A Call for Candidates | Hacker News Reader

A Call for Candidates

unitedslate.samaltman.com

50 pointswhbk43 comments

Without getting into the accuracy of the asserted factual premises, this effort seems doomed from day one unless two critical issues are addressed:

(1) Lack of focus in goals: is this about present economic fairness, political inclusiveness, preserving American hemegony, adjusting the rules of society and the economy to address coming automation, fiscal responsibility, or a return to the past? All of these are cited, with no priorities or uniting structure. This is a messaging problem, sure, but more fundamentally it's a problem of vision.

(2) Lack of focus in methods: this claims to be about California first, but the races Altman says he's interested are the most and, in many ways, the least powerful of California's dozen or so directly-elected executive positions, plus federal legislative positions. If the focus is California-first, then the races of interest should be all of the California statewide Constitutional officers, plus California legislators (and maybe California statewide boards and commissions).

Non american citizen living in the US. Just a couple of though while reading "most" of it.

> I was one of the last children of the American Century. I’m not quite ready to let it go. If we don’t take action now, the US will be surpassed as the world superpower. I’d like to get back to the values that made our country the envy of the world. I still believe in American exceptionalism, and even with Trump in the White House, my proudest identity of all is being American.

> and the US should be the technology center for the world.

> US workers are the most productive in the world when they are allowed to compete on a level playing field.

This obsession with America position in the world is so pervasive that i think most thinker don't realize that it has a cost. A lot of bad policies and decisions have been in the name of "American exceptionalism".

> We should require that Californian politicians and senior civil service send their kids to public schools. They need to be aligned.

This would be a game changer...

> 1. Prosperity from technology > Creating prosperity is how everyone’s lives get better every year.

How true is this. Or is it just the author focusing on what worked for him.

> > We should require that Californian politicians and senior civil service send their kids to public schools. They need to be aligned.

> This would be a game changer...

I'm sceptical. Some public schools are great, and what happens is rich people pay the high prices to live in those districts. The parents where I work definitely choose housing based on what schools their kids will go to, and it drives the property values of those neighborhoods.

Forcing politicians' to send their children to public schools won't help the low-performing schools that rich people already can avoid by choosing expensive. It will help ensure public education for wealthy families is good, and little else.

(Disclaimer: I'm mostly familiar with school districting in Texas. Maybe California is different, but this seems like the normal case most places in the US.)

Cool. I wonder where Altman stands on Citizens United and the aftermath that is super PACs. A big problem to me is how to keep money out of politics wherever possible.

I guess this would fall under his "fair government" policy, although I don't see it explicitly mentioned.

Do libertarians support having super PACs? That would be yikes to me.

Unless that is a primary issue for a candidate, I don't see how we'll ever get back to fair government, with one person one vote. There's just too much money in it already.

Citizens United is very clear - it's about free speech. if the New York times wants to release a documentary about a candidate before the election would you stop them?

Libertarians, of course, support super PACS, people do not lose their ability to speak when they form a group.

To illustrate this point imagine 2 people: a famous movie star and a wealthy movie producer. When the famous person speaks it is news and spread freely, whereas the producer needs to pay to get their message out. If you restrict one, you should restrict the other.

We still have limits on donating directly to candidates.

More dollars going to super PACs devalues people's votes. I think it's producing lousy candidates so I would support a law for enforcement that would bring us back to the time when we didn't have super PACs. I understand you disagree. That's fine.

> "Citizens United is very clear - it's about free speech."

The problem that people have related to Citizens United is that, in the current system, money = free speech.

This isn't about freedom from persecution, unless you count corporations as people.

To be contrarian for a second, perhaps there isn't enough money in politics? Look how much candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were able to raise directly from constituents, despite being snubbed by big money. What if we give more direct democratic funding tools to the public, like vouchers, to counteract corporate interests, other special interest groups, and the rich? Restricting political expenditure seems like a fundamental violation of free speech, but getting more public money into politics to counteract concentrated interests seems like a completely viable solution?

I don't think you'll ever remove money from politics entirely. But I do think it has gotten out of hand, and somewhat criminal, in recent years. I won't say more than that, lest I rant about current politics.

Why did this get flagged? A bunch of people being sour? If the technology community cannot come together here to find solutions to the problems of government, where shall we gather?

probably related to this:

"Political discourse is off-limits on Hacker News * *Except when Sam Altman feels like talking about it"

Mainstream political discourse is off limits, unless it presents something of intellectual merit, a new or interesting phenomenon, or has some more than tangential relationship to the tech community.

If anyone else had posted something like this, it would have rightly been flagged as well.

How many people here can name their state senator or representative?

Of the hundreds of people who might read this, I'm sure only a small handful could do it without looking it up. It's a serious problem that people don't follow state politics at all, and it's not a problem with the people themselves. We need a system that doesn't require people to follow what their president, senator, congressman, governor, state senator, mayor, and city councilman, along with dozens of other elected officials, are doing while in office.

If you're going to promote change, don't just promote a change in who we elect, because there's a Nash equilibrium that leads them to behave as all politicians have. Promote a change in HOW we elect them. Change the rules of the game and a different game will be played.

> We need a system that doesn't require people to follow what their president, senator, congressman, governor, state senator, mayor, and city councilman, along with dozens of other elected officials, are doing while in office.

... so you don't want a representative government? Couldn't disagree more. Sure it's tough to keep up with everything they're doing. But I like being able to look into it at my leisure, and I trust my community to bring important issues to my attention. Just because I don't know exactly how my representative has voted doesn't mean I'm unaware of how government is changing things that impact my life.

Really unclear to me how you would accomplish your goals without eliminating democracy as we know it.

> ... so you don't want a representative government?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

> Really unclear to me how you would accomplish your goals without eliminating democracy as we know it.

Then you should study other electoral systems.

At the state level, you could have proportional representation and then just vote for the party you want. That would allow for multiple parties, and it's much easier to follow what a party supports and does than it is to follow an individual.

> At the state level, you could have proportional representation and then just vote for the party you want. That would allow for multiple parties, and it's much easier to follow what a party supports and does than it is to follow an individual.

So, give even more power to parties? No thanks. Independent should always be an option. It isn't under your system.

The opposite of everything you just said. People need to be fucking responsible and learn what is right, if you need to experiment, make mistakes, fine. You are personally responsible for the government you get. You can learn before an election, take the day off if you can. There should be a national holiday. Go to meet your congressman once, like you would go to a PTA meeting if you had a child. None of this is hard. If you voted for a 3rd party candidate in FL in 2000 and MI, PA, WI in 2016, it is your fault Bush/Trump are in office. You didn't vote tactically. The rules of democracy are working just fine. We can bring about a constitutional amendment for citizens united, and abolish the electoral college. If people believe those are the right things to be doing, they will happen. If we start educating people now, maybe change will happen in years or decades.

Engineers can be impatient if there aren't quick technical answers. Engineers can also believe the latest research will give them answers, also not true. Quite a few startup founders I've heard have some absolute shit theories about politics. I can understand being a technologist, but a technologist who doesn't take the time to understand politics, or has no experience in politics needs to take the time to listen and learn before trying to impose anything on anyone.

Politics at it's root is civic engagement and it should be back to basics, just like it has been for journalism over the last yr or two.

I can name one engineer who was president, Jimmy Carter. How many politicians in general are engineers or scientists? How many are in positions Sam mentions? My guess would be < 10%. I'm probably overestimating. Engineers are probably one of the most if not the most under represented in the field of politics. I can name a few doctors who are candidates or successful politicians.

Engineers can be politicians, would be the name of my non-profit. This new yorker piece is also a good read: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/two-nasa-engineers-tr...

Herbert Hoover was also an engineer.

I don't think it was coincidental that both presidents who were engineers were disastrous for the economy (efforts to engineer the macro economy typically fail).

And yet, engineering/scientific knowledge is exactly that more politicians need and vice versa, the political skill (civic engagement) is what engineers/scientists need if they're going to run.

Carter was an evangelical, which might have had a lot to do with his one term in office. Hoover did what he could before Keynesian economics, it wasn't all wrong. I'm not sure what you mean by "engineer the macro economy." what would you say the federal reserve does?

He should apply the Y combinator business model: $120k twice per year in exchange for influence over 7% of candidate's congressional voting decisions. /s

(He is, even though it is unintentional.)

> Today, we have massive wealth inequality, little economic growth, a system that works for people born lucky, and a cost of living that is spiraling out of control.

Mr. Altman seems highly capable in affecting change here by funding and encouraging startups outside of the valley.

Of course the encredible story of wealth creation in the valley is the envy of most of the world, and they would kill to be in the situation we're in, as bad as it is.

This is a really innovative take on what traditionally would be accomplished by A PAC. Specifically, I like how transparent this is in relation to the current ways this would be done. He even gives reasoning on what his goals are [1].

[1] http://unitedslate.samaltman.com/ten-policy-goals.html

Yikes, how does creating another super PAC achieve fair government?

It's not really about fair government. Just different government.

I don't think government will ever be fair, but at least ours can be changed.

Fair government is one of the policy goals on Altman's page.

I'd suggest the best hope the US has for a better government is Wolf PAC, which is essentially a PAC to get rid of PACs (by constitutional amendment, so it can't be easily overturned):

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

It's had some success already, with some states signing up to it, but plenty of work remaining to push it forward.

That's interesting. Thanks for sharing. If only he would describe how wolf-PAC intended to achieve its goals, and why it is necessary, in the video on the front page. I had to read the Wikipedia page to discover that.

Side-rant. So many people are bad at getting to the point in YouTube videos...

Edit: now I see their front page video is intended to be news, not an intro. I think it should be an intro. Whatevs

The structural problems of American democracy are because candidates are unaccountable outside (except to their donors) outside a small election window, where they temporarily perform whatever act will allowed them to attain or hold onto power.

If Altman is sincere about wanting better candidates, I'd suggest pushing for technology-driven direct democracy, candidates who, in real time, act and respond to feedback from their constituencies. Trump was elected because he did an informal version of this via Twitter. John Robb outlined how this would work:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/02...

We essentially need to disrupt the notion of candidates and turn them into our true avatars for interfacing with the political system.

There was basically an episode of Black Mirror about this

Which one? Hated in the Nation? The Waldo Moment? I think that both of those kind of argue that digital network systems can't exist alongside traditional governance without overtaking them. I'm talking about trying to integrate the two to prevent those kind of dystopian outcomes. Although with the advent of a figure like Trump, our "Waldo Moment" might have already come.

The Waldo Moment was what I was thinking of

Direct democracy has its problems too. I'd suggest the best compromise is liquid democracy, where you have the right to take a direct vote, but can also defer your voting power to elected official(s) that you trust to act in your interests.

http://youtu.be/fg0_Vhldz-8

Why is Sam's post flagged?

Political discourse is off-limits on Hacker News *

*Except when Sam Altman feels like talking about it

That's not really fair. There's lots of political discourse on HN.

In my experience political posts get [Dead]ed pretty fast, but this guy's articles always stay at the top for hours because of his association with HN/YC.

In my ecperience, lots of political posts stay up for quite a long time without getting [Dead]; articles that are on classic flamewar topics or which are fairly shallow posts on the partisan controversy of the day tend not to.

I see mods getting after people about it when they're not expressing the generally accepted view around here too, though.

We don't moderate HN that way. Nor is there a 'generally accepted' view in the community about any divisive topic, for the simple reason that the community is too large. The views here reflect the divisions in society as a whole, just as any sufficiently large sample would. (Edit: really I should say 'societies', because there are deep divisions across geographical and cultural lines as well. Those are largely invisible and have a stronger influence than most people realize.)

What does commonly happen is that people with strongly opposing views imagine that the HN community and/or mods are stacked against them. This perception is in the eye of the beholder (a.k.a. a cognitive bias), because all sides make the same claim and in both intensity and direction it always corresponds to the perceiver's own political commitment.

I've written about this a bunch if anyone wants to read more about this dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

That's completely untrue—actually it's a combo pack of false statements. I've been doing the moderation thing for years now yet still wince when I see such things delivered with such snark.

California is not the problem. Why would you waste your time supporting the wealthiest, most educated, most progressive state? You would spend millions of dollars and countless hours in California, only to lose because of Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, etc. etc.

You need to focus your efforts on the red south, which are filled with highly uneducated, highly manipulable people, which political parties use to get elected.

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