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Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by shimman on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:14PM (#46981080)
Everyone should hate people that believe in undemocratic principles.
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:40PM (#46981479)
Hot take: what has democracy done for us lately? Besides re-electing Donald Trump?

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?

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by amarcheschi on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:45PM (#46981557)
Ask yourself which class can gain something by having trump as president rather than any other democrat

(it's not the working class)

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:12PM (#46981930)
Exactly. So why'd the "working class" vote for him?
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by amarcheschi on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:22PM (#46982067)
Because the ones owning social medias, newspapers (and whatnot) pushed heavily for it
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:26PM (#46982116)
And why did they give up their agency to these shadowy media oligarchs...?

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.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:55PM (#46983967)
>why did they give up their agency to these shadowy media oligarchs

decades tearing down education is paying its dues. Once again, from the people who are making you feel like democracy isn't working.

>I'm tired of giving stupid people so much power over my life.

If power is money, boomers still have a lot of power. And they leveraged politics their whole lives to benefit them (even if destruction of the younger generation is a side effect)

If power is votes, then millenials should be the bloc in charge now... but we still had worse turnout than boomers. That really says something.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @10:41PM (#46984651)
I disagree that education had any meaningful part to play. It's true that less-educated people were more inclined to vote for Trump, but it's also true that we got all the "education" about Trump between 2016 and 2020 that anyone should have needed.

You can fix ignorance with education, but you can't fix stupidity.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Thursday February 12, 2026 @12:04AM (#46985076)
>we got all the "education" about Trump between 2016 and 2020 that anyone should have needed.

Well the "real" cause is economy. Trump had a strong economy in term 1 until COVID. If you weren't affected by the China trade war (and many in the red states arent), you could ignore the day to day politics and think "yeah Trump is great!"

But "economy" is too generic, and I feel that phenomenon is more attributed to "ignorance".And the comfortability to remain ignorant and fall for the spin telling you "things are good". That all feels to stem from education.

Is ignorance stupidity? Sometimes. They go hand in hand.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Thursday February 12, 2026 @12:01PM (#46991350)
If you weren't affected by the China trade war

Thinking that you won't be affected by a trade war with China, or that you will somehow come out ahead in the bargain, is as good a symptom of stupidity as any.

Either the tariffs were going to be an act of economic suicide, if implemented as originally promised by Trump, or they were going to be yet another shameless grift, designed to bring industry leaders to his door bowing and scraping and bearing gifts. Regardless, the people who voted for him won't get what they were promised, and the rest of us will be stuck with the long-term costs.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:51PM (#46983932)
>what has democracy done for us lately? Besides re-electing Donald Trump?

You have the order backwards. This is their exact strategy; spend decades breaking government then have the breakers say "see? government is broken!". Lack of functioning democracy got us Donald Trump.

Why do you think this year they are so gung ho on trying to disenfranchise voters for a midterm? Because they know they are cooked if democracy starts to work again. If nothing else, Mamdami's 6 weeks show exactly how a "government that works for its people" can work. Let's keep pushing for that.