[triplewipeass]

The folks who have signed this open letter don't represent average New Yorkers. I live in New York, yet no one ever asked me how I felt about this Amazon thing.

This should have been put to a popular referendum. Present the people with three options:

1. Invite Amazon to NYC for free. 2. Invite Amazon to NYC with subsidies. 3. Do nothing.

My gut tells me most people would have voted (1) as an affirmation that Amazon is ultimately free to come to NYC or not, with or without the subsidies.

[ballenf]

Yes they did. That's what elections are. You voted for representatives who you believed would exercise similar value judgments as your own to all the thousands of complicated situations and decisions that the government faces. Referendums have their place, but imo, this is a terrible situation to have one.

A resolution asking "should tax breaks be part of the incentive options allowed to be given to?" would be ok. But I think the resounding "no" that vote would get is why it won't happen.

[gist]

Exactly. And this idea that everyone should get a vote on every issues also assumes that people casting a vote are smart enough and will take the time to fully consider all possible nuances to 'vote' in the right way. Not to mention the fact that people are not all the same and/or stand to gain or lose in the same way. Someone in the neighborhood is quite different than Fred Wilson living in a $35m condo in NYC (and yes he does by the way..)

The election process along the same lines is certainly less than perfect. But is is way better than having referendums and letting people decide all issues by popular vote.

[zelon88]

So how is it a choice then? If whoever you vote for is going to go against the people because of "complex political reasons" how is voting a choice? How is it putting your $0.02 in? If he voted for a different representative they probably would have also voted against his wishes.

Because they're all bought and paid for by lobbyists.

[live4everjones]

I voted for the CEO of Warby Parker?

[chimeracoder]

> Yes they did. That's what elections are. You voted for representatives who you believed would exercise similar value judgments as your own to all the thousands of complicated situations and decisions that the government faces.

You're assuming New York has democratic elections, which is a reasonable assumption if you don't live in New York, but is unfortunately very incorrect.

New York government is not a democracy; the ruling parties have constructed a series of arcane, layered laws which allow the parties to essentially appoint people to nominally-elected positions, which bypasses the entire spirit of democracy[0]. The parties are controlled by local private clubs, which have hefty membership fees (my local club starts at $1000/year, which I could technically afford if I wanted to, but many of my neighbors could not).

Unlike most states, we don't have the right to have direct ballot initiatives. We don't even have the right to vote against unopposed candidates if we don't like them - if a candidate runs unopposed in a primary[1], the primary is cancelled altogether. So, for example, Kirsten Gillibrand literally did not have a primary election in 2018 - she won the nomination with a total of zero votes.

[0] as just one example, just the tip of the iceberg: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/nyregion/new-york-politic...

[1] and remember, the party gets to approve whether a candidate receives a primary challenge in most state races

[MockObject]

> and remember, the party gets to approve whether a candidate receives a primary challenge in most state races

This makes sense. Primaries are internal party business. It's totally up to them to decide how they select their candidates.

The general elections are where the citizens get their say.

[chimeracoder]

> This makes sense. Primaries are internal party business. It's totally up to them to decide how they select their candidates.

New York is the only state which conducts primaries this way.

> The general elections are where the citizens get their say.

No, because general elections are uncontested (due to gentleman's agreements between the two parties not to run candidates in each others' districts, and laws making it infeasible for third parties to do anything but cross-endorse the major parties).

[dragonwriter]

> New York is the only state which conducts primaries this way.

That argumentum ad populum does not invalidate the offered justification.

[chimeracoder]

> That argumentum ad populum does not invalidate the offered justification.

That "offered justification" doesn't refute the original point, which is that exists solely as away to have an elite minority subvert or disregard the will of the people.

The irony in pejoratively using the term argumentum ad populum in a thread that is literally about popular vote is not lost on me.

[denzil_correa]

> 1. Invite Amazon to NYC for free. 2. Invite Amazon to NYC with subsidies. 3. Do nothing.

The options you list mentions no implications and therefore, you'd get responses where each individual will vote for what they think the implications are. This might lead to people voting for misleading options(for example, Brexit). One way to incorporate that is to ask for people's feedback on the implications. In such a model, you do not ask the final question but post the down the sets of implications posed as a question. For ex, Q1 : On a scale of 1-5, what do you think about XYZ? etc. The city council can have a discussion about these questions before heading to vote. You then give these questions to the people and solicit answers. Once you get the answers, you compile it and discuss how these answers could be addressed.

It's a cardinal sin to reduce complex multi-objective optimization into a simple Yes or No question based on popular vote.

[Symmetry]

The opinion polling I've seen says that something like 80% of New Yorkers wanted Amazon to come. But it isn't uncommon in political issues for passion to make up for numbers. Most of the supporters seem tepid and those opposed seem like they really might be willing to change who they vote for to keep Amazon away. So it's not surprising that politicians would bow to the pressure.

[jinushaun]

People are conflating anger at the whole HQ2 search process with New Yorkers wanting Amazon in their city.

Most want Amazon in NYC, but (locally and nationally) most are also angry at how the HQ2 shit show went down. Amazon was never going to open an HQ2 in the Midwest or the South. No, Northern Virginia is not the South. The tax breaks are a red herring.

[stunt]

Well you never know that! Sometimes politicians create the pressure themselves for the sake of their own interests.

[pow_pp_-1_v]

Well that's not how representative democracy works. You voted-in your representatives. Now they will make the decisions for you. If you don't like their decisions, vote them out the next time.

[chimeracoder]

> Well that's not how representative democracy works. You voted-in your representatives.

We didn't, because under New York state law, if the party doesn't approve a challenger (which they rarely do), the election is literally cancelled.

[badfrog]

> This should have been put to a popular referendum

Popular votes got us Brexit and Prop 8. I'd much rather issues like this be worked through by experts than by my peers.

[lbacaj]

One is not option though right? That one is and has always been on the table is my understanding.

The options are two and three and I also live in NYC and I would have voted for 2. It makes no sense what’s happened with this thing, while Amazon has some fault by making a spectacle of all this, NY politicians believing they are “saving” us deserve the bulk of the blame.

[triplewipeass]

(1) is a great option to have on this type of ballot because it'll signal that NYers really do want Amazon to do business here. If most people voted to "do nothing", that'd be a strong signal that they just don't care about Amazon.

[vonmoltke]

> 1. Invite Amazon to NYC for free.

Would that option include canceling the city and state programs Amazon was going to take advantage of?

[martinraag]

I'm incredulous about the average person having enough knowledge about the possible pros and cons of these choices. Nor should they - that's what representative democracy is for. A popular referendum for a complex issue like this, is in my opinion, a very bad idea.

[stunt]

Yes! Brexit is the best example for it. Not judging about It, but clearly non off the politicians that proposed Brexit did a basic research or investigation for such a huge change and about how it should work and what is the impact. Which means they had a different goal.

You should make sure you have the right people in the system to make the right decisions.

Manipulating majority is not hard. And wrong politicians even from outside the system will do it just for the sake of taking power and their own interests.

[repolfx]

That's not the case. Many of the politicians who campaigned for Brexit have a very deep understanding and had been campaigning for it for large parts of their adult lives.

Indeed, so far their predictions appear to have been more accurate than those of the so-called "experts". For instance "experts" claimed voting to leave would destroy 500,000 to 800,000 jobs. The Brexit campaigners said it wouldn't. The experts were wrong.

Be very wary of assuming that:

a) The people claiming to be experts on a topic are experts

b) Experts on a particular topic exist at all

c) Experts will make better decisions than the people in aggregate

There are all sorts of reasons to doubt all three of these propositions.

[donretag]

I had two issues with the Amazon deal: 1) LIC (including transportation) cannot support 10K+ workers 2) The deal was done in secret

You need to invest money to make money. I have almost no issues with the subsidies and I have voted Libertarian since the 2004 election. I viewed the deal as NYC partnering with Amazon. No amount of small business can bring what Amazon would have brought. None.

Back to your point, I did not like the fact that everything was hidden until the end, but I also disagree with the referendum. Look at Brexit. A bunch of people simply did not understand the issue. Look at the fools that blindly follow AOC. Same thing.

[temuze]

Do you want a referendum for each business that wants to move in New York?

[credit_guy]

> 1. Invite Amazon to NYC for free. 2. Invite Amazon to NYC with subsidies. 3. Do nothing.

How is 1 different from 3? You buy a nice card from Papyrus and write an invitation with calligraphic letters?

[aqme28]

Aren't 1) and 3) the same?

Google has offices here but didn't need a formal invitation to do so.

[m0zg]

Option #1 wasn't really on the table given all the other cities in the running.