Senate and House Pass Sweeping Republican Tax Bill | Hacker News Reader

Senate and House Pass Sweeping Republican Tax Bill

nytimes.com

How can I as a programmer get involved politically?

Always vote. Every election, every issue, every race. You probably should vote absentee since you can work over the ballot on your own time rather than give yourself 5 minutes at the booth.

Campaign. Donate. Bernie did what he could with small donations. Obama did what he did in 2008 mostly on small donations.

Turn off the TV.

> Always vote. Every election, every issue, every race. You probably should vote absentee since you can work over the ballot on your own time rather than give yourself 5 minutes at the booth.

Or you can use your sample ballot and voter info booklet, work it over in your own time, and copy the ballot markings in the booth. There's nothing about in-persom voting that limits the available time to consider options.

I used to think that if everyone could understand the facts about issues, that they would certainly vote the "right" way. I envisioned a think tank of the best ideas, and a way to spread the word.

Now I see that emotional persuasion is a huge factor, often trumping logic. (Pun intended?)

You can do more than just vote. You can also volunteer for Techforcampaigns.org and help campaigns improve their use of tech.

Besides voting? Money. Anyone in a well paid profession who asks ‘what can I do’ the answer invariably is to donate and fund the action groups and parties who best represent your views.

Donating time is a wonderful thing but unless you’re contributing where you’re a specialist in your field the best thing you can do is to donate your hard earned cash.

I don't see how we can use our skill as programmers to solve this problem: at least not legally. Hacking the other side and publishing their shameful secrets might work, gathering and finding information on their sponsors doesn't.

I think that you need to build some sort of coordination platform. Fundamentally, I think that people aren't more active because they think that they can't change much. You have to build some sort of system where people can see how their participation directly affects things. The problem that these things generally only work once you have a large number of participants so getting this off the ground would be tricky.

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