Ask HN: What sources do you use to inform your vote? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What sources do you use to inform your vote?

32 pointsphantarch18 comments

For an American who isn't well plugged in to things like candidate's histories or policies beyond mass media, what resources would you recommend to give a non-partisan view of what a Trump vs. Clinton presidency would likely mean?

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US media has dazzlingly became op-eds instead of journalism so I decided to set up Google News with many internal sources which stay away from opinions and focus on facts. Surprisingly, one of the quality source I found was Al Jazeera! Here's my Google News sources:

  - BBC News
  - The Guardian
  - Bloomberg
  - Al Jazeera America
  - Associated Press
  - Reuters
  - The Economist
  - NPR
  - Wall Street Journal
  - ABC News
  - CNBC
  - The Atlantic

I'd to forcefully turn of New York Times, Washington Post, Poltico, Fox News, CNN etc to reduce noise.

I like WSJ's reporting and am subscribed, but I would recommend against the WSJ's editorial section. The mental gymnastics present in it (especially during the Trump campaign) are mind-boggling. It's painful and frustrating, and seem to have absorbed nothing about the politics (or economics) of the past 40 years.

They certainly do know how to tow a line or two on the editorial section, but I can't stop reading them for their business journalism. They are number one in that department for a reason.

It's, "toe the line" by the way not, "tow".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line

It also helps to know what each source's "slant" is so you can identify it when reading articles.

If you read CNN, you know it is biased to the democrats. If you read Fox News, you know it is biased to the republicans.

Learn where your other sources lean too. Read opposing views as well as your own. Don't simply dismiss an idea or viewpoint because you disagree with it.

The League of Women Voters puts together neutral candidate information and Pros/Cons for ballot measures.

They are by far the best source for informing yourself on state and local races.

http://www.vote411.org/

http://votersedge.org/

http://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz

You take a little quiz that asks you questions relating to political issues. It then compares your answers to the candidates.

similarly, and less specific to the us election (so maybe of less relevance) is this site, that asks you a bunch of questions then plots you in two dimensional social/economic space:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/

Amusingly political compass says I completely disagree with both Trump and Clinton - they're both in the Authoritarian-Right quadrant, whereas I end up in the Libertarian-Left quadrant. Whereas isidewith says I agree 98% with Clinton and also with Jill Stein, on environmental + criminal + electoral + social issues.

So I'm not sure what we conclude from that. If both sites are accurate then my best choice on the menu is Clinton, but the menu is terrible and doesn't have any options remotely like what I actually want.

I think politicalcompass.org takes the international view, separate from specific local political issues, which puts a lot of space to the left of nearly every single politician in the world (who tend towards right-authoritarian), whereas isidewith looks at specific issues for this election and the US specific situation.

So for this election, you're closest to Clinton, but your ideal situation looks completely different from anything that could realistically result from this election.

The Rubin Report is very unbiased and open minded. Mostly interviews, but a fun show.

There's a lot of other great sources mentioned already, but wanted to add my fave to the list.

The presidential election - and I mean not only this US election, but generally - is not about electing an emperor who can do what he/she thinks is the best but more about electing a remotely controlled mascot. And the remote controllel is not in our/your hand, except you have a too big to fail business and/or a lot of cash on your account. Sometimes good emperos get elected by accident, but they have a short life expectancy.

A heavily subjective answer to your question: there would be no difference between the two presidencies. Don't waste your time with gathering information on the mascots. Just lean back and enjoy the show.

Mostly the comments sections of news aggregator sites like reddit and HN. I figure actual news sites are about as valuable as refrigerators in Antarctica at this point; if I'm going to get decent information I really am better off with quantity over "quality".

I'm only half joking here, too, which is the saddest part. Every article ends up being eviscerated by the comments section because of some bias in one direction or the other, so I might as well just cut to the chase and watch the actual discussions unfold.

Also, forum.nationstates.net. For the uninitiated, it's the forum for an online political simulator; unsurprisingly, it attracts people who actually study politics or are otherwise psychologically invested in the political world, so it's interesting to see the perspectives of people who may or may not actually be experts in political science. Sometimes they seem to just enjoy politics for politics' sake, though, which gets fascinating in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

I use ballotpedia.org. However, in the state I live in, Utah, the population seems too small to merit a blog post about the candidates competing for positions less important than governor. So for example, a possible description of the positions of senatorial and gubernatorial candidates, but nothing on people to be elected to the teacher's board or attorney general.

I'm afraid there's no simple shortcut to knowing what the future will bring. The study of history and politics is a lifelong endeavor. Start perhaps with the Old Testament and then Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.

If you want a shortcut, the only one that works is to find someone whose knowledge and judgment you can trust. That could be a celebrity commentator, or it could be your father. Plumb the depths of their knowledge by asking questions, and challenging the answers, and (here's the hard part) if they prove themselves worthy, make the decision to trust their recommendation even if your emotions tell you to vote the other way.

There is just too much noise these days.

I tend to try to find the candidates platforms posted on their official websites. I look at each of their points and try to see how that agrees with my own stance.

Tim Ferris apparently asks an intelligent friend with similar ethics etc. According to four hour work week.

Here are a couple good alternatives to mass media.

https://mises.org/

http://reason.com/

noagenda.com

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