[jMyles]

This absurdly reductionist view of participatory politics comes up again and again. What are you trying to add to the conversation? Do you think that this notion is new? Or that the rest of us haven't considered it?

Instead of a pithy but pointless HN comment, let me suggest a book for you that might expand your thinking on this topic:

http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/do-elections-matter/1470236/?gc...

[dave_sullivan]

> absurdly reductionist view

> Do you think that this notion is new? Or that the rest of us haven't considered it?

> a pithy but pointless HN comment

> might expand your thinking on this topic

Just throwing it out there: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

It would be more helpful if you expanded on why it's a bad argument. Off the top of my head:

> They don't want it, as evidenced by their not voting for it, so they won't get it

Was there a vote on it? When exactly?

Here's a book about how election results can change people's opinions on topics. It applies here because X. I used to think Y, but it changed my thinking to Z. I'd highly recommend it.

Not that GP is any better, but hey... And to be fair, the guy is practically trolling, whether intentional or not.

[wfo]

You're right of course disagreement should be explained better.

But he is responding to a one-line meme whose only purpose is to establish learned helplessness and end discussion that massively oversimplifies a very complex issue and is essentially copy pasted in any article here that even touches on politics. It gets quite exhausting engaging, having long in depth discussion about how this view is overly simplistic on every single thread only to have it appear again tomorrow, exactly the same as before.

I think downvotes and silence is the correct move here.

[jMyles]

You're right. I got a bit impatient there. This argument seems to come up again and again and no amount of reason and explanation seems to be able to overcome it, even to the point of convincing its adherents to read what others have said about it.

This notion ("the people get exactly what they vote for") goes back to Ancient Greece; it's not like its a novel topic.