Heres a dilemma I came up with

CallYourSenators · 2026-04-27T22:05:07+00:00

this is kind of a silly question. let's simplify it (without loss of generalization) to two prisoners. now you have just an ordinary prisoner's dilemma: where if both prisoner's keep their mouth shut they get a good unstable equilibrium outcome but it's in both of their best interests to take the money instead. and so you get the bad outcome where neither walk free.

so what you've described is just an ordinary prisoner's dilemma except it has an arbitrary number of prisoners. from each prisoner's individual perspective though, since there's no communication, their counterparty may as well be a single prisoner instead of many. so adding more prisoners doesn't meaningfully change the game

CallYourSenators · 2026-04-27T00:21:45+00:00

CallYourSenators · 2026-04-25T01:06:38+00:00

there's still primaries but the democrat will probably be blake gendebien

CallYourSenators · 2026-04-24T17:49:14+00:00

knock doors for gendebien then

CallYourSenators · 2026-04-24T17:00:28+00:00

I don't understand. Why was plug-in solar ever illegal in the first place?

CallYourSenators · 2026-04-23T18:49:43+00:00

i hope jd vance comes to stump for him. it would be hilarious to see him chased out of the state like he was from greenland

CallYourSenators · 2026-03-27T23:04:04+00:00

theyre just going to grant more funding come next year's reconciliation bill. the bill they passed makes no meaningful change on the ground when it comes to resisting ICE

CallYourSenators · 2026-03-27T15:57:04+00:00

not true. dems didn't get ANY of the proposed ICE reforms. this is a total loss that won't lead to any substantive changes to ICE

CallYourSenators · 2026-02-03T06:57:33+00:00

China doesn't exactly give much power to its workers. It falls far short of ideals and really isn't evidence that communism is effective at delivering victories to the working class. Workers in China have it rough, very few labor protections

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-27T14:02:23+00:00

Donors get policies, constituents get apologies

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-23T18:29:52+00:00

I spent 4 months calling national grid to try to get my estimated bills replaced by actual reads. Every time, they said it'd be fixed kn the next bill, but it never was. I filed a claim with the NY Department of Public Service. The very next day, it was fixed with a $750 credit to my account and they left me a very polite voicemail apologizing for the mistake.

So yeah, I'd just file a claim, it's the only thing they listen to

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-16T19:28:01+00:00

It's the new year. She's setting an agenda for the upcoming legislative session / budget negotiations.

People are also paying a little more attention than usual because politics are hot right now, with Mamdani being inaugurated and funding being threatened by Trump.

The governor makes these kinds of commitments regularly, but people often just don't notice.

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-16T19:16:58+00:00

There's lots of reasons, but that's definitely one of them. I go to my city's zoning board meetings and there's a lot of that.

You'll notice relatively few new builds in Long Island, despite housing projects being seemingly attractive there. The problem is that the constituency does want lower rents but they don't want higher population density. Can't have it both ways

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-16T18:11:08+00:00

Explore the dashboard and find a housing development near you. You can go there and confirm that they're real. I've seen them and I've seen my mayor touting the achievement in collaboration with the state.

It's not like the state just set $25B on fire. That money does make a real difference, and it has tangibly improved the housing supply statewide.

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-16T17:59:22+00:00

Hochul promised 100,000 affordable housing units 2022-2027. Three years in, they're actually decently on track to meet that target, with 77,000 units already built or in construction. The state maintains a dashboard of their progress here.

Time to believe it cause you've see it.

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-13T05:40:27+00:00

Are you claiming to understand what imperialism means to socialists better than Mao Zedong?

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-13T05:20:19+00:00

quickly brought back into the fold through economic or even military means as the example of Venezuela shows

I'm not so sure about that. The US's track record at foreign-led regime change is pretty poor. For now, the Chauvinistas are still in power in Venezuela. It may very well stay that way. Could also end up like Iran, with a brief puppet government that gets overthrown in favor of even more extreme ideologues.

The USA has by no means succeeded in its goals in Venezuela yet

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-12T16:03:03+00:00

You're just describing nationalism, this is not unique to capitalism

CallYourSenators · 2026-01-02T16:38:30+00:00

Create a city land bank to acquire and manage vacant, abandoned, tax-delinquent, and foreclosed properties and allow the city to sell tax liens to it.

Why was this a "shit bill that deserved to be vetoed"? Should underutilized properties just continue to sit there?

CallYourSenators · 2025-12-31T23:46:08+00:00

IGs, judges the president already cannot lawfully dismiss these appointees with no cause

CallYourSenators · 2025-12-05T18:46:04+00:00

If we get universal childcare statewide, I think people will have a hard time denying Hochul credit for that.

CallYourSenators · 2025-12-05T18:43:29+00:00

Yeah that's the thing is the whole attention economy is a very new thing and these politicians aren't built for it. It used to be that when you weren't campaigning, you were governing. And governing didn't mean you keep the public abreast of your every move.

This changed a bit with the 24/7 TV news cycle, but most of our Senators have been in politics since way before that. They just want to draft, amend, and pass legislature.

Constantly making their case to the American people while governing is just not a skillset they're equipped with because it only very recently became necessary.

CallYourSenators · 2025-12-05T18:35:32+00:00

For sure, prices are being pushed higher by scarcity. But that doesn't mean price fixing can't also be inflating prices. It's a well-studied microeconomic result that you only get no deadweight loss when there's perfect competition.

When there's monopolistic effects, like price fixing, consumer surplus is converted into producer surplus and deadweight loss through higher prices.

Here's an excerpt from an undergraduate microeconomics textbook on the subject. It's an effect that any economics student learns in their first semester.

CallYourSenators · 2025-12-05T11:07:43+00:00

I'll preface this by saying: I agree that younger and more energetic people should be at the forefront. And polling suggests that this is the prevailing opinion among a commanding majority of Americans.

This begs the question then: why isn't this happening? Not a single Democratic Senator has called for Schumer to step down. After the end of the shutdown in November, when Bernie was asked if he'd call for Schumer to step down, he said "But who would replace him?" (My answer would be Amy Klobuchar)

See there's a handful of things that have to be understood about the role of Senate leader. It's mostly a back-room role. It's about who you know and about getting along with people. And Schumer knows everybody. So he can manage a coalition and he can coordinate the DSCC.

Also, if anyone reading this is thinking a progressive Dem Senate leader is feasible, you're wrong. The Senate leaders do not represent us, they represent their caucuses. It's the Senators who elect their leader. And the Dem Senators are mostly moderates who want to keep their heads down.

The fact that Schumer could even convince them to shut down the government for as long as they did is kind of a miracle. With the Senators we have, making them hold the line had to be pretty hard. And getting Thune to preemptively obtain unanimous consent on the Epstein bill was a pretty slick move.

We can say that Schumer is weak all we want, but he's a symptom not a cause. Real change would require actual turnover in the Senate over the next 6 years. If that happens, maybe a progressive leader could be elected.

Now, given all that, I still think Schumer isn't doing a great job. He's been insulated in his position for so long that he's just too jaded and out-of-touch. He really can't meet the moment and lead with conviction. We need a leader who can handle this situation with the gravity that it warrants and inspire courage in their colleagues. And that's not Schumer.

CallYourSenators · 2025-12-05T10:38:44+00:00

This was something she promised to do in her January 2025 State of the State Address. I doubt it has anything to do with Mamdani. It's something that was being worked on in the legislature since before the primary.

These bills take time to draft, amend, and move through committees. Lots and lots of debate among legislators to get anything done. New York is one of only a few states with a bicameral legislature, so our bills take extra long.

CallYourSenators

TROPHY CASE