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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

Reply All is (or was, before it imploded) an interesting one as a stand in for how this has played out on the left. They got more and more blatant about their views over the years, and even though I generally ascribe to the same views, I would rather not have them put forth so blatantly, especially in a program that purports to be investigative.

My assumption is that with the increasing polarization, many shows followed their audiences to the poles. It feels rare these days for someone to not stake out a stance on some culture war battle, whether subtly or not.

It's honestly weird that Joe Rogan feel like one of the least biased popular programs to listen to out there, or the least biased in a consistent direction at least. You also get a lot of off the wall crazy shit on there, but honestly someone willing to have enough of an open mind to have people on like that not just to make fun of is a nice change of pace, even if the things are ridiculous, given how entrenched everyone else is in their positions.

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Eh, it is pretty tough to stay purely objective about political reporting these days. "Both sides" play political messaging games, but the Republican party led by Mitch McConnell is a pack of barbarians at the gates of our political system. They'll destroy all Americans' faith in democracy and each other, if it means the GOP can suppress minorities and keep their own pockets lined.

So while "Pod Save America" for example is biased, I still believe their takes on what is happening at the federal level are informative and thought-provoking.

Take a look at this opinion from a distance and see if you think it accurately reflects the views of half of the American population or if you might have internalized some biases

It's what they are telling pollsters:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/04/05/more-th...

And the politicians in red states are conspicuously making efforts to restrict voters, in ways that they know are more likely to apply to voters who oppose them, going well beyond just voter ID:

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

So no, it's not just the OP's internalized bias. It's a simple, objective fact that they are attempting to make it harder for their opponents to win elections, based on an objectively false narrative.

I will bend over backwards to try to reach a common point from which to move forward and share a country together. I want to be aware of my own biases and the places where I disagree with the people who share some of my views. But that simply cannot happen in an environment like this, and nothing I do can change that.

It's what they are saying, in public. The large number of them saying so doesn't make it less true, only much scarier. It would seem impossible that so much of the country should be so objectively deluded, but it's literally their own words.

With the amount of people in the country that are not legally allowed to vote it is not crazy or restrictive to require some proof that you are a citizen to vote in a national election.

That issue is a perfect microcosm to explain both the problem with polarization and information silos, and why progress on an issue like this is so hard, and why no progress is made forming consensus because neither side wants there to be.

The left presents the issue as:

- People already verify themselves

- Voter fraud doesn't happen

- This is used to disenfranchise voters by making it harder because poor people are less likely to have a valid ID.

The right presents this as:

- No proof is required in many jurisdictions

- There are instances of voter fraud, and while few, there may be a lot we don't see

- Voting is important, so we should take it seriously and require people prove their identity to vote

The problem is that both of these sides are entirely true. Namely, verify != proof, and people talk past each other on this, and selective omission of the other side's valid points lets people believe the other side is irrational or wants it in bad faith (Republican operatives may want to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote, but from what I've seen Republican citizens do not).

The respective parties have no interest in bringing people to consensus on this issue because right now it's one that activates the bases of the respective parties. It's a way to take moderates that might be tempted to vote against the party line or for the other side for select positions and people that they respect and radicalize them by papering over the real positions of those people with the twisted narrative put forth by the media that caters to that side.

People are for the most part rational and compassionate and don't want to hurt each other. But people are also easily misled into believing things because of curated information presented when they don't have counterexamples that they trust or first hand experience to the contrary, and those beliefs cause what is considered rational and compassionate to differ from person to person. We shouldn't hate or dislike the people on the other side, they are just like us. We should engage them usefully, and the first step of engaging usefully is accepting that we're like them also in that we're presented with curated facts, so we should be open to their points when we engage and accept them in good faith.

I haven't seen the left claim that fraud doesn't happen, that is demonstrably false. There are a few convicted vote fraud cases annually. The claim is that it is insignificant.

> I haven't seen the left claim that fraud doesn't happen

Some will claim it, or say it's a myth, and if anyone points out those few cases, they'll say it's statistically insignificant to the point of not being something we should worry about.

It is strictly incorrect, but colloquially accepted as okay to say, which is yet another thing argued about from each side.

I suspect that you thinking you haven't seen it is likely because you're interpreting their intent and not reading the words strictly, or they followed up to clarify and that's the part you remember, because it's common to see. The problem is that the other side remembers the first claim or the strict interpretation of the statement, so both come away thinking they were correct, one in that the statement was "true", the other that the person was not being "truthful".

As I said, the laws in question have nothing to do with the basically-nonexistent "voter fraud". Nothing about voting on Sunday could possibly have anything to do with voter fraud, but that's one of the things they're trying to ban. They're limiting voting hour and removing polling stations, and then making it illegal to give people water while they stand in line.

Even if voter fraud were a problem (it isn't), they're not even pretending that these measures have anything to do with it. And that makes it incredibly clear that they don't believe that voter fraud is the reason for any of it.

Where in the US do you think you can vote without providing any proof that you're a citizen? Tell me, and I'll tell you what proof was actually required.

California is the big one. Many states only require proof of residency to vote. Any state that allows something like a utility bill as ID is allowing all residents regardless of citizenship to vote. Not being a citizen isn't an issue for state level elections if that is what the state chooses to allow. But, national election voting rights are only extended to citizens.

https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state

Thank you for being specific. You're ignoring the fact that for the requirements listed here [1] to be valid, you need to have already registered to vote. To register, you need to (among other things) sign an affidavit affirming that you are a US citizen. It sounds like your real complaint is about CA not following through on punishment for those who lie on this form.

https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_ID_in_California

For a non-citizen to vote in CA, they either need to lie about their identity or lie about their citizenship. They are not "allowed to vote".

If all it takes is a simple lie, you’re not really doing any meaningful verification. If that level of trust was good enough, why not just drop all checks entirely at voting booths and just have a brief questionnaire that asks “are you allowed to vote?”

They didn't say there was, but there are efforts to reduce ID requirements.

Here's the crux: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/873878423/voting-and-election...

Higher ID requirements increase security, but also improve republican result b/c democratic voters are less likely to have certain IDs (I think). As a result this can be spun either way as Republicans restricting voters, or Democrats opposing countermeasures to fraud.

Personally I don't know, I think I'd focus on Democrat behaviour; Given they just got off the back of Russia-gate, and accusing a foreign superpower of interfering in the election, they should also theoretically have a stake in voter fraud. I'd expect them to be focusing more on driving their demographics to acquire ID, rather than loosening requirements. Mail-in voting is a hard one though.

As an aside - I'm unconvinced by reports that voter fraud are low. No evidence of fraud isn't evidence of no fraud, and too many news articles or "explainers" seem to focus on lack of evidence versus a secure and airtight verification process.

consider https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/nonc... :

  election officials .. referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting.. In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions.

  Forty of the jurisdictions .. reported no known incidents of noncitizen voting..

  In the ten counties with the largest populations of noncitizens in 2016, only one reported any instances of noncitizen voting..

  In .. the states where Trump claimed the problem of noncitizen voting was especially acute — no official we spoke with identified an incident of noncitizen voting in 2016

The headline claims "no noncitizen voting" but the actual process implies "no noncitizen voting, that officials know about, (or are willing to say)". What it doesn't account for is incompetence, poor vetting/fraud detection and complicity among officials. For the strong claims coming from self-proclaimed voting experts, I'd expect some kind of random sampling of votes, not "we asked the people who counted the votes" - well, they're not likely to condemn their own reports, are they? The fact that a lot of hot air and political context is upfront, and self-critical analysis of their own process is not is what makes me doubtful of these kind of text, despite the credentials/qualifications of the authors.

You conflate election fraud (hacking machines), voter fraud (individuals illicitly casting ballots), and state-sponsored misinformation campaigns. Those are three distinct problems with very different challenges.

You say "no evidence of $x != evidence of (not x)" which is true in theory, but let's step into reality: "No evidence, despite systems built to detect evidence".

You act as if people aren't already on the lookout for fraud, or that systems are not already resistant to them.

Where do I mention anything about hacking, or misinformation? If you got that from "russia-gate" you are creating the conflation.

I was talking about vote fraud, but that's not necessarily an individual act.

> despite systems built to detect evidence

Which systems? Where are they described?

You're asking people to spend a lot of time, money, and political capital, on an issue that you admit there is little to no evidence is actually a problem. I'm sorry, but that is not reasonable or realistic. I understand the whole issue of "no evidence of fraud doesn't mean no fraud" but if we treated every problem like this we would never run out of problems. When you combine all of what I just said with the fact that we know certain groups are disproportionately effected by these rules...it just comes across as you saying "yes I know there's no evidence that this is a serious problem but I care more about the process being abstractly and theoretically perfect than the people these rule changes would actually effect."

> on an issue that you admit there is little to no evidence is actually a problem

Because "no evidence" isn't relevant. If it was, no one would care about Trumps taxes; and the IRS would happily decrease reporting requirements, and work on an honour system.

The mechanism by which the ruling powers of the nation are decided is pretty important, so the requirement on "time, money, and political capital" is not at un unreasonable - it isn't important if "we treated every problem like this.." because every problem is not equally as important.

The fact is there are huge incentives to cheat, and undeveloped nations across the world are characterised by unfair elections, it's not unreasonable, then, to place importance on the veracity of the election process, more than just a glib "there's no evidence that this is a serious problem".

> I care more about the process being abstractly and theoretically perfect than the people these rule changes would actually effect

fairness is dictated by the rules you dismiss as "abstract and theoretical". You talks about "facts" and what "we know", but that is the very issue - what we don't know. It's convenient to discount the value of what we don't know when the current worldview favours your opinion. I don't know anything about undetected fraud, and neither do you; neither of us know how much a problem this is, or who/how it affects people. The only solution is an airtight process, and you seem to dismiss that, worse still, attempting to characterise me as unsympathetic for placing value on such a thing.

The US is the richest country in the world, and it's government richer than most nations of the world. Why should it lack the resources to secure the most significant process in the nation, while poorer corporations (mastercard, veritas etc), and even the military can secure their own, lesser processes much better.

My local concert venue could sign their tickets with 4096-bit RSA, and make us take our shoes off and go through an x-ray before we come in like at an airport. They could have an airtight process; it would stop almost nothing, while making the process far more difficult for patrons.

Yes, I dismiss your desire for an airtight process, because I think it's security theater, whose actual outcomes would be massive and largely detrimental relative to the actual desired outcomes.

Not sure why you're talking about concert venues, What's that got to do with voting? What purpose would an X-ray serve?

Signing ballots with 4096-bit RSA? If you think that wouldn't prevent fraud, I disagree - dismiss without basis iyw.

I am talking about the usefulness of security theater on the margins. At a concert venue, and at a polling place, we can do things that, in the abstract, increase security, but provide little to no actual benefit and actually serve to make the process more difficult and unpleasant on the whole.

(Ignoring RSA tangent, making all concert-goers go through an X-Ray to screen for weapons and drugs would catch more weapons and drugs than the current pat down/bag check process does. It would undeniably increase the security of the venue, while slowing down entry, exposing concertgoers to X-Rays, and IMO providing more annoyance than actual extra security)

It seems that you think, for voting, that's a fine trade-off. I do not.

edit: not disagreeing that signed tickets would prevent fraud. Disagreeing that it would be worth, say, an additional $5 fee on the tickets, plus slower more expensive readers to verify that they're signed correctly, plus plus plus etc etc. My entire argument here is based on the net utility of additional security measures, not whether or not those measures provide additional security.

Security theatre often refers to security from physical threat. I'm not talking about undetected fraud in a sense where that makes sense, but rather a verifiable, auditable process.

The only thing you referred to that was process related (versus physical security) was use of encryption keys. Why not talk about the pros/cons of that?

> It seems that you think, for voting, that's a fine trade-off

With respect to x-ray screens? Not at all, nor did I say such a thing. Nor do I think all things that could be described as "security" are exactly equivalent to each other, such that you can mention x-ray scans, and the argument automatically extends to RSA keys.

...I'm putting myself in the shoes of a person who is in the united states without authorization...and with that in mind, why in the world would I risk exposing myself and my illegal status by participating in something as pointless as voting in US elections...

I just don't see how an average person concerned with being deported is willing to risk exposing themselves by registering with the state government, especially in the last 8 years of ICE really pushing the limits on what they can do.

You can be a legal resident of the country and not a citizen. But, your point still stands.

It is a fact that there was an insurrectionist attack on congress on Jan 6, that there were obvious lies about false election fraud pushed by the president and eventually by the majority of the Republican party. What are you getting at by saying whether it reflects the views of half of America? Those views are objectively incorrect, not based on reality. Reality here is not based on someone's opinion, no matter how widespread the belief in it is.

Note that I said the Republican party. I know there are many decent humans in this country who have small-c conservative beliefs, and I can have reasonable discussion with some of them.

And I pity those who don't take the time to create their own philosophical defense of their beliefs, and only parrot what Fox News tells them to think.

When I start getting into a heated discussion, I like to turn away from arguing about specific people (too much) and say "What do you want this country to be? What matters to you?" and the discussion becomes a lot more enlightening.

So yeah, if someone really believes that the poor deserve to die because said person, making $60k a year, thinks that taxing the ultra-wealthy is unethical, I'm gonna have some problems with your character.

> So yeah, if someone really believes that the poor deserve to die because said person, making $60k a year, thinks that taxing the ultra-wealthy is unethical, I'm gonna have some problems with your character.

For someone who extols “philosophical defenses of beliefs”, you certainly make use of shitty straw men to do so. I suppose you didn’t say anything about the quality of the philosophy.

>pack of barbarians at the gates of our political system

It's quotes like this that make it hard for non-Americans like myself to take American political discourse seriously. To me, takes like this are at a similar effort level to the "Obama is a socialist!" cries heard in the 2008 election. Yawn.

Oh look, a false equivalence between the standard GOP scare tactics playbook, and Republicans breaking all norms of governance.

You tipped your hand here by repeating a line used over and over again on Twitter (“breaking all norms of governance”)

https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=breaking%20all%20norms%2...

So, are you a bot? Or are you just not thinking independently? I strongly suggest spending less time on social media. You’ll find that both sides of the political spectrum are just people, like you and me. Not “monsters” as the news would like you to believe.

You insult my intelligence. You're being rude.

I think plenty on my own. Like many humans, I occasionally use terms in vogue to get the point across. You must not work in technology or communications. (see how asinine that sounds?)

I'll forgive you for not seeing my other comment in the thread, but to be clear, my beef is with the political establishment on the right. My feelings toward "normal human beings" who are conservative are much more varied.

The Republican party as an organization at the federal level is indisputably a less patriotic, more malicious organization than the Democratic party, which has its own problems of infighting, horse-trading, and "everyday" corruption.

But instead of posting the latest trove of articles describing McConnell threatening SCOTUS appointments again, or Trump trying to use the Justice Department to investigate debunked claims of voter fraud for his own benefit, or the million other datapoints about how awful the GOP leadership is - please, continue calling me a bot.

I didn't mean to insult your intelligence. I see plenty of intelligent people acting irrationally these days.

I suggest checking out right-wing Twitter/corporate news to see how they're using the same words ("unpatriotic", "malicious") in the exact same way to describe the democrats. The truth, as always, is somewhere in between. It's not black and white, evil vs. good. At least not in the real world.

Ah, but the difference is that the twitter right wing is wrong.

Just because they say it too doesn't make the correct side less correct.

>It's honestly weird that Joe Rogan feel like one of the least biased popular programs to listen to out there,

There are plenty of other hosts that do a much better job than Rogan (David French & Yascha Mounk). Rogan does indeed have a slant, it just doesn't fit into the most stereotypical red v blue one.

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