This is one of my pet peeves. If you believe in the welfare state concept, you should never refer to anything that’s subsidized as “free.” It’s a recipe for disaster. As a European who was uprooted and settled in the US, I’ve become painfully aware of how little we Europeans comprehend the workings of the economy. I believe this is partly due to the propaganda surrounding the welfare state as “free.”
Of course, nothing is truly “free.” It comes at a significant cost that must be carefully understood and balanced for the future. It hinders market dynamism and credit flow, which can easily stifle innovation over time. Calling it “free” is a mere emotional appeal, not a rational justification for its long-term sustainability. It’s no wonder that business in Europe, despite being more regulated and restrained than any other part of the world, is so vilified by the youth. We must stop conflating prosperity with corporate misgivings if we are to progress at all.
As I’ve grown older I’ve come to realize that there are no solutions, merely tradeoffs. Saying something is “free” is selling a solution which rhetorically works well with a voting populace that has little, if any, knowledge of economics. Describing the n-th order economic consequences and how you are trading one set of issues for a different set of issues — which may be acceptable on balance but is not without consequence — is a very difficult thing to communicate. In reality the attack ads basically write themselves. Or to put it more bluntly utopia sells a lot better than reality.
The second aspect to this is that specifically when it comes to economics the timescales needed to understand the impact of a policy are generally longer than the collective memory of the people. Politicians inevitably sell and enact good intentions, but by the time the reality of the consequences from those intentions becomes manifest it will be years or decades later and the causal relationship is masked and the politician will generally be long gone. At that point it just looks like a new problem that similarly needs a “solution”.
Agreed. Many in this thread appear confident that “everyone” comprehends that anything labeled “free” actually implies “subsidized.” However, I still believe they are mistaken.
People fail to realize that increased social programs inevitably result in reduced income for everyone. If they understood this, you would observe the polls on this issue, which already reflect the fact that most individuals are willing to assist those in need but do not support most social programs.
Its free at the endpoint for user. That's what the "free" means here. No one is pretending that resources for things like roads, police, firefighting, primary schooling and others come out of nothingness and don´t have any cost.
Exactly. What else are you going to call it, but free? That's literally the word for it.
Everybody understands that anything which is free is ultimately paid for by someone. And everybody understands that things provided for by the government come from taxes.
We don't need new words for basic concepts everyone already understands.
I hope you were right, but I strongly suspect you are mistaken.
Most people fail to understand:
- Social welfare programs come at the expense of reducing everyone’s income.
- The extent of the social welfare overspending is significant; we have long surpassed the point of helping those in dire need and are now funding numerous programs that, if fully understood in its long-term cost, would likely not be supported.
- The top 5% of income earners contribute 90% of the welfare programs and are not “the greedy rich.”
- The actual greedy rich do not have income and fund political campaigns, which is why politicians often conflate high-earners with the rich (to obscure the influence of interest groups)
What would be a more accurate term than “free”? Subsidized. It may not be as catchy, but it provides a more precise description.
What's your source for saying that most people fail to understand that social welfare programs come from taxes? The concept of where government money comes from is such an obvious fact, I don't understand how you can claim most people don't understand it. People go to work for a paycheck, they pay taxes, and they understand money doesn't grow on trees. This is adulting 101.
And no, "subsidized" means a portion of something is covered by someone else, but not necessarily all of it. E.g. a subsidized cafeteria at work may mean all the food is 50% of cost. Subsidized can mean fully subsidized, but that's a special case.
So subsidized is not more precise, it's actually much less precise. "Free" continues to be the accurate and correct term.
You're taking a right-wing political stance against current levels of social spending, which is your prerogative, but there's no need to change perfectly fine language to do so. Even if we called it the mouthful of "fully subsidized childchare", that's not going to make it any less popular.
What could possibly be my source for such a claim? Who is funding studies on this topic?
My source is my upbringing in Europe and my subsequent long-term residence in two other countries, which provided me with a unique perspective on people’s feelings and beliefs.
My source is my diverse life experiences, during which I actively engaged with people from all walks of life as much as I could. I am not making any claims about science or indulging in conspiracies. For such claims, I would require concrete evidence.
What I am saying is that a majority of the Europeans, particularly the youth, has become disconnected from the fundamental principle that to distribute wealth, you must generate it first.
You're seriously saying that the majority of Europeans don't understand that social services come from the taxes they pay?
That honestly sounds as plausible to me as saying the majority of Europeans thinkg 2+2=5.
Forgive me if I have a hard time believing you. Because I can definitely tell you Americans understand where their government spending comes from, and I have a hard time believing that Europeans are somehow less educated on this.
To be clear, I don’t believe it’s an “education” issue. I think it’s a “for too long removed from politics” problem.
For most Europeans, a tax is an unclear bill at the end of the month, leaving them feeling powerless to do anything about it.
One thing I learned from living in America is that people here are much more engaged in civic life and politics. The UK (which I also lived in) is perhaps the exception to this European rule.
You don't need to be involved in politics to understand that government spending comes from taxes.
I'm American but have spent a lot of time in Europe -- France, Spain, and Germany mostly. I have seen nothing to indicate that Europeans are ignorant of where government spending comes from. They seem just as smart as anyone else.
And national elections in Europe also seem like large news events, even if the campaign season is (thankfully) a whole lot shorter.
Fussing with language to make rightwing political points (i.e. lying) is the bread and butter of rightwing ideology. You don't say "I don't think governments should spend any money on social services or helping their citizens", because that makes you sound like a terrible person. So you look down your nose and say "Well, it's not really FREE, akshually! I am very smart." And then you prance around tooting your dog whistle.
I agree with the concept of not labeling things which are subsidized as "free", while still considering the price worth it. Similarly, I think the framing of negative rights vs entitlements makes sense, while still believing that certain entitlements are worthwhile.
Unfortunately, I have found that such framings are mostly associated with a set of beliefs which I feel profoundly at odds with (e.g. unlimited wealth inequality is fine). So I find myself aligned with the "health care is a human right" crowd despite my discomfort with the ideological underpinnings.
Right. I believe every socialist should feel offended by the term “free healthcare.”
Building an economy capable of sustaining such a system requires immense effort and collective support. Describing it as “free” is a marketing tactic that assumes people are stupid.
But the doctor isn't working for free, the nurse isn't working for free, the receptionist isn't working for free, the machines in the office weren't free, the rent on the office isn't free. Yes, theres no bill that arrives that you pay for directly out of pocket, but the system very much isn’t actually free.
Who on earth thinks the doctor is working for free, or the nurse, or anyone else...?
This is the most strawman of strawmen I might ever have heard.
By your logic, the word "free" should be banished from the English language, because literally nothing could ever be free.
Except, for people who have common sense, "free" means you don't have to pay for the thing directly.
In this case, your taxes get aggregated with everyone else's and then some gets split up into health services. But since there's no direct connection between the two -- you don't get more healthcare if you pay more taxes individually, and you don't get to pay less taxes if you don't go to the doctor -- it's conceptualized as paying taxes on one end, and getting free health care on the other. This is just common sense. Everyone understands how this works. It's the same way we have free schools. Or you think schools aren't actually free either...?
They're not? If you're the type of person to pay taxes, that money gets used to pay the teachers. The pizza restaurant that offers free delivery - that's also not free. They use the money from the customer buying pizza to pay the delivery driver. If you're in a country that allows businesses to get away with that, that might explain your confusion, but not all countries, eg Germany, allow businesses to get away with false advertising like that.
Again, by your logic, nothing provided by someone else could ever be free. Right?
So then what exactly is the point of having the word?
So let's get rid of the word. Now, we need a word to mean things you don't pay for directly, since that's a very useful and practical concept when it comes to your personal budget. What do you think of the word... I'm just brainstorming here... "free"?
This is where you’re being naive. I meant this in other parts of the thread: Americans are more connected to the outcome of taxes because the government doesn’t control every aspect of life.
For Europeans, while they understand the concept of taxes, the government’s vastness and involvement in everything make it a black box that they fund without having a say. They can just hope it’s being used effectively (although many believe it isn’t).
Most European elections revolve around sentimental signaling and rarely present concrete plans that explain practical solutions to problems.
Americans assume the rest of the world is on the same page, but that’s not the case IMO
I'm sorry, but you're the one who seems naive here. European governments "control every aspect of life"? What are you on about? Europe isn't Soviet communism, or a dictatorship under Mussolini.
You're taking a bizarrely extreme ideological position that does not match reality. Elections in countries like France and Germany are vibrant and heavily contested and citizens are greatly interested and involved.
Whether there's more sentimental signaling than you'd like, or too few concrete plans -- that's true across the world, and in the US.
But that has nothing to do with whether it makes sense to call government services provided at no direct cost "free".
You've made it clear you want to redefine language to suit your kind of right-wing ideology, where you seem shockingly judgmental and dismissive of your fellow citizens. No thanks.
Great. I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Time will tell. I’m still a bit confused about the right-wing remark though.
As I mentioned, my only claim here is that I’ve lived for years in various Western countries. I’ve paid taxes, held jobs, bought and sold homes, made friends, volunteered, and so on. I believe my experiences give me an edge over others who just are “traveling” or “spending the summer.”
I grew up in Europe, and I can tell you that you’ll encounter more right-wing perspectives in a random bar on a Tuesday than you’ll find anywhere in America. Europe has always been an ethnonationalist continent, which is why it surprises me that calling out its inner workings would result in accusations of being right-wing.
Any political scientist will tell you that the American political spectrum is well to the right of the European one, no matter what personal conversations you have in bars.
And you're advocating for less social spending -- that's essentially the definition of right-wing on the economic dimension.
And there's no need for any "time will tell". Conservatives have been complaining about social spending for a solid three-quarters of a century by now. If three generations isn't enough to show that social democracy is a system that works in terms of delivering services, how much more do you need?
I’m not against public spending. US presidents from both parties have increased public spending when necessary.
Your perspective on the US political spectrum is where I suggest you reconsider. Most Europeans are ethnonationalists, regardless of their political leanings.
Consider the rise of the far right following immigration. While the outcome remains uncertain, I fear it won’t be pretty. It certainly won’t be something to boast about. Europe is on the brink of experiencing its most extreme, fascist, racist, and rightward shift in a long time.
This raises the question of why you’re so certain that Europe is “left-leaning.”
The narratives on this topic are hard to pierce through. Economic literacy is low among the public. Politicians take advantage of this to pretend that solving everything is as simple as taxing the people you don’t like (billionaires, corporations, or even completely incorrect narratives about how we’ll use tariffs to make other countries pay us, which we all know is false). These groups are all represented as infinite money wells that just need to be tapped by electing the right person.
This problem is most obvious in UBI discussions. Anyone could use Google to look up the US population and multiply it by their imagined UBI payment amount to see how much it would cost. Yet 9 times out of 10 when I hear someone talking about UBI they have some fanciful ideas about everyone getting $30-40K per year without realizing that the total cost of such a program would be far higher than even our total tax revenues currently. Even if you cut all other social programs and only offered UBI it wouldn’t make a difference. A UBI program that writes large checks to everyone would require tax increases that reached into the middle class.
Yes. Plus, taxing those with higher incomes is hardly “taxing the rich.” After all, the wealthy don’t have incomes; they borrow against their assets.
However, they do fund political campaigns, which is why politicians focus on the “work mules” of social welfare: the top 1% earners who contribute 90% of all welfare benefits. This distraction diverts attention from the “real rich” and the top earners can hardly do anything to address the issue... perfect scapegoat.
You shouldn’t be downvoted, kind of a lame part of HN lately.
I disagree that it’s a recipe for disaster - there are many valid kinds of holistic experiences of how a product is priced / sold, that don’t change the positivist economics of what is happening.
As long as childcare is economically positive, I think it is, it doesn’t really matter whatever you call it. And perhaps, it’s free in a way that matters most: redistribution from the very rich, that makes more customers with bigger budgets to spend on shit made by the firms they own.
It’s not just redistribution from the very rich. It’s redistribution from every tax payer, and you can bet your tax dollars aren’t used very efficiently.
Thanks for your comments. I agree--HN has been quite disappointing lately. For a place that's supposed to be full of tech contrarians, it does sound like an answering machine around here sometimes :)
Regarding your retort, I believe it should possible to measure the economic return of every social benefit. I strongly suspect that there are social benefits that more than pay for their own cost.
However, the most effective way to prove this is by measuring it.
I’m not sure. If we compare the US to Europe (and I say this with a heavy heart), I wouldn’t be confident that the EU has a positive balance. There hasn’t been any growth in the EU in the last 25 years.
What’s Europe’s future? What's its current relevance?
Sure, the US could eliminate all other expenditures and provide every American with the best subsidized healthcare in the world. But what would that achieve? A few decades of chess-thumping to the world? Then bankruptcy? Who will fund the next innovation in healthcare? Is this what Europe did only now those decades of runway are coming to an end?
When you look at the US, you should note that the poorest state here has about the same per-capita GDP as Germany. And the disposable income for people is 50% higher than even Germany. If you don't consider Germany, the poorest state is richer than every EU country and has a disposable income 80% higher.
You want to feel free? You need disposable income. You want to start a company and have clients? You better hope those clients have disposable income.
You want a welfare state? You better have a strong economy. EU isn't trending too hot in that department.
Many of the usual suspects that defend social welfare "just because" also say things like "face the data!" I suggest you do. Just my thoughts.
I nervously hover over the VSCode Copilot icon, watching the premium requests slowly accumulate. It’s not an enjoyable experience (whether you know how much you've used or not :) )
Noticed that my productive usage of CoPilot dropped like a brick, after they introduced those limits. You feel constantly on the clock, and being forced to constantly change models gets tiresome very fast.
Unless you use "free" GPT 4.1 like MS wants you (not the same as Claude, even with Beast Mode). And how long is that going to be free, because it feels like a design to simply push you to a MS product (MS>OpenAI) instead of third party.
So what happens a year from now? Paid GPT 5.1? With 4.1 being removed? If it was not for the insane prices of actual large mem GPUs and the slowness of large models, i will be using LLMs at home. Right now MS/Antropic/OpenAI are right in that zone where its not too expensive yet to go full local LLM.
I agree. From a product perspective, I would also support the decision. Should we make the rules more complex by default, potentially overlooking SQL injection vulnerabilities? Or should we blanket prohibit anything that even remotely resembles SQL, allowing those edge cases to figure it out?
I favor the latter approach. That group of Cloudflare users will understand the complexity of their use case accepting SQL in payloads and will be well-positioned to modify the default rules. They will know exactly where they want to allow SQL usage.
From Cloudflare’s perspective, it is virtually impossible to reliably cover every conceivable valid use of SQL, and it is likely 99% of websites won’t host SQL content.
If your web application is relying on Cloudflare filtration of input values to prevent SQL injection, your web application is vulnerable to SQL injection.
Defense in-depth. I would hope few would want a vulnerable web app and simply protect it via a WAF. But just because your web app is 'invulnerable' doesn't mean you should forgo the WAF.
But what is being defended against? This is blocking legitimate user behavior. Would it be defense in depth to also prohibit semicolons or two consecutive hyphen characters in all content? If your app is constructing paths to read from the server's filesystem based on substrings contained within client-provided field values, throwing an error if `"/etc/hosts"` appears in any input is not going to save you.
Unknown or unforeseen attacks. The WAF ruleset can be updated much faster than code. WAFs also provide flexibility in how requests are responded to, or even disallow access from IP ranges, certain browsers, etc.
WAFs do throw false positives and do require adjustments OOTB for most sites, but you’re missing the forest by focusing on this single case.
What? If I construct my queries the right way (e.g., not concatenating strings together like it's the year 1990), then I never will want a WAF "helping" me by blocking my users because they have an apostrophe in their name.
That's a very narrow view of what a WAF does. You may want to review the OWASP ruleset at https://coreruleset.org/. However, this is just the ruleset. WAF vendors usually offer features above and beyond OWASP rule parsing.
And WAF rules can be tuned. There's no reason an apostrophe in a username or similar needs to be blocked, if it were by a rule.
Okay, I'll look at the "coreruleset" which you say is good.
Let's see what's blocked:
"Division by zero" anywhere in the response body since that's a php error. Good luck talking about math ([0] and [1])
Common substrings in webshells, all matched as strings in response bodies, rather than parsing HTML, so whatever, don't comment about webshells either [2]
Unless the body is compressed, in which case don't apply the above. Security [3].
What the coreruleset is doing here is trying to parse HTML, SQL, HTTP, and various other languages with Regular Expressions. This doesn't work. This will never give you a right result.
It's trying to keep up to date with the string representation of java and php errors, without even knowing the version of Java the server is running, and without the Java maintainers, who constantly add new errors, having any say.
The only reasons attackers aren't evading the webshell rules here trivially is because so few people use these rules in practice that they're not even worth defeating (and it is quite easy to have your php webshell generate unique html each load, which cannot be matched by a regular expression short of /.*/; html is not a regular grammar).
I was ready to see something that made WAFs feel like they did _anything_ based on your comment, but all I see is a pile of crap that I would not want anywhere near my site.
Filtering java error strings and php error strings out of my rust app's responses using regexes to parse html is just such a clown-world idea of security. Blocking the loading of web-shells until the attacker changes a single character in the 'title' block of the output html seems so dumb when my real problem is that someone could write an arbitrary executable to my server.
Every WAF ruleset I've read so far has made me sure it's a huge pile of snake-oil, and this one is no different.
The issue is you're picking out bits and pieces that /seem/ correct to you, but you don't seem to have experience defending a public website from intrusions.
These rules do in fact work. Like I've said previously, these rules require tuning for your particular website. If I'm "talking about math" then I would modify or disable that rule as needed.
I think this is the forest you're missing. WAF isn't "install it and walk away". WAF needs to be tested in conjunction with your release, like any other code would.
The WAF can and does protect against attacks your code would never think of. It also /logs requests/ in a way your web server will not, making it invaluable for auditing.
And when running 3rd party software that has a function you cannot control, but need to prevent, WAFs can do that, too. I have a particular query string that must work from an internal but not external network while external/internal users leverage the same URL -- WAF can do that with a custom rule examining the query string and denying access to the outside world.
Or if I need to prevent [AI] bot scraping. WAF can do that with a couple of clicks.
WAF also unloads the web server from malicious traffic. Instead of having to size up or out a web server, I can have a WAF appliance prevent that traffic from ever reaching the server.
> Every WAF ruleset I've read so far
You don't appear to have any experience with implementation or operation of a WAF, but are attempting to be authoritative and dismiss a WAFs utility.
> If I construct my queries the right way (e.g., not concatenating strings together like it's the year 1990)...
(in the anti-WAF camp but playing a pedant here)
In your Django app, you indeed follow the best practices and don't concatenate strings together and so think that this security theater doesn't apply. Yet, this is precisely how Django ORM works under the hood, and SQL injections are periodically found there.
The real solution here is to subscribe to the django-announce list and update Django, or backport the fix manually.
In all seriousness, I don't see the justification for blocking "/etc/hosts" but allowing "'". The latter is probably a million times more likely to trigger a vulnerability.
The problem is that people who don't know what they are doing join the cargo cult and then impose these requirements on people who do know what they are doing.
Why not just whitelist the thousand most common words? That should be good enough for 99% of approriate content, and the smelly nerds who make websites or talk about them can take their tiny market segment and get bent.
Spent maybe 3 min with it and got the hang of it. I thought no qwerty was going to be a deal breaker but I think I could get "fluent" with it in a day or two.
The worst parts are: no upper case and the fact that there's no connection between what you typed and the keyboard once you submit.
Yeah, the goal of this particular prototype was to try and find a way to make typing letters actually possible! The iPhone team at this moment was in real trouble, as the naively 1-to-1 keyboard was absolutely unusable!
They stopped the whole 15 developers iPhone OS team and asked all developers to only build keyboard prototypes until they all would have something worth of a demo. As far as I know it's unheard of in the history of OS development!
Ken Kocienda was not in charge of the keyboard at all originally, he stumbled upon one working solution, and that's really what I found interesting in this prototype: it's a step in the iterative process.
I wonder what the speed of this approach vs traditional ocr techniques. Also, curious if this could be used for text detection (find a bounding box containing text within an image).
Was just coming here to say this, there does not yet exist a multimodal vision LLM approach that is capable of identifying bounding boxes of where the text occurs. I suppose you could manually cut the image up and send each part separately to the LLM but that feels like an kludge and it's still in-exact.
Wait what? That's pretty neat. I'm on my phone right now, so I can't really view the notebook very easily. How does this work? Are you using some kind of continual partitioning of the image and refeeding that back into the LLM to sort of pseudo-zoom in/out on the parts that contain non-cut off text until you can resolve that into rough coordinates?
One of the big WTF moments I've had in the "web vs. device" Ad-related privacy journey was realizing that even if you create an "anonymous" account on an app in your phone, your device ID is shared and can be recognized by Ad vendors.
Example:
- You're using a known account on a Mac to search for a shelf to buy
- You're using a anonymous account to browse Reddit on an iPhone
And the shelf Ad pops up on the Reddit feed. Yep, as long as you logged in with a known account on both devices, they're now linked by device id. An all you do on those devices (regardless of the account) can be traced back to you.
I read about this in "Chaos Monkeys" but it never really hit me until this experience.
This is typically just done through IP address. That's why I get ads for my girlfriend's preferred eye cream brand despite the fact that we browse using different devices and the advertiser should have access to that data point.
Mentoring requires a significant amount of effort when done effectively. I find it hard to believe that anyone would willingly offer to mentor in such a broad manner. It makes me quite suspicious that the author has a genuine understanding of what mentoring entails.
In my opinion, mentoring has become a trend and a status symbol. The current definition of mentoring does not genuinely benefit anyone except the egos of those offering it.
The author is offering 1.5 hours of meetings, as three 30 minute conversations. It's not nothing, but it's also probably not really the level of mentoring that can be super impactful. But it might make a difference to some people who apply.
I've had one amazing career-related mentor in my life. He probably spent 20+ hours per week for 6 months doing mentoring things for me. He worked VERY hard at this but his work was very impactful on me and I really appreciated it. He had support of his management, which was critical to being able to spend that much time on mentoring.
I've tried to be a mentor for Google Summer of Code before. It was difficult for me and required a LOT more effort and time than I had expected. Mentoring well is not easy.
Mentoring isn’t just about time; it’s a mental investment. The few people I mentor often come to mind frequently. I reflect on our conversations, even though the actual time spent talking is minimal. I take it very seriously and genuinely feel their progress as my own.
I don’t think I could mentor even 10 people without failing. You have to genuinely care about their progress.
Perhaps the author means coaching. That’s scalable. Teach people how to do something you’ve successfully done repeatedly. That’s something I could do even for groups.
Yeah, coaching and mentoring are totally different things. Coaching is more structured—you teach people a skill or process you’ve mastered. Mentoring is way more personal. It’s about actually understanding someone, their goals, their struggles, and helping them figure stuff out.
That’s why good mentoring is so hard to find. It takes real effort and emotional investment. You can’t just scale it up infinitely. But even a little bit of good mentoring can be life-changing.
Would you feel more comfortable about it if you re-framed it as "I'm willing to have three 30 minute calls with people about their life and projects to see if I can provide any useful tips?"
That's what this is, and I don't think it pretends to be anything else. I don't think it's worth getting too hung up on the "mentoring" language used here - especially since I'm certain there is no standard agreed definition of what "mentoring" actually entails. Or have I missed one?
I could definitely be out of the loop but I've never heard of the linked blog/newsletter, and there is no explanation of who it is, so the whole thing gives me a feeling of "uhm, why would I do that?"
I don't know anything about the author themselves, but the site is one third from the top of my pinned tabs in Arc, on my "not being directly productive" space.
They write good quality, thought-provoking content that I enjoy.
It isn't true at all mentoring takes a lot of effort. It really depends on a lot of factors. My 2 bosses at work are excellent at abstract thinking and mental models. They are usually able to provide significant ways of looking at things differently in just a few minutes of talking with them.
I will say they are hard to find. These aren't your average people.
It also really depends on where the mentee is. If there is a massive gap from where they are and where they want to go, that would be a large undertaking.
However, mentors don't have to expend all that effort. Even just a bit of help from time to time would be preferable to zero mentorship, which is where most people are today.
That was my first impression as well. Unfortunately I grew up with someone who offered "mentoring" when he felt the need to augment his own sense of magnanimity, and the only help that was given was that I needed to agree with his (always bigoted, usually horrifying) opinions about whatever was on his mind at the time. So whenever someone is openly offering mentorship, I immediately nope out.
I don't know anything about the author, but he doesn't seem like a bad person by any means, and this post is probably well intentioned. I just can't help but get an ick from this.
An oligarchy where leaders frequently change based mostly on merit, with a social ladder accessible to anyone, is as close as you get to social harmony. As long as everyone has a shot, society is generally happy. (Note that a functioning economy is also needed for this.)
Democracy is mostly a safeguard to kick out the Napoleons before it’s too late.
Also, if you have strong local politics (like in the US, UK, or Australia), you might see more impact from your vote, as opposed to countries where you vote for a party and they pretty much do what they want for their term.
How are you defining oligarchs? I feel like in practice this term is only used to describe Russian businessmen, so I’m not sure if everyone has the same understanding.
I think the definition of “oligarch” is being stretched a little in the article, so I’m using it for my argument. Is Elon Musk an oligarch? Is Zuckerberg an oligarch?
My point is that as long as those at the top rotate and everyone has a shot, whether they’re called oligarchs or not doesn’t make much difference to the common person.
This is a pretty bad take. Many countries weigh population of voting regions. The idea is that the people in a smaller region with its own needs doesn't get its priorities relegated to oblivion just because no the same people live there than in a big city.
Not weighing votes by population alienates the rural voters.
The college vote has little to do with population. It might have started that way, but it seems to be more about artificially inflating one side of the vote these days. (To be fair, redistricting has been abused for this effect as well, although on a smaller scale.)
It makes it so it is possible to lose every popular vote, yet still win the election "by a landslide."
What other countries are doing this? I can't think of any.
I see your point, and the Electoral College may need some updating (there’s also gerrymandering, which is problematic). However, I’d argue that the “popular vote” is not the best approach.
For huge countries where people’s lives are very varied, I think you need something to equate regions to others. The ancient Greeks tried direct democracy, and it didn’t work. The Founding Fathers knew this and called direct democracy “anarchy.” Not far off from the truth if you ask me, and the Greeks are a great cautionary tale on this.
Representative democracy, strongly coupled with local representation and a two-party system (yes, yes, I know) is where it’s at. The two-party system forces local reps to align with the bloc that most represents their interests ahead of the election. If you look at Europe, many citizens vote for a party only to see them make alliances and concessions with other minority parties that they wouldn’t have approved (e.g., Spain with independence parties).
Many things need updating, but I think it’s a mistake to forget history and assume that the U.S. political system was just randomly put together. There’s a lot of interesting history to dig into there (for example, the Federalist Papers).
>The college vote has little to do with population.
You do realize the majority of electors are allocated by population, right?
Specifically, the Electoral College mirrors the allocation of Congress with D.C. added at the same allocation as the smallest State as a special bonus.
Of course, nothing is truly “free.” It comes at a significant cost that must be carefully understood and balanced for the future. It hinders market dynamism and credit flow, which can easily stifle innovation over time. Calling it “free” is a mere emotional appeal, not a rational justification for its long-term sustainability. It’s no wonder that business in Europe, despite being more regulated and restrained than any other part of the world, is so vilified by the youth. We must stop conflating prosperity with corporate misgivings if we are to progress at all.