My California Ballot

Scott's 2018 California ballot guide — governor down to judges plus Propositions 1-12 — in his comic register ('the Gavinator,' the dog-voting Secretary-of-State bit, the 'because California' running gag, Unsong-character names). Mostly first-level justifications, but with several genuinely thoughtful passages: a careful Prop 5 analysis (property-tax portability for the elderly/disabled — he leans yes on lock-in/housing grounds but ultimately ABSTAINS, judging it a question of coefficients he doesn't know); Prop 10 rent control (95% of economists say it harms the poor, but Archipelago/localism and 'laboratories of democracy' cut the other way — abstains, candidly noting the tension); and a hard endorsement of Prop 12 factory-farming cage standards ('if you only take my advice on one measure, let it be this one') on EA animal-welfare grounds.

Quality 57 · Solid. Solid, high (57). Entertaining and, in spots, genuinely thoughtful — the willingness to abstain under coefficient-uncertainty (Props 5, 10) models epistemic honesty, and the Prop 12 advocacy is values-forward. Held to Solid by its fundamentally ephemeral, time-and-place-bound voting-guide nature.

Claude’s paradigm shift 35 · Slight. Slight (35). A personal voting guide; opinions on candidates and props, no novel idea.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Minor (2). May have nudged some Bay-Area readers' votes (Prop 12, which passed, was a real animal-welfare law), but per-post attributable impact is small.