Hacker News Reader

There's also the fact that voting Dev or living in California don't always equal "good for the net."

We're very aware of how much Hollywood and the RIAA/MPAA want their claws in as much of the internet as they can to "protect the entertainment industry." They were drooling over SOPA/PIPA/COICA/etc.

The democrats will happily lock up the internet in favor of their own big media/telecom interests too. That's something I think people often forget. Remember, one of the first things Obama did was hire five former RIAA lawyers to the DOJ.

Perhaps someone needs to organize a movement of large populations of progressive future thinking utopian philosophers moving to different states to more effectively rig elections in the way of a more enlightened future.

Alas, I don't think there are enough of these types to actually effectively hack elections like that.

Or you could try to influence the people already in those swing states?

Sure, whatever works... I'd say that so far this approach has had questionable results.

More enlightened for who?

I'm not disagreeing with you about Net Neutrality, but to assume your opinion is enlightened or progressive for a people you've never met is very narcissistic.

Narcissism would imply that my perspective personally is affected by the outcome and that I believe my opinion is superior to everyone elses, which I don't.

I'm talking about for the people in general. Net Neutrality within the U.S. has absolutely no bearing on me personally as I'm neither a U.S. citizen, nor a resident. I'm merely opining because I am interested in the well-being of my fellow humans... in this instance, Americans and residents affected by internet service providers looking to dishonestly gouge their customers.

I care about you guys and your struggles, I care when I see people being taken advantage of, I care about the erosion of your constitutional rights, I care when I see you having to struggle to have your voices heard by a system that doesn't give a fuck about you except for how quickly they can part you from your money. I care because I see your struggles every day, I listen to your complaints, I follow your news, I read and I watch. I speak from a place of wanting to fight your causes. I live on the internet and it's hard to stand by and watch your internet gradually being taken away and used to exploit you.

So to assume I'm narcissistic without knowing anything about my background or my motives for comment is slightly er... I don't even have a word to finish that sentence.

Libertarians did this in New Hampshire:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project

Or here's a crazy idea, the democratic party can start actively addressing the real economic issues of the lower class directly, and ease up on social issues / identity politics.

I really think that the American left (and I say this as a pretty far left guy myself) is still caught in a hangover from the civil rights era, where we're fighting for the rights of increasingly smaller groups of people so we can still be seen as the liberal / progressive party, while ignoring economic issues that are so hard to fight for in our version of democractic government.

> This only matters - voting in the presidential elections - in the red states.

Wrong, you mean swing states.

> If you're a liberal, progressive, futurist, etc, and you're living in states like CA or NY or OR, then statistically speaking, those states are pretty much gonna go democrat regardless. So your vote counts 'less' there.

Just as it counts less if you're a Republican in one of those states. Or a Democrat in Mississippi.

> But, the blue states people have built their own little comfortable enclaves in their respective states and there's little chance they'll be moving to places like AK, TN, or MS.

But when they want to escape the tax climate they'll move to Colorado or Wyoming or Austin, TX.

The simple solution is actual democracy: one person, one vote. Whoever wins the popular vote wins the White House.

Now if only we had a president in office who lamented what a travesty the electoral college was, and how it should be done away with ...

It really doesn't matter very much what opinion the President has of the electoral college, the President doesn't have much say in the matter. Perhaps the President could use their position to push for change, but that would be the extent of it.

I'm aware that it would require a constitutional amendment to get rid of it. Was just taking an easy jab at his absolutely blatant hypocrisy between 2012 and 2016.

An alternative might be a collection of states banding together to solve how they send members to the electoral college. "First past the post" versus "representative" (versus fancier, better options, like run-off voting) is a state's right under the constitution.

Current first-past-the-post states are incentivized under the current regime to stay that way because it makes for more opportunity to be treated as a "ballroom belle" ("swing state") each election cycle, which brings money and attention to the state it might not ever see otherwise.

It's possible, though sadly unlikely, you could fix the current regime by fixing things from the bottom up at the state legislature level, one state at a time if need be.

It starts with the House of Representatives. If you're interested, take a look at: https://swingleft.org/

It shows you the nearest districts and what margin they were won by so you can sign up and get involved between now and the midterms of 2018.

You could still live in CA and have more of an impact on the elections by moving out to a more rural part of the state... House of Representatives districts matter as much as state lines.

At this point it isn't even really so much blue-state versus red-state: it's a lot closer to city versus rural/country.

This simply isn't true. It matters in the Primary. There was a real choice this year.

Please come to Ohio and inject some sanity to this world.

It's actually a decent place for technology workers: the jobs and schools are good and it offers a decent standard of living at a low cost.