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Like any engineering exercise, there are ideas within the bounds of reasonable debate and ideas that are so bad they should be immediately dismissed and those a

Like any engineering exercise, there are ideas within the bounds of reasonable debate and ideas that are so bad they should be immediately dismissed and those advocating for them excluded from further discussion until they can participate like intelligent adults. If I'm a civil engineer designing a bridge, I think it's perfectly reasonable to call someone crazy if their plan is to build it out of Popsicle sticks and unicorn tears. Or more appropriate for this discussion, from the bones of poor people. Wasting time on their nonsense not only makes it harder to reach our actual goal of building a bridge, but reinforces the nonsense notion that all ideas are equally valid or worthy of consideration just because someone voiced them.

rayiner 2mo ago
The difference is that you can prove with math and physics that building bridge out of popsicle sticks is crazy. Whereas your point here is based on emotional appeals (“bones of poor people”) and religious dogma. Poor people are the ones who suffer the most from dysfunctional government. Every unit of inefficiency or dysfunction in public services—every late bus or bad teacher—is a tax on the people who can least afford it.
- ndsipa_pomu 2mo ago
  You seem to imply that allowing poor people to vote leads to a dysfunctional government, whereas it seems clear to me that allowing corporations to influence politics is far, far worse.
  - rayiner 2mo ago
    You’re not thinking it through. Corporate money influences politics because campaigns are expensive. And campaigns are expensive because advertising to vast swaths of low information voters is expensive. Say you cut out the third of the electorate that’s most susceptible to advertising. That would increase everyone else’s voting power by 50%. But it would greatly reduce the actual power of rich people, because the remaining electorate would be much harder to influence by buying advertising. The other thing is that narrowing the electorate by a third would be less elitist than the systems the Wilsonians came up with in response to the Jacksonians. Today, everyone votes, but votes don’t matter very much because the government is actually run by a small elite of credentialed experts and civil servants, and lawyers. APA litigation has a far outsized impact compared to voting.

rayiner 2mo ago

The difference is that you can prove with math and physics that building bridge out of popsicle sticks is crazy. Whereas your point here is based on emotional appeals (“bones of poor people”) and religious dogma. Poor people are the ones who suffer the most from dysfunctional government. Every unit of inefficiency or dysfunction in public services—every late bus or bad teacher—is a tax on the people who can least afford it.

ndsipa_pomu 2mo ago
You seem to imply that allowing poor people to vote leads to a dysfunctional government, whereas it seems clear to me that allowing corporations to influence politics is far, far worse.
- rayiner 2mo ago
  You’re not thinking it through. Corporate money influences politics because campaigns are expensive. And campaigns are expensive because advertising to vast swaths of low information voters is expensive. Say you cut out the third of the electorate that’s most susceptible to advertising. That would increase everyone else’s voting power by 50%. But it would greatly reduce the actual power of rich people, because the remaining electorate would be much harder to influence by buying advertising. The other thing is that narrowing the electorate by a third would be less elitist than the systems the Wilsonians came up with in response to the Jacksonians. Today, everyone votes, but votes don’t matter very much because the government is actually run by a small elite of credentialed experts and civil servants, and lawyers. APA litigation has a far outsized impact compared to voting.