xkcd endorses Obama | Hacker News Reader

xkcd endorses Obama

blag.xkcd.com

53 pointsluccastera59 comments

To everyone that hates stuff like this getting posted (I'm one of them), just remember that a presidential election is the biggest media circus of the year, and it lasts a really long time. It affects every American (and some would say the rest of the world as well) and coverage is so pervasive it's hard to avoid, so some of it is going to seep in.

For those that wish to post political articles, please consider that a significant portion of the readers of Hacker News greatly dislike the tone that political discussion often takes. If you decide to post something, please make sure it is 1) fair and even handed, 2) not polarizing, and 3) loosely related to Hacker News in general.

A big thank you in advance to everyone who helps keep things civil over the next (oy) 10 months.

I wish this comment would automatically get posted into every political submission here and into programming.reddit. It would make the (online) world a much better place.

I agree with a lot of what he said, although I don't expect that Clinton would get "swatted" by voters against any of the potential Republican candidates.

But mostly I just wanted to say that I thought the postscript was funny:

Windows Vista is flopping, and Mario Kart will be out for the Wii soon. I think the future will be okay.

These kinds of stories are very dangerous for social news sites. People vote them up not because they're interesting, but just to support their preferred candidate.

Maybe somebody should submit an "Ask YC: What Presidential candidate do you like?" That way everybody could get their political opinions off their chest once and for all, and we wouldn't have to suffer through ten months of this kind of stuff.

That's an idea that I love and HATE at the same time, with multiple reasons for each. I love that I would get to hear what everyone thinks and love that it would be confined to one place. I hate that it would likely incite lots of ugly, ugly comments, and that it would probably draw the useful, civil comments out of context of other threads where they would be appropriate.

Politics can be so divisive and get so heated that even people who are interested are afraid to talk about it in public.

I think the problem is that a political party or candidate is a very low-bandwidth symbol that loses most of the information contained in that choice. The fact that a Mormon, a woman, and a black guy are running means that any vote can be interpreted as discrimination against the group not chosen. For example, if you told me you voted for John Edwards, should I assume you like his economic populism or that you're too narrow minded for a black or woman president? If you vote for a Republican, does that mean you are a homophobe? It's like trying to express everything you believe about anything, the moral, ethical, and intellectual debates you have inside into two bits (party, candidate). That's a hard problem.

I voted this up because I thought it was interesting. As has been said elsewhere in this thread, it's uncommon for a comic author to endorse a candidate. For me the news item here is not the content of the endorsement, but the fact that it took place.

From this xkcd blog post, I learned that Obama supports open standards and Clinton doesn't.

While I agree that sites like this should be careful about politics, ignore them at your own peril. Candidates like Obama never win elections because the young people who support them are not organized and don't vote.

Can anyone offer a cogent argument for why I should give a shit who Randall Munroe thinks should be president?

I agree with you, but I did find the post interesting as a case study of how an intelligent community manager dealt with politics. What would happen if news.yc disallowed comments on "political" articles, for instance? (Not that I endorse the idea, or even have thought about it much.)

I think the whole point of an endorsement is to make a cogent argument for why you believe such and such a person is the best candidate for such and such a position. So whether or not you find it persuasive, the endorsement itself is an attempt at a cogent argument. You are certainly free to ignore or disagree with the conclusion.

Sure, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=105822

Answered in a different thread on this topic.

It surprises me that a man who writes such an unusual cartoon as xkcd should have such a standard political viewpoint. I am baffled by the fact that people get so worked up about general elections. Yes, the outcome will have a profound effect upon one's life, but that outcome is almost entirely outside one's control.

My own preference is for much more power to be given to local governments, and for consensus-based decision making, rather than voting. But I think further expansion of those views would be off-topic.

I think the recent economics articles have been about as much politics as I want to see here. These are discussions that are really better left to a beer with friends.

Yeah, or you can head to reddit or something. I do want to see more scientific articles relating to economics here. I mean articles on economics with actual analysis, data, graphs, etc.

And if the same can be done for any other subject, politics included, I'd support it. Present it in a way that teaches us something, rather than feeding us a conclusion without data.

I think economics is fascinating, but I'd rather sacrifice it than be stuck with the short leap to policy discussions and attendant discord that often ensues with even more or less 'scientific' articles.

I take the opposite stance: I'll gladly take friendly and thoughtful discussion of policy that is incidental when discussing an economic article.

"...friendly and thoughtful..."

Amen.

Even here though, these debates sometimes turn acrimonious in short order. Maybe not as bad as reddit, but it worries me.

My favorite economic monograph of all time is from Friedrich von Hayek:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

He describes how a market economy, though the price mechanism, utilizes distributed, localized data to effect the distribution of resources. It's hard to comprehend the unconscious and intricate processes of the market.

For lighter, more modern fair, I have always enjoyed the works of Steven Landsburg. From the trivial, such as why we walk up stairs but not escalators:

http://www.slate.com/id/2070182

To the profound, such as how to grow cars in Iowa:

http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/dfunderburk/428/readings/Th...

Empirical economics (what perhaps you mean by "scientific") is also fun and illuminating. The author of "Freakonomics", Steven Levitt, is enduringly popular nowadays. His work tends towards the empirical:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/

I've always been a big fan of Cowen and Tabarok:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/

In college I studied the economics of environmentalism, which is essential to understand what approaches to helping the environment are likely to work or not (incentives matter!). I also studied the economics of law. Sorry, no quick fun links!

There is so much great economics out there, and so little life. Right now I am studying monetary policy. It's dense and dry, but also very controversial and unsettled, which makes it exciting.

"...such as why we walk up stairs but not escalators: "

I actually walk up escalators. I have never seen anyone else do this, and I always wondered why. You get to the top even faster!

I do it too. I've seen many people do that... I guess that depends on the hurry (in my case, it depends on how much it bores me to stay still at the escalator).

You've never seen anyone do it? Check out a subway escalator at rush hour... in any city in the world.

I remember super long escalators with signs posted coming out of some of the catacombs of the Tube in London. A quick flickr search (for stand right/[walk left]) shows a lone woman on the ascending escalator walking.. http://tinyurl.com/2f4nta

Randall does mention Obama's support of open data standards and net neutrality. These issues are not only related to "hacker news", but will have an effect on every reader of this site.

But he shouldn't have. It's ridiculous to choose the President based on his opinion of net neutrality. There are much bigger things at stake.

Exactly, he mentioned it as an issue, not as the decision maker. Given 2 otherwise equivalent candidates (not that they are) who differ on one small issue that you have a stance on, you vote for the one who you agree with. This is certainly an oversimplification, but the point is that you shouldn't completely ignore _relatively_ small issues because of the existence of bigger issues. They may just agree (enough) on all of the big issues that are important to you. You only get to choose one though!

Politics are the WWE. Although we do need technology support, the best thing you can do is stay focused on your work. Stay independent.

Obama simply looks presidential. He is very charismatic. I'd much rather watch him deliver the State of the Union than Bush.

Not a great reason to vote for someone.

I mentioned on reddit that I like him among the Democrats for his commitment to open government. However, while he has opposed the war he has not spoken out against wider American militarism. In addition, along with his democratic colleagues he seems not to appreciate the value of a free economy.

I'm pulling for Paul (Graham or Ron), but I guess he'll be alright. Nowhere to go but up, right?

Paul would have my vote, but some things he says just don't agree with me. Right now more things Obama has said matches my views. Although I think Paul would make a great president.

1. Voted for the continuation of the Patriot Act. 2. Has said that bombing Iran and nuclear options are not off the table. 3. Will continue the war on drugs despite admitting doing drugs 4. Will expand the government while lowering tax rates.

Yea, pretty much sounds like me. Albeit with the ability the change. Now the Patriot act is a touchy subject because the revisions Obama wants are much better than the ones Bush had. The war on drugs, imho, is a good thing. Just because he did drugs doesn't mean a damn thing. He knows first hand how bad they are. If anything that is better than someone fighting something they haven't experienced.

>2. Has said that bombing Iran and nuclear options are not off the table.

Very presidential actually. Why would you play your hand in any other way? The threat of nuclear annihilation took care of the Soviets, after all. Iranians aren't stupid.

1. Voted for the continuation of the Patriot Act

Understand though that this is in the context of getting through a compromise which was significantly less harmful than the original. If all those who opposed the USA PATRIOT Act on principle refused to budge on that compromise, the congress would have managed to instead ram through something worse. All of which is to say that the vote in favor doesn't necessarily indicate that Obama supports PATRIOT ACT-like policies.

Presidents can't make laws. At most, they can veto them. They can't set the budget. They can nominate Supreme Court justices, but have no control over them once nominated and often they interpret laws differently than how the appointing president thought they would. I can no longer say that the President can not unilaterally declare and wage war, but I can say that the Constitution grants the power to declare war to the Congress.

So what is the point of the Presidency, then? Especially in our day of modern media, a very big part of the President's ability to accomplish things is his ability to persuade the American people to work to achieve common goals. So maybe just "looking Presidential" or "sounding Presidential" is not important in and of itself. But if that is part of an overall power of persuasion devoted to noble ends, that can be a very important characteristic for a President, indeed.

Considering the current state of the Republican party, the Democratic candidates probably represent something closer to a "free economy" at this point. And of the remaining declared Democratic and Republican candidates, only Ron Paul has opposed the war so unambiguously.

Also, not much commentary yet on Obama bringing in Lawrence Lessig to advise him on technology issues. As that's probably the closest to being relevant to Hacker News, I would think that would get more discussion and some credit for Obama (again, relative to other actual candidates, not some idealized candidate who might agree with you on every issue).

Presidents have the most unilateral power with regards to foreign policy. He or She is, in effect, America's face to the world. So looking or sounding Presidential does have its own importance.

While they can't unilaterally start war by law, history has shown us Presidents can get away with unilaterally weilding military power. Furthermore the elecorate has taught Congress that voting for war equals re-election; anti-war equals a boot to the curb. Congress, naturally, votes for their own job security. In the same way that it's not about voting just for someone "looking presidential" it shouldn't be about someone who is just anti-(this)war.

In the end though, I believe that hackers not paying attention to politics will only lead to not having our needs heard at all. Believing you can stay 'out' or 'above' politics is a fool's errand. You will be affected.

You will be affected. Got that right.

Obama simply looks presidential.

Since you left out the evidence for that assertion, I'll supply it:

http://imagesource5d.allposters.com/watermarker/12-1253-W68T...

Yep, like a pea in the pod.

Thus highlighting the problem with voting:

1. Assertion made, viz, "Obama looks presidential".

2. Disproof offered, viz, a visual display of all prior presidents, none of whom look the remotest bit like Obama, even after correcting for skin color.

3. Instant downvoting of disproof, and upvoting of false assertion.

Get this, chums. He wouldn't even pass for a Kenyan president:

http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/jpeg/bushandkibaki.jpg

Enough with the BS. I read the prominent liberal blogs, and the very day that Mike Ditka dropped out of the senate race, and Obama became an uncontestable shoo-in, the party mouths decided that Obama was their future candidate. He was given the DNC keynote to officially start the process: It was an embarressing mess of nonsense ("gay friends in the red states"), cliches ("America...a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before") and winking admissions of the two-faced identity politics to come ("They would give me an African name, Barack, or "blessed," believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.").

Fine, and so everyone in the media agreed that the intolerable bilge confirmed his brilliance. There's no fighting taste, and I'll agree he delivers better than Clinton (who sounds like she's adressing a disobediant kindergarten class) but why Obama out of 300 millions? He fit the bill, but what bill was it?

I made a prediction long ago: Obama is the one chance for the Democrats to lose the white house yet again. Hillary and Edwards split the white vote in South Carolina. The whole South will play the same. Hispanics are less than inspired by him as well. Clinton won the Hispanic vote handily in Nevada.

You have a candidate that is popular with two groups: Blacks, who know the price, and over-educated white liberals, who don't. McCain wins.

a visual display of all prior presidents, none of whom look the remotest bit like Obama

There's more to it than that. Obama looks, sounds, and acts presidential, and the disproof was in some way or another inadequate.

the party mouths decided that Obama was their future candidate

Hillary is winning the vast majority of super-delegates, so party leaders seem to be supporting her, not Obama.

Obama is the one chance for the Democrats to lose the white house yet again

Would you feel the same about an Obama/Edwards ticket?

McCain wins.

What reason do you have to think that Romney won't be winning the nomination?

Obama looks, sounds, and acts presidential, and the disproof was in some way or another inadequate.

The assertion was "Obama simply looks presidential", not "sounds" or "acts". I displayed the portraits of ALL PRIOR PRESIDENTS, and NONE OF THEM LOOK LIKE OBAMA. Even if that as-perfect-as-humanly-possible disproof was somehow "inadequate", the proof in the first place was completely absent...only a bald declaration.

By "party mouths" I mean the "four legs good" people who do the talking. The left media has been falling over itself to kiss Obama's ass from Day 1 until the present--and I don't predict that will change. Clinton, by contrast, has been viewed quite negatively.

Would you feel the same about an Obama/Edwards ticket?

I don't see that happening. Edwards has already been an unsuccessful #2, and I don't think he would do it again.

What reason do you have to think that Romney won't be winning the nomination?

A gut feeling. The media, for reasons unknown, has been handling madman McCain very gently. You know, I'm just reading chicken entrails [1] here, don't you? It is pyschologically interesting to me how someone could utter "Obama looks presidential"...it is received wisdom, because there's no way a brain could derive such falsehood on its own. If I passed by Mitt Romney on the street, I'd probably think, "That guys looks like the VP in charge of operations at an auto parts factory". McCain looks like a retired security guard. Edwards looks just like a trial lawyer, of course.

But if I saw Obama, I might think, "That guy looks like a schoolteacher." That's what he looks like. To think he "looks presidential", you'd have to be pretty damn brainwashed.

[1] I mean, public declarations by candidates, coverage by the media, operations of the parties, etc, are all one or two or three steps removed from the truth. You have to guess at what's really happening...

What on earth are you talking about?

If you click on the "parent" link you can see the prior comments made by myself and others.

Hacker News is the new Reddit

Please say it aint so.

This would be a great thread if it weren't for all the people complaining about its existence.

Only to those who are smoking kratom.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were trying to be funny and let you know that comment reads a bit mean and petty.

I took it as funny. :)

Speaking of which, kratom is out of stock right now, but all orders made until we restock will be upgraded for free to premium Malaysian kratom.

A true entrepreneur...diversified income stream. Keep at it.

Thanks. I try to never do mean and petty, especially here.

All joking aside, I stand by my original comment. This is the best board I've ever seen. My personal "signal to noise coefficient" would be in the 90's. For reddit, it was once in the 60's or 70's, but those days are long gone. Two of the things that changed that are the posts about politics and religion. I know this board is about things that interest hackers, but I'd hate to see the same thing happen here. I imagine that it takes a certain amount of TLC to keep this board's quality so high.

As a startup hacker, I have to be very careful how I spend my time. Personally, debating sports, politics, or religion are total wastes of time. The cost is priceless; the benefit is worthless.

I am not a US citizen, but I found this article interesting because it reaches a wider subject, that of corruption and how to fight it, which is a serious and international phenomenon.

Fair enough. It's often infuriating how stuff doesn't transfer in text; I probably would have thought the comment was harmless and funny had it been aloud and intoned correctly. Anyways, no harm, no foul.

That is the most ridiculous article title I have ever seen on hacker news.

It's one thing for a Senator to endorse a candidate, but xkcd? Just... no.

Well, what's the point of an endorsement? To save you the trouble of researching everything yourself because someone who you already know tells you what they think. If you trust the endorser, then they've saved you some time. Ditto if you distrust them (there are some people that if they endorsed my favorite candidate, I'd probably be so suspicious I'd change my vote). I know a lot about what the xkcd guy is like than my senator (well, not my senator (Obama) but probably everyone else), so his endorsement is more useful information.

It was also a well written explanation of his views, whether you agree with it or not.

Of course. That's all true. I have no problem with him writing about his views, but the title of this article made it sound like he has some sort of higher political ground. Maybe a better title would have been "xkcd talks politics, Randall Munroe likes Obama"

It just seemed strange to see a comic writer getting his own post here about endorsement of a political candidate.

Also, I don't disagree with him.

Why not? Anyone can endorse anyone. Xkcd just so happens to be the widely respected, best comic currently written. This is notable because comic authors don't normally endorse candidates.

I guess I'm in the minority on this opinion, then.

That's great, but Obama won't win in a national election, nor even the democratic nomination. : http://davidadewumi.com/2008/01/24/why-obama-wont-win-in-a-n...

I don't support any candidates right now, but I think people should also take a look at how Bill Clinton polarizing white and black voters, is working to HRC's advantage: http://bernardmoon.blogspot.com/2008/01/breakfast-with-dick-...

It's hard to steer clear of political discussion these days, isn't it? I spilled over into that area myself with a recent screencast for a new ourdoings.com feature:

http://img.ourdoings.com/tutorial/morephotos.htm

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