Balsa FAQ

[Zvi]

Link post

The Balsa FAQ can be found here.

This is a link post rather than a copy so that the FAQ can be reliably and easily updated in the future.

[ChristianKl]

What it is definitely not too late for, in terms of 2024, is technology and other ways one can directly assist campaigns.

Together with speaking about the importance of preventing Trump, this sounds to me like there’s a danger of using the technology in a partisan way.

“We build technology to help Trump lose in 2024” seems to me a very different agenda than “we try to repeal the Jones Act and reform NEPA in a nonpartisan way”.

Edit:

Eg. in 2020, the pro-choice group NARAL began supporting “defund the police”. NARAL’s core message was popular, but it eventually became clear that “defund” was politically toxic and caused widespread blowback. Our goal is to forecast such outcomes, not just before the next election cycle, but before an idea has left the drawing board.

I doubt that this is a technology problem. People experienced in political messaging likely didn’t need technology to know that this would be politically toxic.

Dominic Cummings wrote about how hard it is to get a political campaign, that he actually, leads to focus on the messaging that’s most effective.

[M. Y. Zuo]

Upvoted for agreement.

This combination when applied to partisan goals would appear highly discrediting to a substantial chunk of the electorate.

[joseph_c]

Also by buying off or convincing those who think they have concentrated benefits that they are wrong and should stand down, as even they get more benefit from ending the diffuse costs.

This really doesn’t seem like a good way to get politics done. Is this even legal? And if it is, do you really think it makes the government better to have people effectively bribing politicians?

[jaspax]

Those benefitting are usually not politicians, they’re commercial interests who make money from the status quo. They will oppose efforts that cause them to lose money even if the change is a net good overall, but you can quiet them down by giving them a bunch of money. Typically doing so is still a net good, because the cost of buying off the opposition is (usually) less than the value gained by the rest of society.

Perhaps the verb “buy off” is not the best one here, but I’m not sure what else you’d use. If you’re morally offended by the idea of offering payments to lessen the sting for people who suffer a concrete downside from your policies then, uh, don’t go into politics I guess.

[ryan_b]

This sentence refers to interest groups, not to politicians or officials. It refers to unions, who want bargaining power, and union members, who want stable jobs and good pay. Or to businesses with a captive market, like American shipbuilders and dredge operators.

These groups think they are getting a payoff from status quo, and it is one they want to keep. The solution is therefore to match the payoff under the new proposal, or persuade them (of the truth that) they are not actually getting the payoff they think.