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Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn't we build an app to make that easier? The data is public, just focus on the districts where the voting was closest and connect that to Zillow or something similar. You can't guarantee results, of course, but we can point people in the right direction to change the state.

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I don't think so. Folks shouldn't sacrifice quality of life (moving to rural areas versus areas they might desire more) to tip the state faster than it will already tip. It's just a matter of time, governed by the birth, immigration (domestic and foreign), and death rate.

It's just a matter of time (I don't say that lightly, I have made my donations to support relief efforts from recent policy decisions).

The website can't force anyone to make the move, but can help with deciding where to move to in order to improve quality of life for everyone in the state.

It's also a solid investment to purchase real estate in a place you know quality of life will improve.

Help yourself to the data: https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties_in_Texas

Sort by counties in descending order closest to ~50% blue for targeting relocation suggestions, turning counties that flip solid blue. Best bang for your buck imho. Probably cheaper housing too, close enough to urban cores for hybrid remote, far enough out to be affordable. A couple days worth of CRUD/GIS/data science work if I had to hazard a guess.

Thank you. That's an amazing resource. That combined with the number of votes it'd take to make the district flip would be perfect.

These regressive voters are mostly concentrated in suburban environments. It's not a huge ordeal for most people to live in suburban Austin or Dallas or San Antonio or etc.

> Folks shouldn't sacrifice quality of life (moving to rural areas versus areas they might desire more) to tip the state faster than it will already tip

Personally, I don't think "quality of life" is the word that should be used to distinctualize rural and urban living. I've lived in both and had a quality life in both, each came with their tradeoffs and sharp costs I had to manage.

Is deliberately facilitating demographic change for political purposes an ethical use of technology? I imagine there would be some moral outrage if the people of the pivot districts learned that SV types (who may well not even live in Texas) were collaborating to enact political change by targeted migration. Is this not basically political colonization?

Political districts in the US are already designed to favor specific parties and incumbents, the playing field is already not neutral.

This seems like little more than playing by the established rules of the game, which favors targeted demographics and swing districts over the broad populace.

The question is not whether the playing field is neutral or not through the actions of others, but whether "we" (tech) should undertake to change that playing field further. What right do "we" have to interfere in other peoples' lives from afar?

Wouldn't giving the majority its fair share of political voice, in a democratic republic, be a net positive?

The point of a federal system is to let a minority form the majority in a particular place and live under policies they want. Why should they accept the outcome of democracy and open borders if we chase them around the map and prevent that everywhere?

I am not saying I want to live under this absurd law, but I suppose people do and they are not going to just disappear.

>Why should they accept the outcome of democracy and open borders if we chase them around the map and prevent that everywhere?

Because that's how the democracy works, and if they accept it when it works in their favor (as it's designed to,) they can accept when it doesn't.

It isn't illegal to be a liberal and live in Texas and vote, as much as other Texans might wish it were.

Since the president is not elected by direct vote, the decisions in some states carry much greater impact and influence than others. A tool like this would help make the result more reflective of the desired outcomes for the larger population.

And you are not interfering from afar - people need to move in order to vote. We can only guide these people, however, and help them find the places they can make the difference they want to make.

We have the same rights as anyone in a civil society to try to effect political change in our favor, within the bounds of the law.

All that's being suggested here is that if people move from SV, or wherever, to Texas that they vote their conscience, and where they could reside so that vote could be the most effective. It isn't interference, it's participation.

Since I’m neither a US resident nor a citizen, I already did my part with the foreign interference in elections by lifting the idea. It’s up to my American friends to run with it.

If you do, keep me posted. ;-)

The Free State Project did this to the town of Grafton, New Hampshire, invading to turn it into the country's first libertarian majority city so they could take over the government. And yeah, the locals were not too happy about it. One of the reasons they chose Grafton is there were no zoning laws, so they could move in quickly without having to build housing, which meant many of them were living in the woods, and since they had no experience doing that and kept leaving food out, the town became overrun with bears.

Exercising their right to bear arms, and legs, and bodies, and torsos ....

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-...

I would never expect bears to be the last line of defence for democracy, but here we are…

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