chr1 (u/chr1) - Readit News

chr1 commented on UBI as a productivity dividend scottsantens.substack.com... · Posted by u/2noame

estearum · 2 days ago

Doesn't matter at all how much it is. It'll be (almost entirely or entirely) eaten by landlords.

I am a landlord.

I am setting prices for renewal.

I have come to learn that 100% of my possible customer base now has $200/mo more to spend.

I raise prices $200/mo with absolute certainty that I will find a renter.

Congrats, mission accomplished.

chr1 · 2 days ago

That extra 200 will also allow some people to move to a rural area, decreasing demand, which means you won't find a renter.

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

thomassmith65 · a month ago

The monetary system under capitalism is not the same as direct democracy.

A planned economy under direct democracy would be at least as bad as a planned economy under a representative democracy because the average voter has even less knowledge about economics and business than a government planner.

The best thing about direct democracy is that, unlike representative democracy, we don't have it and therefore cannot instantly think of its flaws.

The average person reads under a sixth grade level, cannot perform long division, and quite possibly couldn't tell you how many years have passed since Jesus was born.

Whether a direct vote is appropriate for an issue depends on which is a greater danger: the corruption of a politician, or the ignorance and flakiness of the average voter.

chr1 · 21 days ago

Well it kinda is the same, in any transaction today two people vote to transfer goods and the rest of the people in the country vote to take a percentage of that as tax.

We only need to make sure that decisions affect the smallest number of people possible and only those who make decision bear its good or bad consequences.

Same can work with other issues, like do we want to build a road or stadium, how do we want to deal with homeless in our part of the city etc.

Online, open voting, with possibility to trade votes, and requirement to reach almost 100% accept vote for decisions, can work much better than systems we have now.

As for average person being not smart, average buyer poorly understands biology, and ends up buying things that are harmful to eat or eats to much, but we do not have representative doctors who will decide who eats how much in restaurants. The important thing is to create an arrangement where poor choices of a person do not affect others.

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

thomassmith65 · a month ago

  No one in this thread have suggested to completely replace everything with direct voting

I take the original comment to imply exactly that, since it positions someone taking issue with any direct vote as being against Democracy wholesale. If I missed something, @terminalshort can reply to clarify.

  the only way to improve situation is adding some elements of direct voting that would improve efficiency of communication between people and the government.

There are two issues:

1) What are a good set of rules for the system.

2) If the existing system can no longer self-correct, how can one implement a good set of rules.

'Direct vote' might address the second issue. It's not the only way, but it's better than a violent revolution.

I'm not opposed to all direct voting, but it does have inherent problems. The most obvious is that the world is far too complicated for a majority of citizens to research all the issues that affect them. In a well-functioning representative democracy, a politician would have the resources and time to understand the issues. Granted, that seldom is the case in reality.

chr1 · a month ago

That is the same argument proponents of planned economy use. It doesn't work in reality because no one knows what other people need and no one cares. Representatives care about being reelected, but they have a very hard time figuring out what people want of them because vote ones in 4 years, or angry people on social media is too unreliable channel of communication.

More direct voting allows representatives to better represent people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy so it is a part of the first issue too.

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

f30e3dfed1c9 · a month ago

Gosh, you make it sound like the near-universal use of secret ballots is all just some sort of misunderstanding that could be rectified if only everyone would listen to you. Tilt away if that's your favorite windmill, I guess.

chr1 · a month ago

Well if you knew a good reason for secret ballots you could tell us that, instead of telling that you are smarter than me. You really should take another look at hn commenting guidelines, it is useful outside of hn too https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

f30e3dfed1c9 · a month ago

First, how about if you show that you've spent more than five seconds thinking about why every democratic country on earth uses secret ballots? Why are secret ballots codified in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights?

There are other parts of your scheme that are also spectacularly bad ideas, but let's just deal with this one for now.

chr1 · a month ago

That's a very good question, for instance for most of its republican period Rome did not have secret ballot, and voting was open. That have changed in 138BC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_laws_of_the_Roman_Repub... and have caused major instability, political violence and eventually demise of the republic.

The issue was that the poor people could vote for Gracchi brothers, but were too afraid to protect them, and one without the other only have brought to a worse outcome where they could not vote at all.

Even today if you are afraid of saying openly what policies or which politician you support, how can you hope to enact these policies?

Secret ballot started being introduced in US starting from 1888 and it did not bring any of positive changes that its supporters thought that it would.

In places where a group can intimidate majority of voters and force to vote one way, secret ballot does not help at all because that group can also fake the results. It even makes situation worse, by hiding the actual data from opposition.

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

f30e3dfed1c9 · a month ago

"Voting should be done without anonymity..."

This is a spectacularly bad idea.

chr1 · a month ago

Why is it a bad idea? Can you describe one bad consequence of it, if it is implemented in combination with the other ideas above?

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

thomassmith65 · a month ago

  Direct voting does not replace judiciary or even senate, it only augments the house of congress.

If that is the Direct Democracy you had in mind, than we have no disagreement.

What I originally commented on was this:

  So do you believe in democracy or not?

I take issue with the implication that it's all or nothing. If we characterize anything less than a direct vote on every issue as anti-democratic, then the only people left standing will be kooks.

chr1 · a month ago

I hope you will agree that the overall goal is maximizing freedom and autonomy, that is allowing every person or group to pursue happiness the way they want make mistakes or good choices and bear the consequences.

The representative democracy has a problem with delegates not faithfully representing the people they are supposed to represent. It allows politician to be elected by campaigning for issue X which is popular with majority, then do Y and Z that almost no one wants, and then campaign again on other party undoing X, leaving people no way to communicate that they want X and not Y Z.

Social media have greatly increased the impact of this instability, the only way to improve situation is adding some elements of direct voting that would improve efficiency of communication between people and the government.

No one in this thread have suggested to completely replace everything with direct voting, and yet many people vehemently argue against that. Meanwhile there is a much more interesting discussion: how to make cooperation between people more efficient using the new technologies that we have.

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

mystraline · a month ago

Dumbest idea ever.

Billionaire goes: get $10 off at my store, called Scamazon, for these votes (lists votes). And naturally even the $10 is manipulated to be recouped with dynamic pricing.

chr1 · a month ago

What we have now is a politician saying vote for me and i'll pass laws that will give you 10k in next 4 years, people vote for the politician who then takes money from scamazon gives 10 to voters and takes 10mln to get elected again.

Eliminating the middleman makes things better already.

But more importantly with vesting time, large number of votes, ease of reversing a decision in a new vote, take $10 and vote for something that costs you more simply won't work.

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

thomassmith65 · a month ago

I refuse to believe that anyone reading this is incapable of remembering at least five historical examples in which the public was happy to treat an unpopular group unjustly.

There is no foolproof system that can guard against it, however declaring 'rights' and delegating the responsibility to protect them to the judiciary at least is a mitigation.

chr1 · a month ago

Direct voting does not replace judiciary or even senate, it only augments the house of congress.

Can you bring one example where the public wanted to treat a group unjustly and parliament elected by that same public have defended the group?

chr1 commented on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics missionlocal.org/2026/02/... · Posted by u/computerliker

thomassmith65 · a month ago

If you put a question to the electorate like 'should we tax only people whose last name begins with an X, Y or Z?', it's liable to pass.

Nobody really advocates for Direct Democracy. It isn't viable: 'tyranny of the majority' etc.

Most Western governments are Liberal Democracies - where some issues aren't subject to a vote - partly so that the mob can't persecute outnumbered subgroups.

chr1 · a month ago

If majority of people in a country want to persecute an outnumbered subgroup, then what prevents the majority of delegates wanting the same as well?

You have an implicit assumption that the delegates are going to be smarter and better people that are going to lie to the majority to get elected and then will valiantly protect the subgroup.

But that have not happened anywhere. In fact in every case it is the delegates who organize persecution of various subgroups, even in situations when the share of population truly wanting to persecute subgroup is far from being a majority.