory" to know that dominant capital interests have the power and desire to perpetuate themselves. But keep trying to wave the away the obvious. You only look more ridiculous the harder you try.
- sophrosyne42 2mo agoJust because its a Marxist trope doesn't make it not a conspiracy theory
- randusername 2mo agoIt is a well known physical property of lawn rakes that one end is heavier than the other, as opposed to evidence my neighbor is abusive in hitting me with one over and over.
- lanfeust6 2mo agoThis is akin to arguing "nothing ever changes or improves in Liberal democracies", when policy history doesn't reflect that. Large parties represent large coalitions, so there are more compromises and things happen slower, but they still happen. Not always for the better, as we're seeing when populists are elected.
- soulofmischief 2mo agoThis take completely ignores the amount of money in politics and that both parties have funding from overlapping sources which in turn represent how similar the two parties are on certain key issues such as the Palestinian genocide.
- lanfeust6 2mo agoNotwithstanding that this sum is smaller than people think, seeing bipartisan stances does not in itself reflect a failure; it can just as easily be a good thing. All this reveals is that you have a pet issue that isn't being serviced well currently by the 2 parties, but tides and voter sentiment change; within a few short years most people have soured on Israel, and this will be reflected in forthcoming elections.
- soulofmischief 2mo agoI don't have a single "pet issue", I care about a great deal of issues that neither party actually cares about addressing, and it's well-established that both parties push conservative, right-leaning neoliberal policy. I don't see these changes occurring overnight or fast enough to be acceptable.
- lanfeust6 2mo agolol Trump's party has not been the least bit neoliberal, it is populist and protectionist. Brutal immigration crackdowns and tarrifs are the opposite of neoliberal. Even Biden was a departure, with tariffs and CHIPS act. None of that is neoliberal, which peaked in the Clinton era. Incidentally, among the most effective remedies for what ails us now, like zoning reform, would be derided as "neoliberal" by progressives, though the evidence speaks for itself, and YIMBYs are making in-roads. That doesn't mean that state capacity doesn't have it's place. We historically would spend more on innovation, on NASA, DARPA and the like, and that matters a great deal. But it doesn't preclude removing red tape that hinders govt and private sector efforts. > a great deal of issues Ok, name some. Realistically, there aren't many.
- whoiskevin 2mo agoNo your choice was between a competent leader and a con man. When people type what you type it seems obvious you are attempting to avoid responsibility for choosing the con man. I blame everyone that has this "there was no good choice" bull. That is exactly what it is an excuse for blowing up everything and claiming no responsibility.
- swed420 2mo ago> No your choice was between a competent leader and a con man. No, the non-con man option was an unpopular candidate who was installed after skipping a primary process. A primary process that was shown to be a complete joke during the previous cycle. > When people type what you type it seems obvious you are attempting to avoid responsibility for choosing the con man. I never chose the con man. Nor did I choose the party who manufactured consent for him with their pied piper "strategy" that was exposed only by wikileaks. Did the party reflect on this? No. They got mad at the person who leaked it.
- whalee 2mo ago"No good choice" in the 2020 election was a universal and sane opinion to have. The 2024 election was the thinnest electoral margins in recent history. You don't know something everyone else doesn't, and these inflammatory comments are out of touch with reality.
- salemh 2mo ago[dead]
- octopoc 2mo agoPolitical campaigns spend enormous amounts of money on ads to influence public opinion. That makes politicians beholden to their donors. Which subverts democracy from "the will of the people" to "the will of the wealthy". All of these are uncontroversial facts and fit the narrative GP is saying.
- slopinthebag 2mo ago[flagged]
- lanfeust6 2mo agoWhich would be a projection on your part.
- shhhutttup 2mo agoNope. He is spot on actually.
- slopinthebag 2mo agoHow so?
- dang 2mo agoMaybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. We're trying for something different here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: sorry to pile on, but please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468011 also.
- buellerbueller 2mo agoThe post you are responding to is not election denialism.
- sophrosyne42 2mo agoThere is no functional difference between the statement "democracy is subverted by a grand corporate conspiracy" and "our elections are invalid", because the only way the former happens is if the latter happens. If the latter didn't happen, then you're just upset about the outcome of a legitimate election. Which is a fair thing to be in a democracy, but it does not mean that the whole system is corrupt. Insistence that any other outcome than your preferred outcome is illegitimate is dictator behavior
- buellerbueller 2mo ago[flagged]
- cindyllm 2mo ago[dead]
- sophrosyne42 2mo agoThe popular conception may or may not be correct. The social function of democracy, on the other hand, was described by Hume as allowing for a peaceful rather than a violent means for the transfer of power. To the extent that the socialist variety of election denialism undermines the possibility of such peaceful transition of power, which it does and is its intention, it is of the same ilk as the Trumpist variety of election denialism.
- shhhutttup 2mo agoLol if voting changed anything they'd make it illegal.
- anonymars 2mo agoYou mean like the SAVE act? Or restrictions on mail-in voting?
- JKCalhoun 2mo agoGood point. They seem to be getting nervous about us voters voting.
- swed420 2mo ago> They seem to be getting nervous about us voters voting. Repubs are only putting on a show of getting nervous about certain voters voting to excite their base. But as far as the Uniparty is concerned, they'd be much more nervous if overall voter turnout plummeted by choice, because then it becomes immediately obvious to everybody that increasing amounts of people no longer believe in the illusory democracy. It's a similiar threat to the bad optics of when a "joke" party gets a sizeable amount of votes (see: Count Binface as recently discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49301260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49301260) The Uniparty wants high-ish turnout (2/3 is good) because then we can all other-ify the 1/3 with the narrative that they were "too lazy" and thus to blame, while the 1/3 + 1/3 who did vote hopefully make for a close election, propping up the democratic illusion of choice and popularity.
- tejohnso 2mo agoElection denialism is about rejecting official election results. But anyway, on the subject of the usefulness of your vote, Trump was elected on an America first platform, touting ending foreign wars and avoiding new ones. If you elected him and his party based on that I think you're going to be pretty disappointed with the effectiveness of your vote in its ability to bring about actual outcomes that you want.
- sophrosyne42 2mo ago>Election denialism is about rejecting official election results. That would be the implication of such statements as "our democracy has been subverted by the big corporate conspiracy".
- GPerson 2mo ago“Sounds great, except it ignores the fact that capital interests have controlled the levers of our faux democracies for decades, with no end in sight.” This is not election denialism. This is almost just a fact except they also subjectively declare that we have a faux democracy (which also seems accurate to me).
- sophrosyne42 2mo agoYes it is. If you insist that the result of a democratic election does not reflect the will of the people, that, and nothing else, is election denialism.
- GPerson 2mo agoNo it’s not. Election denialism in 2026 in an American context refers to Donald Trump and his supporters denying the results of the 2020 election (and related claims). Pretending that capital does not significantly affect our elections contributes to the deterioration of democracy. If you actually don’t believe capital plays an outsized role in elections and government then take a gander at the Wikipedia page called Campaign finance in the United States. There is a chart called Percent of races won by top spending candidate… and lots of other information. Also looking into the role of lobbying in American politics.
- FeloniousHam 2mo agoIf "capital interests" (ugh, capitalism) controlled democracy, please esplain: - Michael Bloomberg - Hillary Clinton (both in the 2008 primary and 2016 general) - Alex Vindman ... a simple Google search reveals that while there is some threshold amount of dosh necessary to get noticed, _more money != more votes_. To believe otherwise is is willful ignorance. Sometimes your favorite candidate loses because the median actual voter (you know, the guy who actual fills out the form) prefers the status quo for their own reasons and not because they're brainwashed or whatever it is that "capital interests" do to them.
- 2mo ago
- RunSet 2mo ago"What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_phone_call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_ph...
- tcgv 2mo ago[flagged]
- Gud 2mo agoNot everywhere. Switzerland has a direct democracy, which should be emulated by the rest of the world. https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin.ch/en/direct-democracy https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin.ch/en/direct-democrac... FWIW I am not from Switzerland, I only live there. Direct democracy works great.
- swed420 2mo agoThere's nothing convincing in your link. More importantly, even if it did contain the solution, there is no obvious way for a country with an already corrupt government to transition to such a thing.
- ByThyGrace 2mo agoI think you mean no obvious pacific way. Which is what any democratic citizen wants and seeks out. There are other solutions and way too obvious, in fact you have examples all over the world going back centuries.
- swed420 2mo agoRight. I was referring to the parent's "should be emulated by the rest of the world" suggestion, which had thanksimcured energy.
- mhitza 2mo agoUse of the term of direct democracy feels dilution in that case. It is a significant step in that direction, though for me (and wikipedia) direct democracy is without the middleman. Switzerland still has parties, elected government and so forth, no? If someone else hasn't given a thought yet to Liquid Democracy, I propose they give it a couple of minutes of imaginary thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy For some real world data there are some studies about (I think) German branch of the Pirate Party using it in internal decision making and there is interesting insight for those curious. It be nice if we all where allowed to vote on particular laws if interested, and defer certain topics to our delegated experts. (Chat Control for example, would be a non issue then.) The technology for that approach has been mature enough since the rise of social media and private crypto currencies (as a means of electronic private vote, particularly around usage of smart contracts for delegation). What about the interest and spreading of these ideas? Pretty limited, to non-existent. Some people like to follow leaders, though naturally wouldn't expect it to be the silent majority.
- tim333 2mo agoDemocracy is clunky but sort of works. Say UBI looks necessary it may be both parties adopt it so it gets done in spite of the uniparty issue.
- skrebbel 2mo agoFwiw that article isn't really the creme-de-la-creme of Wikipedia now is it? It suggests that a two-party system is typical of liberal democracies whereas in fact only a small number of democracies have systems like that, and even there many have recently turned into multi-party systems (eg France and the UK).