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[Levi]

Lately I've been liking the idea of something like Demarchy as an alternative to democracy and a solution to government corruption(which I think is rampant).  Demarchy is where the decision makers are essentially chosen at random from the country's population to serve some period of time instead of being elected. 

In theory it helps eliminate the possibility of corruption because the person's career is no longer tied to politics.  People might say that "You've got a chance of getting people who are incompetent in government with Demarchy.", but I'm not convinced that isn't the case now. 

[Reelya]

We do that for jury duty, and the Athenians also used that (one month on the senate for all randomly selected citizens i think).

If you assign most people to committees etc rather than individual responsibility then you also mitigate the damage a single poor choice makes.

[Virex]

Yep, China may be half the current U.S. GDP but they doubled that in only 5 years. So looks likely that China's GDP will surpass USA very soon.

Total GDP, possibly. But per capita is unlikely. Most of the gains made by China are due to infrastructure improvements. They're very much still developing. To catch up with the US in per-capita income, they'd still need to pass the part where a large part of the work force receives higher education and the part where the social and economical styructures are (
somewhat) sanitized. Sure, the US could gain some on the later points, but not nearly as much as China still has to catch up.

[Reelya]

I agree on per-capita, but that's never been the source of power. Total economic capacity is power, not per capita wealth.

In fact, i'd make the argument that western wealth (or concentration thereof) is built on out-sourcing low-paying jobs to poor countries. Those become a de facto part of your economy, so the higher per-capita wealth of the west is partially illusionary since those economic structures couldn't exist without those sweatshops in third world partner countries.

[Max White]

So what you are saying is that everything we buy was produced by cheap over seas labour?

Remind me, was blatant, over the top sarcasm allowed in this thread?

[sluissa]

What exactly happened to the UN, which doesn't appear to be doing a whole lot, despite there being numerous humanitarian disasters in the world?

It's hard to get the UN to do anything useful when a veto is pulled out of someone's pocket at the thought of even something as simple as a written condemnation of Israel's actions. Although, in this case, it's actually Russia/China being the bad guys. Everyone has their fingers in the middle east at this point.

[Truean]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/us/politics/holder-explains-threat-that-would-call-for-killing-without-trial.html

I love living in a police state.... How is this not in violation of the 14th amendment? So judge, jury, and executioner....

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/04/7th-advertiser-pulls-out-limbaughs-show/?test=latestnews

Let's take the rest of 'em out of the equation.... Also the link says "7th," but it's really, "9th."

[trees]

I'm... not sure why it took me this long to find the progressive thread's reboot. Hm.

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-obamas-transgender-ex-nanny-outcast-070907242.html

Worldwide, at least one person is killed every other day, according to the Trans Murder Monitoring Project, which collects homicide reports.

I sure feel safe, now. Ugh.

[Descan]

Are you trans, trees?

[trees]

Yeah.

[Descan]

* Descan hugs trees.

* Descan is a tree-hugger, now.

[Pnx]

That makes what... four, five? We attract a lot of outliers.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Seriously, this forum's demographics are definitely not at all in line with the larger population. Or even the internet population, for that matter.

[Levi]

Seriously, this forum's demographics are definitely not at all in line with the larger population. Or even the internet population, for that matter.

Or it is in line, and the larger population is awfully discreet.   

[Capntastic]

I dunno, ~10 in 54,000 seems basically in line with 'real world' statistics.