Comments on: YouCut Is Really TheyCut

By: Timothy Cotterman

Timothy Cotterman — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 02:21:18 +0000

Yes you are quibbling and I love quibbling. I think the most engaging and useful comment in this is “without considering creative alternatives” . This means you at least accept the premise that spending is out of control and needs solutions to be discussed. I suggest you come up with a better more inclusive website and toss it over to Nancy Pelosi and see if she will get it up and running.

By: Clay Shentrup

Clay Shentrup — Sat, 15 May 2010 19:53:25 +0000

What we really need is a better voting system, which will reduce the importance of cash and “electability” and major party affiliation.

Score Voting and its simplified form Approval Voting are the solution.

By: Walter

Walter — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:21:57 +0000

This reminds me of the CNN-YouTube debates of the last presidential election. It’s sad to see the media and political elite continually offer the illusion of democratic decision-making with these top-down, heavily filtered, Playskool voting systems. You make a strong critique of YouCut here.

Something that suggests YouCut is more a tool of rhetoric than a sincere effort at encouraging citizen participation is the set of budget cutting proposals themselves. It’s hard to ignore the fact that the savings offered by the first three proposals seem positively paltry compared to the fourth (welfare), which also happens to be the only proposal whose savings are tallied on a per year basis, rather than over 5 years. These are the sort of manipulative tactics described by Cialdini in Influence, and Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational. As a result, welfare ends up sticking out like a sore thumb. It’s hard to imagine this was anything but intentional.