
A Call for Candidates - whbk
http://unitedslate.samaltman.com/
======
dragonwriter
Without getting into the accuracy of the asserted factual premises, this
effort seems doomed from day one unless two critical issues are addressed:

(1) Lack of focus in goals: is this about present economic fairness, political
inclusiveness, preserving American hemegony, adjusting the rules of society
and the economy to address coming automation, fiscal responsibility, or a
return to the past? All of these are cited, with no priorities or uniting
structure. This is a messaging problem, sure, but more fundamentally it's a
problem of vision.

(2) Lack of focus in methods: this claims to be about California first, but
the races Altman says he's interested are the most and, in many ways, the
least powerful of California's dozen or so directly-elected executive
positions, plus _federal_ legislative positions. If the focus is California-
first, then the races of interest should be _all_ of the California statewide
Constitutional officers, plus _California_ legislators (and maybe California
statewide boards and commissions).

------
soulbadguy
Non american citizen living in the US. Just a couple of though while reading
"most" of it.

> I was one of the last children of the American Century. I’m not quite ready
> to let it go. If we don’t take action now, the US will be surpassed as the
> world superpower. I’d like to get back to the values that made our country
> the envy of the world. I still believe in American exceptionalism, and even
> with Trump in the White House, my proudest identity of all is being
> American.

> and the US should be the technology center for the world.

> US workers are the most productive in the world when they are allowed to
> compete on a level playing field.

This obsession with America position in the world is so pervasive that i think
most thinker don't realize that it has a cost. A lot of bad policies and
decisions have been in the name of "American exceptionalism".

> We should require that Californian politicians and senior civil service send
> their kids to public schools. They need to be aligned.

This would be a game changer...

> 1\. Prosperity from technology > Creating prosperity is how everyone’s lives
> get better every year.

How true is this. Or is it just the author focusing on what worked for him.

~~~
lkbm
> > We should require that Californian politicians and senior civil service
> send their kids to public schools. They need to be aligned.

> This would be a game changer...

I'm sceptical. Some public schools are great, and what happens is rich people
pay the high prices to live in those districts. The parents where I work
definitely choose housing based on what schools their kids will go to, and it
drives the property values of those neighborhoods.

Forcing politicians' to send their children to public schools won't help the
low-performing schools that rich people already can avoid by choosing
expensive. It will help ensure public education for wealthy families is good,
and little else.

(Disclaimer: I'm mostly familiar with school districting in Texas. Maybe
California is different, but this seems like the normal case most places in
the US.)

------
unityByFreedom
Cool. I wonder where Altman stands on Citizens United and the aftermath that
is super PACs. A big problem to me is how to keep money out of politics
wherever possible.

I guess this would fall under his "fair government" policy, although I don't
see it explicitly mentioned.

Do libertarians support having super PACs? That would be yikes to me.

Unless that is a primary issue for a candidate, I don't see how we'll ever get
back to fair government, with one person one vote. There's just too much money
in it already.

~~~
dantheman
Citizens United is very clear - it's about free speech. if the New York times
wants to release a documentary about a candidate before the election would you
stop them?

Libertarians, of course, support super PACS, people do not lose their ability
to speak when they form a group.

To illustrate this point imagine 2 people: a famous movie star and a wealthy
movie producer. When the famous person speaks it is news and spread freely,
whereas the producer needs to pay to get their message out. If you restrict
one, you should restrict the other.

~~~
unityByFreedom
We still have limits on donating directly to candidates.

More dollars going to super PACs devalues people's votes. I think it's
producing lousy candidates so I would support a law for enforcement that would
bring us back to the time when we didn't have super PACs. I understand you
disagree. That's fine.

------
laser
Why did this get flagged? A bunch of people being sour? If the technology
community cannot come together here to find solutions to the problems of
government, where shall we gather?

~~~
jrs95
probably related to this:

"Political discourse is off-limits on Hacker News * *Except when Sam Altman
feels like talking about it"

~~~
krapp
Mainstream political discourse _is_ off limits, unless it presents something
of intellectual merit, a new or interesting phenomenon, or has some more than
tangential relationship to the tech community.

If anyone else had posted something like this, it would have rightly been
flagged as well.

------
baron816
How many people here can name their state senator or representative?

Of the hundreds of people who might read this, I'm sure only a small handful
could do it without looking it up. It's a serious problem that people don't
follow state politics at all, and it's not a problem with the people
themselves. We need a system that doesn't require people to follow what their
president, senator, congressman, governor, state senator, mayor, and city
councilman, along with dozens of other elected officials, are doing while in
office.

If you're going to promote change, don't just promote a change in who we
elect, because there's a Nash equilibrium that leads them to behave as all
politicians have. Promote a change in HOW we elect them. Change the rules of
the game and a different game will be played.

~~~
unityByFreedom
> We need a system that doesn't require people to follow what their president,
> senator, congressman, governor, state senator, mayor, and city councilman,
> along with dozens of other elected officials, are doing while in office.

... so you don't want a representative government? Couldn't disagree more.
Sure it's tough to keep up with everything they're doing. But I like being
able to look into it at my leisure, and I trust my community to bring
important issues to my attention. Just because I don't know exactly how my
representative has voted doesn't mean I'm unaware of how government is
changing things that impact my life.

Really unclear to me how you would accomplish your goals without eliminating
democracy as we know it.

~~~
baron816
> ... so you don't want a representative government?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

> Really unclear to me how you would accomplish your goals without eliminating
> democracy as we know it.

Then you should study other electoral systems.

At the state level, you could have proportional representation and then just
vote for the party you want. That would allow for multiple parties, and it's
much easier to follow what a party supports and does than it is to follow an
individual.

~~~
unityByFreedom
> At the state level, you could have proportional representation and then just
> vote for the party you want. That would allow for multiple parties, and it's
> much easier to follow what a party supports and does than it is to follow an
> individual.

So, give even more power to parties? No thanks. Independent should always be
an option. It isn't under your system.

------
audi100quattro
I can name one engineer who was president, Jimmy Carter. How many politicians
in general are engineers or scientists? How many are in positions Sam
mentions? My guess would be < 10%. I'm probably overestimating. Engineers are
probably one of the most if not the most under represented in the field of
politics. I can name a few doctors who are candidates or successful
politicians.

Engineers can be politicians, would be the name of my non-profit. This new
yorker piece is also a good read: [http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/two-
nasa-engineers-tr...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/two-nasa-
engineers-try-out-politics)

~~~
troyastorino
Herbert Hoover was also an engineer.

I don't think it was coincidental that both presidents who were engineers were
disastrous for the economy (efforts to engineer the macro economy typically
fail).

~~~
audi100quattro
And yet, engineering/scientific knowledge is exactly that more politicians
need and vice versa, the political skill (civic engagement) is what
engineers/scientists need if they're going to run.

Carter was an evangelical, which might have had a lot to do with his one term
in office. Hoover did what he could before Keynesian economics, it wasn't all
wrong. I'm not sure what you mean by "engineer the macro economy." what would
you say the federal reserve does?

------
creaghpatr
He should apply the Y combinator business model: $120k twice per year in
exchange for influence over 7% of candidate's congressional voting decisions.
/s

~~~
aaronbrethorst
(He is, even though it is unintentional.)

------
matt_wulfeck
> _Today, we have massive wealth inequality, little economic growth, a system
> that works for people born lucky, and a cost of living that is spiraling out
> of control._

Mr. Altman seems highly capable in affecting change here by funding and
encouraging startups outside of the valley.

Of course the encredible story of wealth creation in the valley is the envy of
most of the world, and they would kill to be in the situation we're in, as bad
as it is.

------
zitterbewegung
This is a really innovative take on what traditionally would be accomplished
by A PAC. Specifically, I like how transparent this is in relation to the
current ways this would be done. He even gives reasoning on what his goals are
[1].

[1] [http://unitedslate.samaltman.com/ten-policy-
goals.html](http://unitedslate.samaltman.com/ten-policy-goals.html)

~~~
unityByFreedom
Yikes, how does creating another super PAC achieve fair government?

~~~
sillysaurus3
It's not really about fair government. Just different government.

I don't think government will ever be fair, but at least ours can be changed.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I'd suggest the best hope the US has for a better government is Wolf PAC,
which is essentially a PAC to get rid of PACs (by constitutional amendment, so
it can't be easily overturned):

[http://www.wolf-pac.com/](http://www.wolf-pac.com/)

It's had some success already, with some states signing up to it, but plenty
of work remaining to push it forward.

~~~
unityByFreedom
That's interesting. Thanks for sharing. If only he would describe _how_ wolf-
PAC intended to achieve its goals, and why it is necessary, in the video on
the front page. I had to read the Wikipedia page to discover that.

Side-rant. So many people are bad at getting to the point in YouTube videos...

Edit: now I see their front page video is intended to be news, not an intro. I
think it should be an intro. Whatevs

------
alphonsegaston
The structural problems of American democracy are because candidates are
unaccountable outside (except to their donors) outside a small election
window, where they temporarily perform whatever act will allowed them to
attain or hold onto power.

If Altman is sincere about wanting better candidates, I'd suggest pushing for
technology-driven direct democracy, candidates who, in real time, act and
respond to feedback from their constituencies. Trump was elected because he
did an informal version of this via Twitter. John Robb outlined how this would
work:

[http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/02...](http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/02/three-
choices.html)

We essentially need to disrupt the notion of candidates and turn them into our
true avatars for interfacing with the political system.

~~~
jrs95
There was basically an episode of Black Mirror about this

~~~
alphonsegaston
Which one? Hated in the Nation? The Waldo Moment? I think that both of those
kind of argue that digital network systems can't exist alongside traditional
governance without overtaking them. I'm talking about trying to integrate the
two to prevent those kind of dystopian outcomes. Although with the advent of a
figure like Trump, our "Waldo Moment" might have already come.

~~~
jrs95
The Waldo Moment was what I was thinking of

------
pain_perdu
Why is Sam's post flagged?

------
pvnick
Political discourse is off-limits on Hacker News *

*Except when Sam Altman feels like talking about it

~~~
aaron-lebo
That's not really fair. There's lots of political discourse on HN.

~~~
jrs95
I see mods getting after people about it when they're not expressing the
generally accepted view around here too, though.

~~~
dang
We don't moderate HN that way. Nor is there a 'generally accepted' view in the
community about any divisive topic, for the simple reason that the community
is too large. The views here reflect the divisions in society as a whole, just
as any sufficiently large sample would. (Edit: really I should say
'societies', because there are deep divisions across geographical and cultural
lines as well. Those are largely invisible and have a stronger influence than
most people realize.)

What does commonly happen is that people with strongly opposing views imagine
that the HN community and/or mods are stacked against them. This perception is
in the eye of the beholder (a.k.a. a cognitive bias), because all sides make
the same claim and in both intensity and direction it always corresponds to
the perceiver's own political commitment.

I've written about this a bunch if anyone wants to read more about this
dynamic:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20beholder&sort=byDate...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20beholder&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0).

------
jbob2000
California is not the problem. Why would you waste your time supporting the
wealthiest, most educated, most progressive state? You would spend millions of
dollars and countless hours in California, only to lose because of Texas,
Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, etc. etc.

You need to focus your efforts on the red south, which are filled with highly
uneducated, highly manipulable people, which political parties use to get
elected.

