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Pfft comments on Open thread, Feb. 16 - Feb. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 16 February 2015 07:56AM

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Comment author: Salemicus 17 February 2015 10:48:09AM 5 points [-]

If a million people paid $5,000 each, no power plant gets built because the government won't allow it.

Comment author: Pfft 18 February 2015 04:30:02PM 0 points [-]

Really though? My intution is that democratic governments are very sensitive to issues that lots of people care about, particularly if they show that they care about them by paying real money.

For comparison, the National Rifle Association has 5 million members, and a revenue of $256 million (so ~$50 per member), and is considered to have a big influence in politics. Google's online petition against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) gathered 7 million signatures ($0 per signer), and the act failed. This "build your own powerplant" movement would be similarly sized.