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marxuckerberg

Second: you can develop expertise without needing to actively partake in something. I’ve spent several years studying video gambling and sports betting. I’ve never personally done either. Do you need to be a big gambler to be considered an expert in the area?

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Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸

Clearly there’s a difference between sports betting & transit. If you mismanaged one, you sabotage an essential lifeline for literal millions of workers, families, etc. If you mismanaged the other, there would be relatively minor consequences. We need transit board members to ride the train.

Обсуждение

1 прямых ответов · 20 сообщений

marxuckerberg

But you can mismanage something while having participated in it and the reverse is true, too! Heres an example that isn’t the betting industry: public schools. Do you need to have been a teacher, student, or parent here to sit on the board? I don’t think so, and don’t condition my vote on it

Ответ для marxuckerberg
marxuckerberg

Like, it seems fairly obvious to me that you can make good decisions for these systems without the prerequisite you’re demanding. And if you’re a transportation interest group guy, who cares if they are a CTA customer if they do what you say and think is the right move?

Ответ для marxuckerberg
marxuckerberg

Also, not to divert the conversation here because it’s not really the point, but bad gambling policy choices *do* actually affect millions of people. The state estimated a few years ago that 10% of the population is either addicted to gambling or at risk of developing an addiction!

Ответ для marxuckerberg
Patrick

I think if someone was running for school board, was asked if they have a kid in public schools and answered with something like "I'm fortunate enough to send my kids to private school" that would be immediately disqualifying

Ответ для Patrick
Patrick

I kinda see the neglect to even use the public service is failing even a bare minimum of giving a shit about the public service itself--if they can't even muster basic familiarity or interest with the institution they want to govern, they shouldn't bother.

Ответ для Patrick
marxuckerberg

And if they don’t have kids or didn’t raise them in the district? I wouldn’t disqualify them because they aren’t users of that public service, and I don’t think that precludes them from obtaining an interest or familiarity with the system.

Ответ для marxuckerberg
marxuckerberg

And to my earlier point, given the choice between a CPS parent/CTA rider/whatever user who would agree with me 90% of the time and someone who knew jack shit, total moron, only wanted to serve on a board for prestige but promised to do whatever I said I’d pick the latter every single time lol

Ответ для marxuckerberg
Patrick

the problem is that by and large, the political appointees largely are not great at managing the system--the fact that they deliberately choose not to use the system itself is just kind of a shorthand for me (can't speak for others) to know who to write off immediately

Ответ для Patrick
Patrick

The way the mayor and a lot of his selections for these boards choose to talk abt public transit is like it's a safety net of last resort rather than a universal public benefit that must be protected. That they don't even ride the trains or buses regularly is just a quick illustration of the problem

Ответ для Patrick
Patrick

problem with the CPS analogy is there's all sorts of stuff out of the candidate's control: is their kid school age? Do they even have kids? But we're talking about swiping a transit card at least once a week. These guys won't even bother to do that. At some point, you gotta eat your own dog food.

Ответ для marxuckerberg
US Out Of Chicago

Besides Patrick's point that Brandon's transit picks and policy have sucked overall, I'll stick up for the idea of meritocracy in service of systemwide public legitimacy. We're so used to the right cynically dismantling systems and norms that it makes sense to be similarly knives-out in service of..

Ответ для US Out Of Chicago
US Out Of Chicago

...our own ends but ultimately the left is better served by building public support and norms and expectations around our political vision rather than "corruption, but leftishly." Especially because it should not be hard to find experts aligned with a good transit policy in fucking Chicago!

Ответ для US Out Of Chicago
Patrick

to be clear, I totally understand the impulse to be skeptical of goo-goo arguments. But the goo-goos are right about this, unfortunately. I think the "do you even ride the bus" litmus is a good one because the barrier to entry is painfully low. There's no reason these guys shouldn't pass it

Ответ для Patrick
US Out Of Chicago

Yeah, me too. But this is an overcorrection, esp as it's not giving us transit Stalinism or whatever the purported upside would be. I'm also guessing experts would be better at actually doing the job and building support for good policy than lackeys.

Ответ для US Out Of Chicago
Patrick

I think especially because we're dealing with a situation where NITA was created specifically to deal with problems in administrative communication and to break down silos between agencies so the public service runs effectively. People looking for sinecures aren't likely to be great at doing that

Ответ для US Out Of Chicago
US Out Of Chicago

In general, cyncism around political leadership hurts the left way more and people (rightfully) hate cronyism and patronage. It erodes social trust.

Ответ для US Out Of Chicago
marxuckerberg

Oh to be clear, this is not a defense of these picks (don’t know anything about them) or Brandon (bad at the job). But we all know what’s going on here. If Zohran Mamdani or another DSA executive needed to build political support through this kind of appointment I would defend it with a smile!

Ответ для marxuckerberg
US Out Of Chicago

Eh, for reasons listed, I think it should be viewed as a last-resort, not a good, normal way of governing.

Ответ для US Out Of Chicago
Patrick

the other issue here is that when it comes to the Chicago mayor's direct control over transit policy, his appointments to this board basically *are* the transit policy

Ответ для Patrick
SK

(well, wasn't disqualifying for Stacy Davis Gates)