[-] abucci@buc.ci 2 points 3 weeks ago

@t3rmit3@beehaw.org That'd be such a great thing to see in data. I was alluding more to the theory of voting systems, like rational choice theory. The setup in those is something like you have a set of people, and there's a choice they need to make collectively. Each person can have a different preference about what the choice should be. Arrow's impossibility theorem states, roughly, that in most cases no matter what system you use to take account of the people's preferences and make the final choice, at least one person's preferences will be violated (they won't like the choice).

What I was imagining was, in the same setup, everybody modifies their preferences based on what they think the other people's preferences are. So now the choice isn't being made based on their preferences, it's being made on the modification of their preferences. Arrow's impossibility theorem still holds, so no matter how the final choice is made some people will still be unhappy with it. But, I think it's possible that even more people will be unhappy than if they'd just stuck with their original preferences. Or, maybe the people who'd already have been unhappy are even more unhappy. I'd have to actually sit down and work it out though, which I haven't.

The example of your dad talking himself out of voting for Buttigieg because he thinks other people won't vote for Buttigieg is exactly the kind of case I was thinking of! Except I was thinking more theoretically than data-wise. It'd be great to see data on it too, for sure.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 6 points 3 weeks ago

@theluddite@lemmy.ml @luciole@beehaw.org I swear one day I'm going to sit down and do the actual math to prove that voting systems are broken by having a majority of voters factor their perception of "electoral math" into their preferences even when their perceptions are accurate. Arrow's impossibility theorem is already pretty discouraging without all this meta stuff.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 16 points 5 months ago

@theluddite@lemmy.ml @jeffw@lemmy.world Since most people spend most of their best hours at the workplace, what this person is really saying is that there shouldn't be any politics at all. I.e., this is a confession: "I am an authoritarian".

[-] abucci@buc.ci 1 points 5 months ago
[-] abucci@buc.ci 2 points 6 months ago

Right! And the US Democratic party seems to be obsessed with means testing, so that many times when there is government assistance available people who need it are forced to subject themselves to intrusive surveillance, frequent paperwork and sometimes shifting requirements, etc. It's rare (in my experience) to hear anyone critique this state of affairs, let alone make substantive moves to change it.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 1 points 6 months ago

@genie@lemmy.world You don't have any idea what I'm interested in.

I am definitely not interested in being condescended to, that's for sure, so bye.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 2 points 6 months ago

@John_McMurray@lemmy.world Thank you for supplying the "someone has to pay for it" canard, which is one of many reasons the US doesn't have a functional left politics. Neoclassical economics brain poisoning.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 11 points 6 months ago

@genie@lemmy.world I did not draw a dichotomy nor make a universal definition. I stated that the left is concerned with freedom from domination, which is undeniably true. What else do words like "equality" and "equity" mean? I did not state or suggest that this was the only concern, but it's clearly an important one.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 15 points 6 months ago

@return2ozma@lemmy.world One way to think about "the left" is that it values freedom from domination. Who in the US is fighting to reduce the level of domination we experience in important areas of life (health care, education, food, housing to name a few)? Should we really have to pay and put ourselves into debt--thereby becoming dominated--to go to school, live somewhere, or maintain our health? Even the so-called left in the US supports this arrangement generally; at best they fight over the details, not the structure itself.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 7 points 6 months ago

@andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun I know exactly one vi command. :q!

[-] abucci@buc.ci 4 points 7 months ago

@RacerX@lemm.ee In 1995 I worked at a company with several active web sites. Early days of the web, very important to the company. I was hired to take care of the hardware and software running the existing web sites and help in developing new ones.

One day I walked into my office, which had the production web server in it, carrying a Diet Coke (I was young and inexperienced). I opened the Diet Coke and it spewed an epic fountain right onto the production server. It was as if that server had a gravitational pull that drew all liquid towards it. I panicked and started unplugging every cable in sight, thinking this was better than risking a hardware-destroying short.

Needless to say the web sites were down for awhile. I believe I managed to save the hardware from myself though.

[-] abucci@buc.ci 7 points 7 months ago

What’s the point of writing software without users?

Software developers excel at creating ever-more-elaborate ways to heat up a CPU.

CC: @troyunrau@lemmy.ca

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abucci

joined 1 year ago