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Comment by SpicyLemonZest | Hacker News Reader

This article is a good archetype of a strain of strange, counterproductive political thought I've seen a lot of recently.

Proposition 22 was very popular, passing with a 17% margin. Any useful analysis would have to reckon with that fact: look at the law, identify what it was that Californians found so appealing, and suggest ways to deliver those appealing parts while still improving the lives of workers. Doubling down on the idea that it's a transparently bad law written by VCs to oppress people might be emotionally satisfying, but it seems very unlikely to either accomplish the author's goals or help us understand the situation.

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> …identify what it was that Californians found so appealing…

Having been part of a group chatting about the propositions on the ballot, my belief is that few people voting on this had a good idea what they were actually voting for and what the effects could be if it passed. That's what $186 million (the most expensive campaign ever waged in the history of U.S. ballot measures) poured into the "Yes on 22" campaign bought.

Prop 22 is a great model for how to use propaganda to pass laws that socialize an industry's costs.

Here is what appeared on the ballot, courtesy of the California Attorney General:

Exempts App-Based Transportation and Delivery Companies from Providing Employee Benefits to Certain Drivers. Initiative Statute.

* Classifies drivers for app-based transportation (rideshare) and delivery companies as “independent contractors,” not “employees,” unless company: sets drivers’ hours, requires acceptance of specific ride and delivery requests, or restricts working for other companies.

* Independent contractors are not covered by various state employment laws—including minimum wage, overtime, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.

* Instead, independent-contractor drivers would be entitled to other compensation—including minimum earnings, healthcare subsidies, and vehicle insurance.

* Restricts certain local regulation of app-based drivers.

* Criminalizes impersonation of drivers.

> the most expensive campaign ever waged in the history of U.S. ballot measures

Michael Bloomberg's 2020 presidential run is close to the most expensive ever. Despite being a successful businessman (supposedly people like this) who also ran a city with more people and a larger economy than most states, the only votes he won were from American Samoa.

I'm not convinced money buys elections.

The Republican ex-mayor of NYC couldn't win the Democratic primary with money alone, I wouldn't put too much stock into that incident.

A Republican (who later went independent) who was able to win a mayoral election in a city that leans 75%+ Democratic in presidential elections.

It's pretty clear he did buy those elections though.

I don’t see how the popularity of something necessarily corresponds to its utility. How is it counter-productive to speak to the reality of the bill, popularity at passage is entirely orthogonal to “Has it been beneficial”.

People like having cheap Ubers and didn’t prioritize about the ramifications otherwise, that’s my personal take from conversations I had around the election.

There's nothing wrong with opposing and discussing the downsides of popular policies. What's counterproductive is saying that the policies aren't actually popular and people were just, in the author's words, "bamboozled into supporting the measure". I've seen many people (including a friend) with that attitude, and it makes engaging with anyone who does support Prop 22 impossible, because you're forced to assume they either don't know what they're talking about or don't mean what they say.

That quote is not supporting your point, though, because the author and your friend are in separate camps. They are separate on exactly the grounds you indicate — the author spends paragraphs supporting how Prop 22 is not turning out positively and then says welp, people have been bamboozled.

The bamboozling is the conclusion, not a premise of the article. Such a conclusion is done out of kindness for the voters who passed this proposition as the actual ramifications are now becoming clear. They either didn’t realize or didn’t care that we’d see incidents such as the recent firing of Von employees.

Easiest way to check if someone understood what they were voting in support of is to ask if they thought workers would be fired to be replaced with this new class of employee. That’s why I voted no. I didn’t understand how it would end up being rolled out reality and correcting ballot propositions is much more involved than an ordinary bill.

Everyone knows that democracy is an ultimately broken system that ends up oversimplifying complex systems and devolves into rule by a propaganda-influended mob*.

*except when it supports your beliefs, in which case it is the only true and just system that protects the people from autocrats that collude to oppress the masses and elevate their own self-intrests

That's an oversimplification of what democracy is. At the simplest level, democracy is a system of government where the people have the authority to choose their governing legislators. I would agree that in its current form in America, the government incentivizes the use of propaganda to get specific policies passed.

Instead of coming at an entire form of government, perhaps you could suggest a solution that actually solves some of these issues. Is there a way to require full understanding of a proposition before voting? Is there a way the government can restrict advertising on these topics? And, more importantly, can you suggest a form of government that solves these issues without creating any larger problems of its own?

I think the issues goes beyond the form of government. Even an autocracy can fall for the same issues. Just replace convincing a wide audience with convincing a single person. We see this failure in business - business leaders buy into an idea that's dressed up as attractive for them, but it ends up being harmful.

The problem is that there are more topics that influence people's lives than anyone can properly reason over in detail. You have to make choices on which issues to focus on more, but it also means that you're vulnerable to being sold a false story on the issues you don't focus on. The end result is that sometimes you're taken advantage of.

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