$1M VotePlz Sweepstakes
blog.samaltman.com
blog.samaltman.com
Besides the big name top of the ballot Presidential election there are many down ballot elections to consider. There are house elections, senate elections (in some states), local elections, as well as propositions, etc.
With the wall-to-wall coverage of the Presidential election, it is easy to forget that the wheels of our democratic American system turn at multiple levels.
E.g.: Your local school board matters. Your judges (if elected where you live) matter.
Here are two summaries of California's propositions:
https://ballotpedia.org/California_2016_ballot_propositions
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-november-ballot-pr...
Vote.
It is interesting when these initiatives present themselves as non-partisan. If you target a demographic that polling suggests will go for your preferred party, plough tons of money to encourage them to vote, can it truly be described as non-partisan?
edit: And if so, should they be obligated to disclose their preference and intention?
First it encourages young people to vote. This is important because young people will be the most affected by policies enacted by the next president. This part is non-partisan, because it forces both political parties to take young people more seriously as a voting block.
Second it's clearly against Trump, because Trump's base consists of older white people with racial anxiety/anger. Young people lean democrat, but they don't get out to vote.
If you honestly believe this, you are very out of touch with reality.
Young voters hate both major party candidates almost equally.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pr/2016/08/15/poll-finds-...
http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Prod...
As someone who has a preference, I wholeheartedly support more enfranchisement regardless of demographic or party. That's a race to the top, not the bottom.
[1] http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/peter-thiel-gives-full-throate...
I disagree. People who haven't taken the time to thoroughly research the candidates should not be encouraged to blindly push a button, especially this year. Most of them will probably be persuaded by fear mongering or partisan mud-slinging.
That's not democracy, it's just mob rule.
The people voting is the entire point of democracy. Smart people and dumb people. Policy wonks and random button pushers. It doesn't matter, everybody gets one vote. That way whatever the outcome is, it reflects the will of the people. To oppose this is to oppose democracy itself.
Thank you for proving my point.
She has the bipartisan support of all five living presidents because she is running against a con man who has either directly insulted and indirectly embarrassed those presidents and their families.
Neither candidate would be a candidate if we had a functioning democracy.
Google 'Hillary Clinton cattle futures' if you want to start from the beginning.
There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is eminently skilled and effective at being a politician. That's the problem.
Your view assumes that there are no 3rd party options, which actually takes some time to research.
> The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
I worry that by voting, I give whoever wins a stronger appearance of a mandate. I would prefer not to give them this mandate.
[1]http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/16/millennials-...
My point was moreso that in the US at least there is a pronounced difference in political affiliation based on age. Notably, that is an old quote, it just seems interesting it holds up.
It's saying that a 20-year old conservative is necessarily heartless, and a 50-year old liberal is necessarily stupid. I don't see how either of these follows; I know plenty of young conservatives who care deeply about other people, and old liberals who are very smart.
It's just a lazy meme.
- Incentivizing to vote with cash prizes. Isn't that illegal?"
- "Illegal? Sam(ir) this is America".
Which I strongly suspect is why the language around the offer universally refers to "check[ing] voter registration status". And I'm sure somebody or other's legal team has reviewed this language and signed off on it.
Not really related to this but I think you would be surprised how often this is not the case. I've been involved in many big contracts where I've realized no actual lawyers have been involved at all.
> YOU AND INDIVIDUALS TO WHICH YOU PROVIDE THE REFERRAL LINK DO NOT HAVE TO REGISTER TO VOTE TO RECEIVE ENTRY INTO THE SWEEPSTAKES. This Sweepstakes is non-partisan and open to all individuals who satisfy the eligibility requirements above. The number of unique individuals who check their voter registration using your link may impact the VotePlz leaderboard, but entry into this Sweepstakes is solely based on the steps provided above.
How about a "50k for a business plan" option? This is a startup accelerator, right?
I'm the same age as Sam. But I must confess I don't see why he sees this one as the most important. Both candidates are terrible (for different reasons). It's quite damning of the entire political establishment.
I just want to get through the next 4 years and hope that either party can finally find one good candidate.
The PATRIOT Act itself was written by Sen Joe Biden ffs.
This is pretty misleading. The Patriot Act was written by Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin (which makes sense since the R's had majority control of the House in 2001).
Joe Biden wrote an anti-terrorism bill in 1995 in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing that had many similar provisions regarding Federal jurisdiction over acts of terrorism, financial controls, etc. In one of Joe's wonderful bits of rhetorical flourish while debating the Patriot Act in 2001, he said that Ashcroft basically sent up his bill. So you could say that he wrote a precursor to the Patriot Act, but he's also voted against expanded wiretaps and the Habeas violations at Guantanamo so it's not like he's a neocon.
This cycle realigns the USA. Like Reagan did in 1980, in reverse.
Baring an Act of God, Hillary has already won. Ignore the polls. Everyone has their own reasons to pretend its close. Media wants a horse race and more advertising dollars. If Hillary's base thinks the election is in the bag, they might stay home. Donald is Donald.
Hillary's campaign is pushing hard, to flip as many states as possible. The races to watch are down ballot, especially state houses and judges. This election is the set up for the 2021 redistricting, to win back the US House for a generation. REDMAP in reverse.
The GOP "establishment" (business friendly moderates) might even be okay with that. REDMAP worked too well. They probably want to wrest control of their party back (from the Tea Party).
After he loses (badly), Trump will claim the election was rigged, stolen, whatever. Because the returns won't match the polling. An argument well worn by the left when Gore beat Bush in 2000.
Please recall that Romney was surprised he lost. He too thought too much of the polls. But whereas Romney had a decent campaign, posing a credible threat, he faced the most sophisticated campaign in history, with an amazing ground game (GOTV).
Comparatively, Trump has nothing resembling a campaign. A twitter account. Some campaign stops. No volunteer organization. And certainly no ground game. Rather, Trump's effort is solely about enriching Trump, a play book he's copying from Giuliani, Grigrich, and a host of other faux GOP candidates.
A whopping 49% of Americans are registered as Independents, which leaves only half of Americans that truly feel like they're represented by the only two choices they're given every 2/4 years: the Democratic and Republican parties.
That almost seems criminal to me. How can the only two viable parties (with the current voting system) represent only half the country at any given point in time? And the number of people that are registered as Democrats and Republicans drops every election. This is a democracy crisis, and people need to start treating it like one.
If Sam Altman and the others in YCombinator really care about democracy, they should also support organizations such as FairVote.org and help them change the voting system city by city, and state by state, until it eventually happens everywhere.
Oh, and just one of the many benefits of switching to a proportional representation voting system[2], or at least a single-winner ranked-choice[3] one? It gets more people to vote because they now feel better represented by the available viable candidates.
Isn't that nice?
[1] http://www.fairvote.org/monopoly_politics
> The 2012 election was decided by millennial turnout. And this election should be too. It’s up to you to vote and decide!
Millenials see politicians and old people using emoji as contrived and duplicitous. They also hate the word millenial.
You know that word that Gen X hates, because the media constantly uses it to refer to us? Yeah, neither do I.
Just be glad that your generational cohort is large enough that people will actually pay attention to you as an advertising demographic or voting bloc. Even when the Boomer-controlled media is ridiculing you as special snowflakes in your safe spaces, at least they're talking about you.
Every presidential election is important. Unless the President somehow gained newfound apocalyptical powers, I don't think it is any more or less important than before. You should vote because you want to exercise your right to vote, not because everyone is compelling you of how "important" (a.k.a super duper scary) it is. Telling everyone to "get out and vote" is hardly helpful. We have security experts telling us electronic voting machines are just plain not safe, we have laws that disparage minorities and low-income people from not voting, and worst of all, we have a majority of the population who is completely ignorant or lackisdasical of the numerous blunders and legitimate concerns over both major candidates (at least in my view its the only way to explain the vehement support they continue to receive -- nevermind how awful my person is -- look at how awful yours is! I know you are but what I am! I am rubber you are glue!) These are the real issues we should be trying to address.
This has been the absolute worst election season I have ever experienced on my short time on earth, and everyone older and wiser than me concurs. There has been more mud slinging by both parties, and every side of the media that they make Fox News look "normal".
I am terrified of the choices either candidate is going to make in the near future. Either one will be able to push the supreme court to its most extreme position in history. You may think that be a victory, but life has taught me extremes in one direction or the other are aways bad.
Neither of these two deserve anyone's vote. If anything we should be voting for a constitutional amendment to be able to vote to redo the whole thing and get two new candidates, whatever, anything besides these two.
I know, I know, "vote third party", which is all great and fun, until you get blamed later for being the reason the other party won. Just ask anyone who ever voted for Ralph Nader.
Sorry I am not sorry for posting this rant here. I just am so fed up with our current state of politics.
Also, is there a strong correlation being registered to vote and actually voting? If you aren't motivated to even register to vote already, will entering a contest making you register really affect your desire to go out and vote?
He's made no secret of this.
Lots of governors run for president. Very few senator/sec of state/first ladies do.
Edit: Mitt Romney wasn't even a two term Governor. Gary Johnson is objectively a better qualified candidate
She's a neoliberal who is just as bad as Obama (if not worse!) when it comes to military policy, US entitlements, environmental policy, trade policy, and so on.
No thank you. I'll take the moron first.