US politics 

"What Went Wrong In The 2024 Election?" by Ryan Beard youtube.com/watch?v=KPTQWEoKz_

As Beard says, it's not the most significant factor in Trump's victory, but it's honestly refreshing to hear the left-wing infighting being called out by someone to my left. I'm reminded of Freddie deBoer's criticism of a certain section of social-justice advocates who believe they are "exempt from politics" ( freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/s ); Beard's criticism of certain online leftists seems similar.

COS's California Ballot: collectedoverspread.tumblr.com

Rather late post where I talk about how I voted for ballot measures in California this past election.

COS’s California Ballot (2024)

I spend a lot of time talking about abstract ideas and online rhetoric (what Scott Alexander calls the “sphinx”) rather than actual politics. I think this is because my usual line of thinking is “things are complicated” (or, more pointedly, “things are more complicated than you’re making them out to be”), but I recognize that this mainly comes down to a failure to remain politically informed. Inspired by the California ballot posts on Astral Codex Ten, I’ll talk about actual politics for once. During elections, I spend most of my time researching ballot measures, so those are what I’ll discuss here. I know these posts generally come out before Election Day, but my intent is less about advocacy and more about just expressing my opinions. The main way I evaluate ballot measures is by reading endorsements from different sources and considering if the arguments are compelling to me. My sources include major news publications (reference pages are available from UC Berkeley and California Choices [see also endorsements for county measures]); for local issues I pay particular attention to endorsements from the Los Angeles Times (more left-leaning) and the Southern California News Group (the shared editorial board for the Orange County Register, Los Angeles Daily News, and other newspapers; more right-leaning). I also refer to Pete Rates the Propositions by Pete Stahl, and this year I’ve also looked at the local voting guides posted on Astral Codex Ten. Summary of my political views: Broadly speaking, I’m some flavor of “liberal” within the American political context. Economically, I have ideals which could be considered social-democratic in some sense, favoring welfare programs and public ownership of certain services while leaning toward solutions that preserve free markets. Socially, I value individual freedom and pluralism, and I tend to focus on diversity at the individual level. State Ballot Measures Proposition 2: Abstain I’ll be honest, I don’t like evaluating bond measures. Proposition 3: Yes I think of this as basically a housekeeping measure to remove outdated language from the state constitution, which was added with Proposition 8 in 2008. A more substantial argument for the measure is that overturning Obergefell v. Hodges (which some people are worried about after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) could “reactivate” this provision and thus ban same-sex marriage again. But my understanding is that there was litigation on Proposition 8 before Obergefell, so I’m not entirely sure if that will happen here in California. Still, it seems like a situation to avoid. One argument against the measure that stands out to me is that it would “remove protections against child marriages, incest, and polygamy” (quoting from the argument in the voter information guide). This feels somewhat similar to the argument against Proposition 1 back in 2022 that Scott Alexander highlighted. My response is that it’s generally understood that rights have limitations and I don’t expect a constitution to codify every one. (This does mean that the exact nature of those limits can be contentious; the First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution come to mind.) In that same post, Alexander said he leaned towards not putting more things into the state constitution unless there’s a compelling reason, which I believe is part of why he opposed Proposition 1. I can sympathize with that, but I think removing the previous language is compelling enough here. (Side note: I learned that Oakland and Berkeley passed ordinances prohibiting discrimination against polyamorous people earlier this year, ironically thanks to the California Family Council, one of the signatories to the argument against Proposition 3. Here’s the thing: I think protections against discrimination here are a good thing, but I’ve never really been in favor of polygamous civil marriage, at least not within the current system which of course assumes that people are only married to one partner at a time. However, as I read more about this topic I learned about the domestic partnership ordinances in Somerville and Cambridge in Massachusetts, which create a system of domestic partnerships separate from civil marriage. I think these could serve as a model for legal recognition of non-monogamous partnerships.) Proposition 4: Abstain Refer to Proposition 2. Proposition 5: Yes A lot of the support seems to take the form of “seems sensible enough,” and I guess that’s where I stand as well. Some sources note the deal that the California Association of Realtors struck with lawmakers to prohibit using money from local bonds to purchase low-density housing (specifically any housing with up to four units) and convert it into more affordable housing. The San Francisco Chronicle opposes the measure for this reason despite supporting the measure’s overall aims. But from what I can tell, this prohibition is normal legislation separate from the measure, so it wouldn’t be codified in the state constitution, which to me makes it less of a reason to oppose the measure. Proposition 6: Yes I admit I went back and forth between voting yes and abstaining. I don’t place forced labor as punishment for a crime in the same moral category as the slavery people usually think of, or human trafficking which is considered part of what some call “modern slavery.” I went back and forth between abstaining and voting yes, and ultimately I figured this is a matter of improving prison conditions, which I generally support. Proposition 32: No I’m not really sure California needs to raise its minimum wage further, and I’ll echo Los Angeles Rationality here: “Many…wished there was some canonical economic model they could follow that would tell them the optimal amount of minimum wage.” The state has already done the sensible thing of tying minimum wage to inflation, so I’m less inclined to believe this measure is necessary. Overall, I have mixed feelings about minimum wage. I’m reminded of something Scott Alexander said in his 2020 California ballot post, as part of his argument against Proposition 22: “The solution [to the increased difficulty of finding employment] is for the government to fund its own damn social services and stop hanging more and more things on the employer-employee relationship.” Health insurance in particular has gotten some attention, but I think minimum wage is another thing to look at. In my ideal world, minimum wage would be replaced by a UBI or similar grant, but I realize that I don’t know how well this would work in practice and also that proposing this is a great way to piss everyone off. Proposition 33: No California YIMBY opposes this measure, arguing that rent control in general can make it difficult to build more housing and that this measure would allow NIMBYs to use rent control in bad faith to block new housing. California’s existing allowances for rent control seem okay enough. Proposition 34: No Almost everyone seems to agree that this is meant to target the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and I’m putting this in the same category as those measures to regulate dialysis clinics in recent years (Proposition 29 in 2022, Proposition 23 in 2020, and Proposition 8 in 2018). On the substance of the measure, it imposes new requirements on healthcare providers that meet a very particular set of criteria, and it’s pretty obvious that this is meant to apply only to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and pretty much no one else. I don’t see a good reason for such narrow applicability, so it seems like bad policy even without the squabbling aspect. Los Angeles Rationality seems to think that punishing NIMBYs is a good reason to support this measure, but I think it’s a pretty weak justification. I do agree with this, though: “It would be funny if this passed.” Proposition 35: No Pete Stahl provides a fairly accessible summary of how this measure came to be, although he calls it “insanely complicated.” Both the Los Angeles Times and the Southern California News Group oppose the measure, calling it “ballot-box budgeting” and arguing that it should be the legislature’s job, not voters’, to figure out this rather esoteric aspect of healthcare policy. I honestly don’t have the patience to research the policy itself, and I agree with the broader point that this isn’t voters’ responsibility. Proposition 36: No I’m not convinced that the reforms proposed in this measure will be effective, and both the Los Angeles Times and the Southern California News Group oppose it. Also, Pete Stahl notes that new laws have already been passed that address some of what this measure seeks to change. I will admit that I haven’t researched the proposed reforms all that deeply, so this is a weak position. I will note there’s some lively debate about this measure in the comments of this guest post on Astral Codex Ten, although I already started filling out my ballot before I read the post and I haven’t been convinced to change my vote. Los Angeles County Ballot Measures I’m only going to discuss countywide measures for privacy reasons. I’m fine with people knowing what county I live in, but I don’t want the particular mix of other local measures on my ballot to give away a more precise location. Measure A: Abstain Los Angeles Rationality endorses this measure, citing some reporting by LAist that suggests the existing programs are working but could use more funding. Maybe. I’ll admit this is an area I haven’t researched very well so I don’t know how compelling the argument is. This measure got me thinking about the sales-tax rate in the county. Where does all the money go? The current countywide rate is 9.5%. (Some cities impose their own sales taxes, so in some places the rate is higher.) This report from 2003 is an excellent starting point, and from there it’s a matter of tracking additional sales-tax measures that have appeared on the ballot. To start, the state sales tax rate is 6%. Counties impose an additional 1.25% sales tax, with 1% for general use and 0.25% for a special transportation fund. On top of that, counties and cities can impose additional sales taxes with voter approval. In the case of Los Angeles County, a total of 2% has been added for public transit (this was done across four different ballot measures each adding 0.5%: Proposition A in 1980, Proposition C in 1990, Measure R in 2008, and Measure M in 2016). Finally, there’s the 0.25% sales tax to address homelessness (which was added in 2017 with Measure H). Measure A seeks to increase that last portion to 0.5%, which means the overall countywide sales tax rate would increase to 9.75%. Measure G: Yes Expanding the board of supervisors seems to be the least controversial part of this measure, and the bigger point of contention is making the county executive an elected position. However, some argue that the board expansion is badly needed and outweighs other concerns: The Los Angeles Times says that reforms of county government are rare; Knock LA criticizes the other offices that the measure would create but argues that this will be voters’ only chance in a while to reform the government. Speaking of those other offices, I do wonder how they will function in practice, especially given the cost constraint.

Collected Over Spread

I have been making a conscious effort to Post About Politics less post-Twitter. I no longer feel convinced blasting fancy words to people who don't care, already agree with me, already voted, or are German citizens, is helpful.

But this election is making me feel torn apart (if Harris loses, it may no longer be safe for me to move back to the USA) so if you feel personally open to listening to someone's pitch on the election, here are some spoiler-tagged tiny arguments for the night before:

The Vanishing Culture report arrives today at a critical moment: While Internet Archive recovers from a cyberattack, it’s a reminder of how fragile our access to knowledge can be. Preserving culture & history requires resilience—and collective action.

🔗 blog.archive.org/2024/10/30/va

The Internet Archive was breached again, this time on their Zendesk email support platform after repeated warnings that threat actors stole exposed GitLab authentication tokens.

bleepingcomputer.com/news/secu

The usefulness of blocks after this change will depend on how you use the block function and to what ends.

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Is it just me or are some people misunderstanding the upcoming changes to 's block function? There's certainly legitimate criticism to be made, but I think it's important to recognize what is actually changing and what isn't.

Currently, if you block someone, that means:

1. You can't see their posts
2. You can't interact with their posts
3. They can't see your posts
4. They can't interact with your posts

Only #3 is changing.

Curious about whether Mastodon automatically links bare domain names like example.com or links without schemas like example.com/some/page.html

Culture war (transgender) 

In the spirit of "fronting the 'of course' a little more" as Freddie deBoer puts it ( freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/p ):

I believe trans people should be free to live their lives as their identified gender and receive the healthcare they need (and I don't just mean gender-affirming care; this also extends to things like gynecological care for trans men which from my understanding can be a struggle). Trans people deserve the same protections against discrimination as others do with regards to sex and gender and they absolutely do not deserve harassment, ostracism, and violence simply for identifying in a particular way.

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Culture war (transgender) 

"I won't speak for the conservative critics who don't believe trans people are real. I think one of the main concerns among the liberal critics is the conflict between multiple frames of trans acceptance." old.reddit.com/r/IntellectualD

The portion about the second frame/paradigm is worth highlighting. If we don't want to limit the concept of transgender to those who experience gender dysphoria (which I don't), then I think we need to consider that just *maybe* gender identities, including transgender identities, are influenced by societal concepts of gender including, yes, gender roles. And I do recognize that that conflicts with the ideal of removing gender roles and stereotypes, but until we live in some sort of "post-gender" society this is going to be a point of contention.

From another comment in the thread: "Anyway, that's about 8 paragraphs of saying, 'I think we're reinforcing stereotypes here'." old.reddit.com/r/IntellectualD

Why in the world does a public transit agency, one that has its own website, put a Linktree link in its Twitter profile??

I just noticed that I mentioned an "update" without actually explaining what I was referring to. It's the update to my latest Tumblr post: collectedoverspread.tumblr.com

Maybe you can appreciate why I'd like to give it some more separation.

Things I Hate About the Internet: When the Internet Archive Can’t Archive

When I find something posted on the Web that seems important, one of the first things I do is to check if it’s in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Fortunately, sometimes it’s already there. Unfortunately, sometimes the actual content isn’t saved. The early days of the Web were simple. If you wanted to save a page, all you had to do was download it, find any external resources it needed (like images), and download those as well. Nowadays, though, you’ll often find that that only gets you so far. Instead of the actual content, you might get: A login page: Of course, websites that require a login aren’t new, but there seems to be a trend of “locking down” social-media sites that were previously public. Twitter is a prime example of this: It used to be very easy to archive, but after Musk’s takeover it’s hit-or-miss at best. Some sites, like Facebook, aren’t strictly login-only but will require a login when you submit them to the Internet Archive. Both of these sites are used to publish statements of cultural significance, so it’s quite disheartening to think that they can’t be archived easily. (Update [5 June 2024]: I’d like to highlight Google Docs as well, because it’s another place where people publish culturally significant statements, and also because there’s an easy way to make it much easier to archive. Google Docs doesn’t require a login when you submit a document to the Internet Archive, but it often shows an error message that prevents you from reading the document. If you share something on Google Docs, consider using the “publish to Web” feature, which will make it much easier to archive. Note that this is not the same as simply sharing a link to a public document. The “publish to Web” URL will end in “/pubhtml” rather than “/edit”.) A blank or partial page with code to load the actual content: I remember when “progressive enhancement” was a thing and “people who turn off JavaScript in their browser” was a demographic that websites actually took into account. This idea seems to be dying off though, and the ability to archive pages is suffering as a result. The Internet Archive says it can run JavaScript to archive pages, but this doesn’t always work. Bluesky is a great example of this: You can view posts without logging in, but if you try to archive a public post all you get is a sort of “loading” screen (although the text of the post is in the source code at least). Its blog does this weird thing where you have to click in order for the content to show up. (Incidentally, archive.today handles both of these a lot better, so consider making it your first choice for archiving Bluesky posts.) A media player without the media: This is actually a specific case of the previous item. If you try to archive the page for a YouTube video, for example, all you’ll get is the player which uses JavaScript to load the actual video data. The Wayback Machine actually does have some YouTube videos archived, but those are few and far between and it’s clearly some extra process (although the process itself isn’t clear to me). I will point out that the Internet Archive’s video collections also have some YouTube videos, but these are separate from the Wayback Machine and not quite as simple to search for. Now, to be fair, a lot of the Web is still the kind that you can archive easily. But it’s not a coincidence that all of the examples I gave are from major social-media sites; many of them are particularly unsuitable for archiving. It’s frustrating that much of what happens online takes place on these platforms, without any good way to preserve it.

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US (California) politics 

One thing I'm curious about is service charges specifically for large parties, which some reporting (e.g. latimes.com/food/story/2024-02 ) suggests would also need to be included in the advertised price.

I actually feel like this should be considered a fee for an optional service (in the words of the AG's guidance), that is, the service of waiting on/serving a large group of customers. Consider this: If you were a glutton and ordered ten dishes for yourself, in theory you wouldn't have to pay that charge, whereas a group of ten who ordered the same dishes would have to.

If the exemption doesn't pass, I'd like to see more specific guidance from the AG on this.

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US (California) politics 

"California lawmakers fast-track restaurant exemption to hidden fees law" by Dan Walters (@DanCALmatters@twitter.com) in CalMatters calmatters.org/commentary/2024

I've been following the developments around since restaurants started complaining about the AG's guidance FAQ from May, and I truly do not understand why they believe they deserve this special treatment. (Okay, I know why they're *advocating* for this treatment, but the arguments themselves don't make a lot of sense.) Yes, we know restaurants have thin margins and high labor costs, but the way to respond to increased costs is to raise prices (gasp!), just like virtually every other business does.

Is it just me or has totally nerfed the HTML support in posts? I can get over forcing <em> and <strong> into <i> and <b> (I think this has been a thing for a long time, and everyone gets it wrong anyway)...

But now I can't even add a sublist under a list item (it just gets flatted down to one big list), or even a second paragraph within an item! The update is just so awkwardly placed now.

@eff I think this shows, once again, that the problem with is less that it's automated systems aren't perfect than that it's appeals processes are ineffective. It seems like sometimes the only effective appeal is to make a big enough stink on social media, which not everyone can do.

"Things I Hate About the Internet: When the Can't Archive," expressing my frustration about cases where the fails to archive things (especially on sites) collectedoverspread.tumblr.com

Things I Hate About the Internet: When the Internet Archive Can’t Archive

When I find something posted on the Web that seems important, one of the first things I do is to check if it’s in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Fortunately, sometimes it’s already there. Unfortunately, sometimes the actual content isn’t saved. The early days of the Web were simple. If you wanted to save a page, all you had to do was download it, find any external resources it needed (like images), and download those as well. Nowadays, though, you’ll often find that that only gets you so far. Instead of the actual content, you might get: A login page: Of course, websites that require a login aren’t new, but there seems to be a trend of “locking down” social-media sites that were previously public. Twitter is a prime example of this: It used to be very easy to archive, but after Musk’s takeover it’s hit-or-miss at best. Some sites, like Facebook, aren’t strictly login-only but will require a login when you submit them to the Internet Archive. Both of these sites are used to publish statements of cultural significance, so it’s quite disheartening to think that they can’t be archived easily. (Update [5 June 2024]: I’d like to highlight Google Docs as well, because it’s another place where people publish culturally significant statements, and also because there’s an easy way to make it much easier to archive. Google Docs doesn’t require a login when you submit a document to the Internet Archive, but it often shows an error message that prevents you from reading the document. If you share something on Google Docs, consider using the “publish to Web” feature, which will make it much easier to archive. Note that this is not the same as simply sharing a link to a public document. The “publish to Web” URL will end in “/pubhtml” rather than “/edit”.) A blank or partial page with code to load the actual content: I remember when “progressive enhancement” was a thing and “people who turn off JavaScript in their browser” was a demographic that websites actually took into account. This idea seems to be dying off though, and the ability to archive pages is suffering as a result. The Internet Archive says it can run JavaScript to archive pages, but this doesn’t always work. Bluesky is a great example of this: You can view posts without logging in, but if you try to archive a public post all you get is a sort of “loading” screen (although the text of the post is in the source code at least). Its blog does this weird thing where you have to click in order for the content to show up. (Incidentally, archive.today handles both of these a lot better, so consider making it your first choice for archiving Bluesky posts.) A media player without the media: This is actually a specific case of the previous item. If you try to archive the page for a YouTube video, for example, all you’ll get is the player which uses JavaScript to load the actual video data. The Wayback Machine actually does have some YouTube videos archived, but those are few and far between and it’s clearly some extra process (although the process itself isn’t clear to me). I will point out that the Internet Archive’s video collections also have some YouTube videos, but these are separate from the Wayback Machine and not quite as simple to search for. Now, to be fair, a lot of the Web is still the kind that you can archive easily. But it’s not a coincidence that all of the examples I gave are from major social-media sites; many of them are particularly unsuitable for archiving. It’s frustrating that much of what happens online takes place on these platforms, without any good way to preserve it.

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