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Comment by me_me_mu_mu | Hacker News Reader

I think from a politics standpoint yeah I’m kind of a doomer. I identify as liberal but the people running on liberal platform are really dumb and their opponents are insane/dumb in other ways. There’s no good options to vote for. Idk how we will manage to wade through that.

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I kinda think part of the problem is the pervasive expectation that there should be someone to vote for with a Platform They Believe In And You Should Too. That's fundamentally at odds with the mechanics of our system, where you need to build coalitions of people who can at least agree that this set of compromises is better than the set pitched by the other candidates.

And actually, I think finding compromises is fundamentally what this tech is for, right? "How do we make decisions with neighbors we disagree with, mostly without shooting?"

But because platforms are compromises, the demand for leaders that Truly Believe in their platform gives us people pretending to be crazy and stupid. With maybe some genuinely crazy and/or stupid mixed in (but I'm not confident that I can actually distinguish) and lots of layers of "it's complicated" on top.

> I kinda think part of the problem is the pervasive expectation that there should be someone to vote for with a Platform They Believe In And You Should Too. That's fundamentally at odds with the mechanics of our system

Yeah, our systemic duopoly and the associated requirement for backroom coalition building (and the associated papering over of differences for marketing purposes) to build viable parties is a significant defect in our structure of government compared to many other modern democracies.

Hah! I identify as [Republican] but the people running on [Republican] platform are really dumb and their opponents are insane/dumb in other ways. There’s no good options to vote for.

The Libertarian party welcomes you both.

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