> In this model, the difference between politics and almonds is that if you spend $2 on almonds, you get $2 worth of almonds. In politics, if you spend $2 on Bernie Sanders, you get nothing, unless millions of other people also spend their $2 on him. People are great at spending money on direct consumption goods, and terrible at spending money on coordination problems.

Okay, so develop that train of thought just a tiny bit more inside that fermented brain of yours. Coordinating problems are a lot easier if you are “the ten percent”, “the five percent” or “the one percent” depending on how you wanna slice it: you have more resources and you are fewer people. But if you are the rest? Massively more difficult. First of all, who do you trust? People have fallen in and out of trust with Sanders these last six years many times. Is he just a puppet of the Dems? Is he “controlled opposition”? What if a Sanders run just amounts to “raising awareness” that a lot of Americans are struggling (“duh”, they said) as he capitulates to his “good friend” Biden/Clinton/etc.?

And what about all the other supposedly grassroots organizations and things that sprouted in his wake? Were they legitimate or just astroturfs? Were they perhaps legitimate and then got coopted?

Is federal-level electoral politics even a viable path for the “99%”? Or will such efforts always get thwarted by team red and team blue? Does it help at all to get 100 candidates almost-elected?

And what if a few of them do get elected? Will they just adapt to the machine (i.e. become “corrupted”)? What’s the critical mass of progressive or whatever else candidates that need to be elected at the same time in order for that not to happen?

- - -

The supposed fact that more money is spent on almonds is not in itself evidence of any damn thing, and this high-IQ idiot knows that his clickbait headline proves nothing. You don’t spend more on a problem then you need to.

- - -

Just an aside but it’s curious that “Scott” didn’t find data on something useless like ice cream. Almond is good food, and you need food to live. Some kind of food.

> So when I hear stories like that Americans could end homelessness by redirecting the money they spend on Christmas decorations, I don’t think that’s because they’re evil or hypocritical or don’t really care about the issue. I think they would if they could but the coordination problem gets in the way.

Upper-middle class nerds love these “X would end Y” statistics. It means that they can just throw money at the problem and don’t have to think about “politics”, because politics is too messy for them (too much people, too few numbers and stats). But ending homelessness is inherently a political project because you have to find the root cause for it. You can’t just give them money to rent apartments if they just become homeless in two years again. So what’s the issue? Is it mental illness? If that then you need to support the mentally ill directly, not just indirectly once they become homeless. Is it unaffordable rent and home ownership? Then that needs to be fixed. Except there are probably interests that would like rents and home prices to stay at their current levels. Competing interests i.e. a political problem.

> This is one reason I’m so gung ho about people pledging to donate 10% of their income to charity. It mows through these kinds of problems.

Right. These EA people exist, so I’ll just donate to them and let them figure it out. They have big IQs after all. Then I read in the yearly report that they spent 80% of my 10% on BS like safeguarding against run amock general AI. Sigh.

“Scott Alexander” can pat himself on his own back all he wants for his 10%. But he’s confusing two different things. Politics is bigger than turning in your sworn 14 units of good-doing acts for the year–it’s about more than “being a good person”, or publishing “facts” about Christmas decorations and homelessness. If you are working two jobs and can still barely get by then the only long-term fix might be to help change some policies. And maybe five people that you know are in the same boat and so you donate your precious “almond money” to some politician that you think isn’t a fraud. You’re in a different situation than some upper-middle class blogger who world builds for a hobby.