Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

[EquALLity]

When did I say that?

You seemed to be saying, "brimstone knows a lot about nuclear energy, so I trust that he's right about it and its significance, which is why I think Bernie would be bad".

Come on, would I do that?

Would you not fact check it? Maybe.

It was a poke at Bush.. get you fax straight.

Why didn't you say that before?

I think the role of nuclear energy and GMOs are most worthwhile (that isn't to say other things aren't important).

You just repeated what you said. My point is that you can't make that call because you don't know enough about politics.

[EquALLity]

That's where you're wrong.

Yes, you should ideally learn about more issues, but if you don't, you should still vote based on the one single issue you know.

Imagine a million scientists who each only know one random thing out of a set, but are correct on that thing and how policies the politician has will affect it.
You WANT them all voting on that single thing they know about instead of not voting, because they each know about different things, and cumulatively their votes will favor the candidate who is right on or has better policies on more things. With a relatively even distribution of knowledge (or one proportional to importance of the issues), it's actually very reliable.

It's not a perfect heuristic, but statistically speaking it works out more for the better than for the worse -- as long as that one thing you know, you actually do know, and aren't completely wrong on. If you're wrong on the one thing you thought you knew, you have other problems.

If other people know other things, and the candidate I vote for based on the thing I knew is wrong on all of those other things, I want him or her to lose (I just didn't know it at the time of voting).
As long as voters are correctly informed as to the reasons they are voting, and not wrong about their beliefs relating to those reasons (for example, know that global warming is a real threat, and understand one true thing about the solution), democracy works very well. It's when people are incorrectly informed or just flat out wrong and vote on those reasons that democracy fails. It doesn't fail because of honest ignorance, but because of ignorance which falsely assumes itself to be knowledge.

You could say, "If you're voting on a single issue you are correct on, it's typically just as likely the politician you're voting for's other policies will be good or bad, so that would make voting for the politician otherwise neutral, and adding the positive of the correct issue would make it a good decision on average."
I don't think so, though. Ted Cruz was right on the Export-Import bank. If I only voted based on that, I would vote for Ted Cruz over Hillary Clinton. It's too risky because of the potentially disastrous consequences.

Most people aren't experts anyway, so that's not good advice in practice.

Most people also aren't single issue voters, so adding single issue voters into a mix of informed voters would make our President elected with a diluted concentration of rationality/information.

He could say he was wrong about the gays. And in fact, he is gay, which is why he felt so hostile to gays. He was just in denial, and his conversion didn't work.
And then Trump could present a more coherent and practical foreign policy, and make some very strong commitments to nuclear power.

It's very unlikely.

Well, he's not going to come out as gay. It'd be amazing though.

Trump can't present any coherent foreign policy plan, because he doesn't know anything about foreign policy.
As for nuclear energy, I doubt he'll even use the word 'nuclear' unless he's referring to bombing the middle east (or Europe, which he apparently would consider nuking).

I can't really care about that kind of thing. It's just a red herring that distracts from the issues.

It's not a red herring though; he's asking a country America doesn't have a positive relationship with to hack classified emails with potentially very relevant secrets to benefit himself politically. Someone who does something like that shouldn't be in the White House. He clearly doesn't value national security.

A politician being honest doesn't mean the policy consequences will be good.

You mentioned honesty.
"Even if you know all of the issues, that doesn't mean you'd know which is better because there are still many unknowns, like what the exact consequences of these policies are (we can only guess), and whether the candidate is even honest about what he or she is going to do."

It also doesn't mean the politician will get anything done.

People often say things like, "Bernie has these very progressive ideas, but it's unlikely he'll actually get anything through the Congress", and they say that he hasn't gotten a lot of bills passed in the Senate.

Recently, Cenk Uygur (I know you're not a fan, but it's not relevant that Cenk was the interviewer) interviewed a former republican Senator named Bob Ney (who is still republican), who said this about Bernie Sanders:
"He's amazing. He would come into our office, he would come down the hallway or office [with] a big thing under his arm you're going 'Oh Bernie's read everything again'. Brooklyn story- he came into my office, he had an amazing idea for costs of living increase to help seniors instead of the ridiculous way we do it, and he went all through it, I said, ''Bernie that's amazing, I'm on the bill'. He said, 'No no no, this isn't about pride of authorship (I remember his words), I want to pass this, you take the bill'. That's Bernie Sanders. The Bernie Sanders I knew for eleven years, the Bernie Sanders Larry Sanders his brother knows, and the Bernie Sanders you see here today, he's the real deal. Philosophically, do I agree with a lot of the things Bernie Sanders... some I do, some I don't. I did press conferences of trade bills with him, I love his trade positions, 'cause trade bills are ruining American workers' lives, but beyond that, even if I didn't agree with him, working with the guy was amazing. He got more done than he's been given credit for. He wasn't like the said 'pride of authorship' guy. He was honest, you knew what he said is what you could take to the bank. I can't say enough about the personal integrity and the zest and the tenacity for working people that Bernie Sanders had and has and will have."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C08mO4BxRBs

That's fine, but that's in the past so it doesn't matter.

What?
The Iraq War was in the past, so I guess that doesn't matter in terms of Hillary Clinton's judgement. o_O

Politicians change their minds all of the time. Hillary is supportive now, which is what I care about. I interpret a change in belief from wrong to right as mature and open minded. That's why I said I'd have supported Sanders if he corrected just one of those things he was wrong on (nuclear power or GMOs) because it would be proof he can change his mind for the better.

Consistency and integrity matter.

Obama apparently actually always supported gay rights, but he said he was against them because he didn't think it would be safe politically. It's probably the same with Hillary Clinton. Is that something that reflects trustworthiness and integrity/honesty in a person?

I don't want somebody with "integrity" A.K.A. a bad stubborn politician who can't get anything done because he's an ideologue, and is absolutely uncompromising (in good AND bad ways both) and will never change his views on anything no matter how much evidence.

There's a difference between integrity and stubbornness. Bernie has changed his mind before, he just has a blind spot on nuclear energy.

Not something I care about.

I'm focused on the issues I know and fully understand. I'm like that one issue voter, except it's like a half-dozen issues. I don't factor in other things I don't know well.

You don't care that Trump perpetuates ridiculous conspiracy theories and slanders people as rapists for political gain?

DOMA was an anti-gay bill.
Why don't you just learn about things you don't know as well so you can vote in a more informed way?

Yes. I would probably not have supported either.

For now, my support is Hillary's to lose. As long as she doesn't do anything stupid, and Trump's side doesn't do anything brilliant, it's probably a settled matter for me.

Wow.

That isn't the situation anyway, but do you really think that Trump is so barely better than Clinton that having Bernie as the nominee would be so risky you wouldn't support either side?
What do you see as something redeeming about him?

[brimstoneSalad]

You could say, "If you're voting on a single issue you are correct on, it's typically just as likely the politician you're voting for's other policies will be good or bad, so that would make voting for the politician otherwise neutral, and adding the positive of the correct issue would make it a good decision on average."

Basically, yes.

I don't think so, though.

It's perfectly sound reasoning. That's like disagreeing that 2 + 2 = 4

Ted Cruz was right on the Export-Import bank. If I only voted based on that, I would vote for Ted Cruz over Hillary Clinton.

That doesn't disprove the point. If you pick an issue at random, Hillary is more likely to be right than Cruz. So, statistically, she will win more contests.

It's too risky because of the potentially disastrous consequences.

You aren't the only one voting. Many people are voting, based on many different issues. Combining all of those votes averages things out.

Try it yourself if you don't believe me. Write issues on pieces of paper, and who wins each one. Then put them all in a hat and shake it up.

Randomly draw one issue, and mark a vote on a tally sheet for that candidate. Put it back in the hat, shake it, and do it again.
Do this ten times. The best candidate will probably win with ten random votes (this is still a little dangerous, because you could get unlucky).
Now do it 224,963,000 times. The statistical chances of the wrong candidate winning with this heuristic are astronomically small.

Most people aren't experts anyway, so that's not good advice in practice.

It only counts if you actually know the issue you're voting on, and you aren't wrong on that issue. Being wrong about an issue is the worst thing.

This is all the more reason you should vote, even if it's just on one issue. The worst thing you can do is not vote on that issue if you know you're right about that issue.

Letting the vast majority of morons' votes count for more than they should by abstaining is the last thing the world needs.

Most people also aren't single issue voters, so adding single issue voters into a mix of informed voters would make our President elected with a diluted concentration of rationality/information.

No, it wouldn't, because the quality of the majority of votes is so profoundly bad, the only way to make it worse it to single issue vote on an issue you know you're wrong about. Even flipping a coin if you don't know is probably a more reasonable way to vote than not voting at all.

Adding in high quality random single issue votes can only improve the overall quality and accuracy of an election. With a large enough number of them, they are zero risk and 100% accurate given the interest and knowledge of the issues is proportional to their importance (which it often will be).

[Red]

You seemed to be saying, "brimstone knows a lot about nuclear energy, so I trust that he's right about it and its significance, which is why I think Bernie would be bad".

Did I say he?
I've read brim's posts on the thread I mentioned, and they all seem to make sense to me. So I don't think it's as subjective as you presume.

Would you not fact check it? Maybe.

Why, what makes you say that?

Why didn't you say that before?

Jesus christ, are you serious??

You just repeated what you said. My point is that you can't make that call because you don't know enough about politics.

Except for these two issues I'm pretty sure brimstone addressed this.

[EquALLity]

Did I say he?

?

I've read brim's posts on the thread I mentioned, and they all seem to make sense to me. So I don't think it's as subjective as you presume

So you didn't fact check?

Why, what makes you say that?

Because you seemed to be just taking brimstone's word on things.

Jesus christ, are you serious??

? Maybe you didn't know how to spell it.

Except for these two issues I'm pretty sure brimstone addressed this.

Not sure what the bold means. Why don't you address it?

[PsYcHo]

(PsYcHo grabs popcorn, sits back and watches....)

[Red]

?

You'll figure it out.

So you didn't fact check?

I guess my statement failed to imply that I did fact check.

Because you seemed to be just taking brimstone's word on things.

Since when?

? Maybe you didn't know how to spell it.

You are aware that all computers nowadays have a certain mechanic that points out errors in spelling?

Not sure what the bold means. Why don't you address it?

The bold was an error on my part. Anyways, address what?

[brimstoneSalad]

It's not a red herring though; he's asking a country America doesn't have a positive relationship with to hack classified emails with potentially very relevant secrets to benefit himself politically. Someone who does something like that shouldn't be in the White House. He clearly doesn't value national security.

I don't think that's evidence of not valuing national security at all. It's evidence of using any tool at his disposal to win, if true. It means, for example, he might also ally with Russia to defeat Islamic extremism (another enemy).

That said, I interpreted what he said as a joke, and didn't take it seriously. You can interpret it however you want.

The U.S. actually does have a fairly decent relationship with Russia, though. Trump is exaggerating yet again when he calls them a 'foe' or whatever he said; that's politically very harmful.

A politician being honest doesn't mean the policy consequences will be good.

You mentioned honesty.
"Even if you know all of the issues, that doesn't mean you'd know which is better because there are still many unknowns, like what the exact consequences of these policies are (we can only guess), and whether the candidate is even honest about what he or she is going to do."

It just means you know what they say is more likely what they'll do. At least if they have track records. That doesn't mean anything about policy being good or bad.

If the policy is good, but the politician is dishonest, you might question whether the policy will be implemented (or whether the politician will even try, instead of switching to a bad policy). So, if the policy is good and the politician is honest, that's more reliable and a safer bet.

If the policy is bad and the politician is dishonest, that's only a benefit; maybe the politician is lying to get elected, and will actually change the policy to a better one. That's kind of where Trump is. At least we have a chance of him changing. If the policy is bad and the politician is honest about what he or she will do, then that's basically the worst case scenario possible. That's kind of the situation we find with Sanders (although I don't think he's that honest, as we discussed before).

Recently, Cenk Uygur (I know you're not a fan, but it's not relevant that Cenk was the interviewer) interviewed a former republican Senator named Bob Ney (who is still republican), who said this about Bernie Sanders:

If all of that's true, that would be another data point to consider, but we'd need hard numbers, not the occasional anecdote.

That's fine, but that's in the past so it doesn't matter.

What?
The Iraq War was in the past, so I guess that doesn't matter in terms of Hillary Clinton's judgement. o_O

It may suggest she's less anti-war than Sanders. We already knew that based on what the two have said, and their clearly articulated policies.

Obama apparently actually always supported gay rights, but he said he was against them because he didn't think it would be safe politically. It's probably the same with Hillary Clinton. Is that something that reflects trustworthiness and integrity/honesty in a person?

If that's true (in which you are kind of assigning secret motivations to Clinton) they did what they said they'd do, and they voted how they said they'd vote for their constituents. They didn't say one thing and then do something completely different, which is what you look for in a political track record. Their personal views are actually pretty irrelevant.

If Bernie was personally opposed to GMOs and didn't eat them, but wouldn't advance legislation for labeling them and promised not to interfere with the progress of GM technology, I would have no problem with him on that.
If he was personally afraid of nuclear power and wouldn't live near a plant, and personally thought solar was the answer and that nuclear was dangerous, but promised to support old plants and the building of new ones because that's what scientists advise even though he disagrees with it, I would have no problem with him on that. That would actually be very respectable; overcoming a personal bias due to scientific recommendations on policy.

He's an ideologue, and he votes with his feelings: that's what I have a problem with, because his feelings are not and never will be expert opinion, and he's hard pressed to ever be swayed on these points.

There's a difference between integrity and stubbornness. Bernie has changed his mind before, he just has a blind spot on nuclear energy.

I'd like to see it.
In order to qualify, he would have to change his mind NOT based on new information that was just discovered, but on reevaluation of old information he ignored or dismissed in the past (all of the relevant information on nuclear is available now).
He would also have to change his opinion from something that was wrong to something that was right, and not the other way around.

If you could show one, but preferably several, examples of that behavior, my opinion of his character would change significantly.

You don't care that Trump perpetuates ridiculous conspiracy theories and slanders people as rapists for political gain?

Of course I would care about that, see this thread where I criticised the same behavior of slandering people (Trump) as a rapist for political rhetoric:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2308

Trump is an asshole. I just don't think that my personal dislike of him outweighs the differences in policy.
Sanders advocates ridiculous conspiracy theories too: the difference being I think he actually believes them, and they overtly influence policy (like his anti-GMO and anti-nuclear stuff).

DOMA was an anti-gay bill.

I know. Hillary changed her mind on that, which speaks in her favor. I don't count her past as a strike against her any more than I count having eaten meat in the past as a strike against a vegan.

She doesn't advocate that now, and there's no reason to believe she ever will again. It's a done deal. I'm not going to second guess her motivations and accuse her of something nefarious.

Why don't you just learn about things you don't know as well so you can vote in a more informed way?

Opportunity cost. The more time I spend learning about politics, the less time I can spend on vegan outreach. I find the former less important.

But you may have forgotten, that's exactly what I said I'd do when it came time for the general. I said I wasn't going to spend a lot of time learning about potential candidates in the primaries who may not even be running.
Sanders is kind of moot now.

I would only need to study the differences between Hillary and Trump now, and their running mates. The differences are already overwhelming to me, and have satisfied me beyond a reasonable doubt that Hillary is the better candidate.

That isn't the situation anyway, but do you really think that Trump is so barely better than Clinton that having Bernie as the nominee would be so risky you wouldn't support either side?

No, I just think Sanders is that bad. I wouldn't want to risk him being president.
I think Trump is less dangerous. Remember, I said "probably". This assumes an alternate reality in which I do more research on Sanders, which is now unnecessary because he's not the candidate.

It's irrelevant now.

[EquALLity]

Since when?

Wasn't your point that you were against Bernie Sanders because of what brimstone was saying about Bernie and nuclear energy?

You are aware that all computers nowadays have a certain mechanic that points out errors in spelling?

I don't know, maybe you didn't care to take note or something. You didn't point out that it was a joke before.

Anyway, it doesn't matter anymore.

[EquALLity]

It's perfectly sound reasoning. That's like disagreeing that 2 + 2 = 4

It's not that I disagreed with the reasoning itself, I just didn't think it took into the situation the full context.

That doesn't disprove the point. If you pick an issue at random, Hillary is more likely to be right than Cruz. So, statistically, she will win more contests.

I knew that, but I thought the risk of him winning is so extremely bad that it outweighed that.

You aren't the only one voting. Many people are voting, based on many different issues. Combining all of those votes averages things out.

Try it yourself if you don't believe me. Write issues on pieces of paper, and who wins each one. Then put them all in a hat and shake it up.

Randomly draw one issue, and mark a vote on a tally sheet for that candidate. Put it back in the hat, shake it, and do it again.
Do this ten times. The best candidate will probably win with ten random votes (this is still a little dangerous, because you could get unlucky).
Now do it 224,963,000 times. The statistical chances of the wrong candidate winning with this heuristic are astronomically small.

Well, it's not just about number of issues a candidate is correct on; it's also about the significance of those issues, which this strategy doesn't really take into account. However, in the case of democrats vs republicans, democrats are both right on more issues and more right on the most important issues, so in practice I guess that doesn't really matter.

Good point, though. If everyone votes on a single issue, and is correct on that issue, Hillary Clinton will have to win, because she's right on most issues compared to Cruz.
I'm not sure why there'd even be a chance that he'd win. I guess it's because a significant portion of the population could prioritize the wrong issue, so technically he could win, but the chance would be pretty small, so it'd still end up working in her favor.