I do think that if this current system is the result of democracy + the internet we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy.
Low-information elections are where money seems to help. I think we can throw that on the pile of 'your democracy is only as good as your electorate', and we have an electorate where most people can't even name their US House rep, much less their representatives in state and local politics.
Not really possible. There's at least 40 more years of citizens united before any practical ability to restrict money in politics becomes constitutional again.
> we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy
Not true. The plurality that voted in the current administration are generally pleased with the state of things. Democracy is working as expected. It was close, but this is what more people wanted.
I do so by taking Jeff Bezos' money and giving him a penny. Also by not supporting restaurants that have a Wall-street ticker nor any alcohol producers that have a Wall-street ticker.
Rich people can spend money to influence elections, yes, but how can they do it? through political donations, super-pacs and bribes. Bribes are already illegal. political donations and super-pacs can give politicians the juice they need to get their messaging out, but getting the message across isn't enough to win an election. The people need to vote. Billionaires can spend as much money as they want to support candidates, but a billionaire still only has one vote to cast.
My point is, billionaires can pay for all the political campaigns in the world, but the electorate gets the final say. It's up to us to A) run for office and B) vote for the best candidate (but tell that to the 64% turnout in the 2024 presidential election)
Money doesn't just buy ads. It influences the decision of who is a candidate in the first place. It buys operational range. It pays salaries for the right friend of X, the right family member of Y, etc. It buys other bribes, etc.
s/relations/elections/ -- because Elon et. al don't just intervene in the elections of the country they live in, but actually any country he's interested in -- and uses the U.S. as a bludgeon in that effort, see U.S.-U.K. and U.S.-South Africa relations
This is kind of exactly my point though. Citizen of what republic? Soros and Elon are both wealthier than most states and affect politics globally. They literally cannot be prosecuted, they are barely accountable to any legal bodies.
How many crimes do you think Putin has done? I mean Trump has 33 or 34 felonies on record, does it matter? What about Saudi princes?
If a nuclear capable country like France decides that someone like Elon Musk is acting against the best interests of their country they can ask him nicely to stop and if he continues they can use force to reduce the perceived threat.
This all seems completely in line with the day-to-day norms of contemporary society as well as historical norms.
I'm talking about the actual issue being discussed! Garry Tan isn't launching a group to influence Wyoming politics.
Graybeard here: took me a while to get it, but, usually these are chances to elucidate what is obvious to you :)* ex. I don't really know what you mean. What does the California state government look like if rich techies had even more influence? I can construct a facile version (lower taxes**) but assuredly you mean more than that to be taken so aback.
* Good Atlas Shrugged quote on this: "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check [ED: or share, if you've moseyed yourself into a discussion] your premises."
** It's not 100% clear politicians steered by California techies would lower taxes ad infinitum.
Republicans have bought/installed the SCOTUS which allowed for favorable decision in Citizens United v FEC.
This corporation dominated landscape is quite awful. Corporations have more rights than woman right now.
Around the same time Citizens United was decided, we also got McCutcheon v. FEC, which invalidated campaign contribution limits basically completely. If we take the logic of Citizens United at its word - that money is speech - then letting someone drop billions of dollars to change an election is like firing a sonic weapon at a bunch of protesters to silence them. So, right off the bat, we have a situation where protecting the "speech" of the rich and powerful directly imperils the speech of everyone else.
But it gets worse. Because we got rid of campaign financing limitations, there has been an arms race with campaign funding that has made all speech completely, 100% pay-to-play. We have libre speech, but not gratis speech.
This isn't even a problem limited to merely political speech. Every large forum by which speech occurs expects you to buy advertising on their own platform now before you are heard. If you, say, sell a book on Amazon or post a video on TikTok, you're expected to buy ads for it on Amazon or TikTok. You are otherwise shut out of the system because discovery algorithms want you keep you in your own bubble and you're competing with lots and lots of spam.
You think you are reducing the influence of the rich, but you are actually just raising the price of entry. A millionaire can donate to a PAC and buy TV ads, but a billionaire can buy or start a newspaper, TV station, or social media network. What are you going to do then, tell the newspapers what they are allowed to print?
We should tax billionaires away.
Wealth inequality, billionaires trying to skew politics… kind of a problem that needs collective action.
We need to get the power out of politics.
if the government exerts less democratic power, money will still exert too much capitalist power
But really what people mean is "prevent paid political advertisement of all kinds", which seems about as hard as "get rid of all kinds of advertisement" - at some point, you're back to power, communication, attention.
Hard problems. Probably there's a reason all ancient democracies did not survive.
It has actually been scientifically proven otherwise in crowd theory : with the right setup, the crowd is more effective to take a good decision that the top1 best decision maker.
Exemple : a crowd playing chess may beat the top1 chess player, even though the crowd individually cannot beat him.
And yea, no surprise, the masses do not win. Even when in the latter case, a huge chunk of the 132k was obviously using stockfish cranked to the gills (though the did get a draw out of it?).
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.
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.
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.
It’s never meant that.
So people can “believe” in Democracy just fine and still think direct voting is bad.
Also, Democracy doesn’t even mean “if a majority of people believe X, therefore X”.
Voting should be done without anonymity, online. One should be able to either vote for everything manually, or delegate the vote to any other person.
If some change is supported by 100% of the voters it should be implemented immediately. But if smaller percent supports the change, then there needs to be a vesting time (e.g. 10 years for 60%, infinity for 50%+1).
This allows people to either trade support for policies (i'll vote yes for your initiative if you vote for mine, or give me money), or to get high level of support locally and try out various laws on local level.
The same site that manages voting should also show detailed budget of city/state/country, where people can see where their taxes are being spent and should be able to redirect the money they have paid.
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.
Parts of the US is mature enough to implement a similar system as Switzerland, which has a superior form of democracy.
And what costs are we talking about anyhow? Tax shortfalls for local government? Decades later that has been rectified through other taxes and funding mechanisms and we still get new roads and schools in california. Housing costs increasing? I would say the fact that cities today are zoned within a few percentage points of present population levels (vs zoned for 10x present population levels pre 1970) is the actual source of that sucking sound from the chest.
And that goes to the heart of the matter, that corporations aren't people, no matter what some court or law says. And they should be heavily restricted on speech. (I include spending money on political adverts and similar.)
Humans can commit crimes worthy of the death penalty. Wells Fargo shouldn't exist due to their decade long fraud. Nor should United Health Care, for actively denying humans their health coverage until the humans died. Or countless other cases.
When a company gets "killed", and all assets get assigned to the wronged, I'll start to believe they are humans. Haven't seen that yet. Likely won't ever, in the USA.
I got injured with a malfunctioning pallet jack. Went to ER and got Xrays.
Week later, was fired. My paperwork explicitly said I got fired for getting injured at work and costing the company money.
Went to 6 different lawyers. Had to ask for pro-bono. I couldn't afford a lawyer.
All refused. Why? None of them could deal with a Walmart lawsuit. None.
I had them dead-to-rights with a wrongful termination. Double manager signature. Even recorded their termination on my phone, on the sly (in single party state). They even admitted to forging a different manager. None of it matters.
Power needs to be placed in the hands of better decision-makers. That starts from getting money out of politics.
Sounds good to me.
You're answering a comment saying money is power by saying that it isn't if it's not used?
Even if the billionaire doesn't pay you, they can pay someone else to force you to do what they want.
Its happened before, over labor disputes and unionization.
A LOT of people died, both in anti-union and union sides.
And thats why we have, well, had, the National Labor Relations Board. It was to make a peaceful way to negotiate worker rights.
Maybe if it did go away completely, and the violence comes back, that people in power would be reminded WHY we had union structure and law in the federal government to begin with. It wasn't for the warm fuzzies.
The civil court system is basically a way for wealthy people and corporations to use money to silence and/or coerce behavior out of less wealthy people. If Elon Musk or Larry Ellison woke up one day and decided to sue me, and defending myself would cost 100X my net worth, I'm probably just going to give up and do whatever they want me to do.
for a lot of people in the newly rich class, a kind of virtual currency best compared to a high score in a videogame. Symbolic and representing status. It's why when they attempt to translate it into power this particular class thankfully fares fairly badly, from the article:
"TogetherSF, a similar nonprofit backed by venture capitalist Michael Moritz, crashed and burned after the 2024 elections when its $9.5 million ballot measure to reform the city charter lost to a progressive counter-measure backed by about $117,000."
Garry Tan aligns himself with Genociders and genocide supporters.
Does this mean what I think it means: basically legalized bribery?
US: %country% has corrupt political system
Also US: it’s not bribes if we call it PACs, lobbying, and what have you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro_Khanna
Based on this warning from Garry to Ro re: wealth tax
https://finviz.com/news/277038/y-combinators-garry-tan-warns...
So this appears to be all about the wealth tax and taken down anyone who supports it.
AIPAC is also mad at Ro so it seems that Garry Tan can find common cause with them:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1GRXZqcQiU/?mibextid=wwXIfr
All they can talk about is how they’re all going to leave the state if it happens, but then are more than willing to try to spend more stopping it than they would just contributing their fair share in taxes.
Don’t like it? Great, leave - but stop trying to buy elections.
Sorry, but the state just confiscating 5% of someone's net worth (unrealized or not) is absolute madness, and rightfully opens up questions about slippery slope, how "temporary" they claim this to be, and so on.
It's not surprising they are leaving the state or using their resources to try to stop it.
https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/
This is not a normal state of affairs.
For example: https://nypost.com/2026/02/01/us-news/stunning-number-of-cal...
The biggest example of this in the US is the health system that is more expensive and has worse outcomes than other countries. There is a huge and growing gap in the us between ultra wealthy and the rest of the population and it is a virtuous circle for the ultra wealthy with their ability to spend unlimited in politics.
I don't know if you don't find this absurd, but a bunch of pedophile protecting people have shaped the actual presidency and are continuing to do so. Feeling slightly annoyed is the least offensive way I could put it
I would love to see that discussed
The ultra-rich are taking too great a share of every nations wealth. And they keep taking more.
Taxes are the only option to redistribute wealth.
Or are you talking about enabling strong unions and anti-monopoly laws with teeth to reverse the growth?
As I doubt Garry's in favour of that either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money
Such a group is not a PAC or a Super PAC, but anonymizes donors. It can be used as a vehicle to transfer money to a Super PAC while only naming the dark money group and keeping the donors secret.
“If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects”. -- Louis Brandeis
If something can't go on forever, it will eventually stop. That applies to any system that gives stupid people the same political voice as the rest of the electorate. I mean, it seems kind of obvious, doesn't it?
(it's not the working class)
Answer: because they're stupid.
The ones who weren't stupid were impossible to herd to the polls, or at least a lot more difficult. As a result they were outnumbered. Any system that removes the influences you cite will leave the same stupid voters in place, ready to fall for the next con man who comes along.
The problem isn't the money. The problem is the power. I'm tired of giving stupid people so much power over my life.
That's why I'm a socialist and I would invite anyone who thinks things might not be going in the right direction to consider that as well.
I mean, I kinda agree with him about most of the centrist stuff. But really, Gary? This is what you need to be spending your money and time on?
https://finviz.com/news/277038/y-combinators-garry-tan-warns...
My freedom to tell Tan (or you) that he's being an idiot stems from the same place as his freedom to spend his own money on what he wants.
That tells you all you need to know about how trustworthy the site is.
jesus christ. assuming he's not going to start syndicating this, who is this even pandering to?
The only question is whether your city has the courage to use it.
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Share this with your city officials—demand they adopt Flock Safety
Now I can refer to this list to let me know who, and what, to vote against...
I know a dog whistle when i see one, didn't have to read much further but did anyway.
I really, really hate that our future has ended up in the hands of people like him, Andreessen, Thiel, Musk, etc.
I used to hold a lot of respect for Paul Graham and his essays, but I've realized his stances on things are pretty elementary, and largely come back to his ego or wealth management. People like Graham and Tan don't seem to really care about human flourishing, and they certainly don't seem to have any coherent vision of the future. Graham, like Andreessen, was technically good enough during a veritable tech gold rush, and Graham's lieutenants like Tan and Altman were lucky more than anything--just in the right place at the right time versus having started anything of value.
I am *absolutely* cynical and jaded when it comes to tech nowadays, so no need to call me out there. These people remind me of the high modernists, that tech will solve all problems, and we don't have to care too much as to how we solve those problems. Just handwave, and AI will solve all problems. But I think how we solve problems matters, and the entrepreneurship meritocracy that Tan and Graham allude to does not exist, and it never did.
I just find it abhorrent that while 15% of American households are food insecure, a company like Anthropic spent millions on a superbowl ad just lamenting OpenAI's ad strategy. Or that the Trump administration dropped a FTC case against Pepsi and Walmart for colluding to price out grocery competition. Or that Facebook and Google have been shown to have pushed for apps to addict people to their slop content. Or that tech capex this year alone rivals the Louisiana Purchase or the amount America spent on building out the railroads[1].
We're not solving the right problems because capital is entirely disconnected from the every day reality of Americans in this country. But by all means, let's aim to replace 50% of white collar workers with AI and handwave that prices will come down.
[1]: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-spending-tech-companies-compa...
You had your chance, it is gone now.
I’m no fan of Garry’s, but this doesn’t seem like a hit piece to me.
Campaign financing, U.S. style, is just legalized bribing. In any healthy democracy it would be illegal. In the U.S. is just the way things are.
Money will go into politics. Nobody can stop this, and it should be out in the open and traceable.
Obviously, no bribe at all is the best, but is this happening anywhere?
The will to fight for what one believes in - I think we can all agree that is an admirable human trait that would result, for those who do follow his views, in him being labeled as a hero and defender of people's rights.
Bravo, Garry.
It just wasn't for the wellbeing of the rest of Italy what he did
> But the operation is also a media venture: Garry’s List started with a blog pillorying public-sector unions as “special interests,” attacking the ongoing teachers’ strike, and denouncing the proposed billionaire tax.
- Public sector unions are special interests. This is a plain fact.
- The current teacher's strike in San Francisco, even if it succeeds, will only push the district into insolvency, prompting a state takeover. The state will then cut much more aggressively. Maybe this would be a good thing though, although probably not what the union intended. Advocates of the strike are literally demanding the district spend its reserves on a couple years of raises.
- I'm certainly no billionaire, but the proposed tax will do nothing more than push the extremely small and mobile group of billionaires to take their business elsewhere. It's unlikely to raise tax revenues over the long run.
This is often claimed but has yet to be shown to actually be true. Billionaires want to live in the nicest places with the best amenities just like everyone else.
But let's pretend for the moment that it is true. Good. Billionaires are not a net positive influence anywhere.