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[WealthyRadish]

I have to say the US has had some awesome instances of Gerrymandering.

70%+ majority and they STILL lose because of how the districts were drawn.

Not quite, in 2012 they nationally had 48.4% to Republicans' 47.1%. Still absurd, since the Republicans won a whopping 34 seat advantage despite getting fewer votes.

[Neonivek]

I have to say the US has had some awesome instances of Gerrymandering.

70%+ majority and they STILL lose because of how the districts were drawn.

Not quite, in 2012 they nationally had 48.4% to Republicans' 47.1%. Still absurd, since the Republicans won a whopping 34 seat advantage despite getting fewer votes.

I was speaking on a state by state basis. Not the country as a whole

[Reelya]

it turns out that 66.7% of votes had no impact whatsoever on the House elections (which if you consider the turnout technically means that only 18.2% of the voting eligible population decided the outcome). This sounds scarier than it is (FPTP will always waste at minimum half the votes), but what was interesting is that 71.6% of democrat votes were wasted compared to 58.7% of republicans (naturally 100% of third party votes were wasted).

*shivers*

But wait, the only system where 0% of the votes are wasted would be a system where every candidate for office will be elected. HMMMMM.

Not quite. There's MMP. The idea is that the total parliament gets "topped up" to be proportional after all local guys are elected. This allows all those 5% third-party votes to be scraped together to get actual delegates.
 
In many versions, you vote twice. Once for who you like locally, the other for which party you support, federally. Then extra seats are allocated after the local elections are over, to top up # of members until it's proportional to the party vote. e.g. if the local Republican candidate was a cool guy you could vote for him, but still pick "Democrats" as your party ticket support. That would reduce the need for voting against people you like because of party lines.

[Max™]

As I said a couple of pages ago about belief and legislation of/based on it: the problem is not the legislation, nor is it the object of said belief. The problem lies with belief itself, we picture ourselves as rational and informed members of the in-group, we "know" the "truth of things" because our group agrees with us.

The idea that the vast majority of what we "know" doesn't even begin to possess qualities to count as knowledge, or that the rightness of an in-group is perceived just as wholeheartedly as wrongness to an out-group, well, that sort of thing involves doubt.

Doubt is the longest four-letter word ever, which probably explains why it is often treated as more insulting than so many of the others.

"Fuck you for your position."
'Whatever, you're an asshole.'
"I doubt the beliefs your position is based on."
'How dare you question something I hold to be true?'

This election highlights that problem so very well: it ended up being decided as a choice between two out-groups, and which one was more virulently opposed by the complementary in-group.

This was not an election about "my position is right, my in-group is correct" at all, it was a rejection of the positions/wrongness of the out-group.

You get people like me who were so baffled by the outcome because we were trying to explain why various things were actually right, or at least likely, but if it is difficult for someone like me--who prefers to avoid being associated as a supporter of the Democrats or Republicans--to explain it based on reason and information, and is used to lacking the passion and fervor which comes with believing in a position... how could people who usually make use of their affection for a candidate handle a situation where there was no love and excitement about who they got?

It was easier for one side to accept a wild divergence from their usual positions, hold their nose, and vote for someone they openly despised, than it was for the other side to get people to care about their candidate even though she wasn't actively hated, and rode the usual positions like a professional bull rider.


There does seem to be an option for not wasting votes though, was mentioned a couple pages back: have people rate the various candidates, go with the one who ends up actually rated the highest.

"How well do you think this candidate would perform if elected? [Terribly -- Average -- Excellently]"

Nobody really expected that Trump would even be an average president, much less an excellent one, not even the people who voted  for him. Yet many of the people who voted for Trump would probably confess that Clinton wouldn't be terrible as president, just that she would be "more of the same" so they were forced into choosing "Hillary" or "literally-anyone-but-Hillary" whether they wanted this to be the case or not.

If you went to Amazon and forced every single reviewer who gave a 2-3-4 star review to choose between 1 star or 5 stars the outcome would be different because there are lots of people who say things along the lines of "this product was great, but..." or "I was overall disappointed with this, but..." and their 2~3~4 star votes make sense in this context.

"I really liked this, but I wasn't able to make use of it because it didn't have a feature which I discovered was important, so... I guess 5 stars?"
"I actually meant to purchase something else, but after trying this I am more certain that it is not the worst option, simply not my preference... but I gotta give it 1 star."

[Reelya]

The problem with your rating system (e.g. if you gave 3 points to one candidate, 2 points to another, 1 point to a third one) is that it doesn't solve one of the main problems of FPTP: The Spoiler Effect. e.g. if there were two equally good Democrats, and a worse Republican, under a FPTP or "Star Rating" system, the votes would be split between the two democrats, ensuring that the Republican would win, even though he would have objectively lost against either of the Democrats running alone.

Instant Runoff Voting already exists, and it eliminates the spoiler effect.

e.g. in IRV you might vote #1 Sanders, #2 Clinton and #3 Trump in a 3-way contest. What you're actually saying is that "I want Sanders, but if it comes down to Clinton vs Trump, give my vote to Clinton".

[Reelya]

They're teaching Modern Rhetoric on Twitter.

[Max™]

The problem with your rating system (e.g. if you gave 3 points to one candidate, 2 points to another, 1 point to a third one) is that it doesn't solve one of the main problems of FPTP: The Spoiler Effect. e.g. if there were two equally good Democrats, and a worse Republican, under a FPTP or "Star Rating" system, the votes would be split between the two democrats, ensuring that the Republican would win, even though he would have objectively lost against either of the Democrats running alone.

Misinterpreted what I was saying with the reviews thing.

You wouldn't have to pick either-or for the candidates.

It would be quite possible for someone to give say, Sanders 75%, Clinton 60%, Kasich 65%, Trump 10% when doing this, improbable to find that cross-section of views perhaps, but it was just an example.

As more people did this, there would be fewer people going Sanders 100%, Clinton 0%, Kasich 0%, Trump 0% than various distributions, and it would be harder to fall into the trap of "well my party picked this guy, so he's my choice" as more and more people added their voices to the tally it would probably end up representing the majority position by design, would it not?

Instant Runoff Voting already exists, and it eliminates the spoiler effect.

e.g. in IRV you might vote #1 Sanders, #2 Clinton and #3 Trump in a 3-way contest. What you're actually saying is that "I want Sanders, but if it comes down to Clinton vs Trump, give my vote to Clinton".

Yeah, I know it exists too, but that choice doesn't have to be the only way it is presented.

"I think Sanders would be better for the country if he could get his policies enacted, but Clinton would probably be better at actually getting policies enacted, and while Kasich would not be good for the country, he isn't a dumpster fire like Trump."

[Sergarr]

Sergarr, are you being Ironic?

Because you're a bit scary right now... please don't start screaming "BONUM VULT".

Not particularly. I'm greatly tired of the potentially world-ending shit that is currently unfolding on Earth, and would like for it to end very much.

Also, "bonum vult"? Google says that it translates to "good wishes", is there anything more about that phrase?

"Deus Vult" was the moto of the crusaders.

What you wrote is a mix of manifest destiny and of direction of history. It's not exactly sound nor convincing if you put it in any context.


First, you're pretending that evil behavior leads to one's ruin. If you know history, you'll see that not two empire has the same values, and that "not evil behaviour" as defined by you is, during most of history:

-Predictable harvest
-Strong, disciplined army
-A well codified rule of law.

Second, you're proposing that "goodness" is correlated to success. The most successful empire to date is the British colonial empire, which was,... not so good by most measures. And fell in big parts due to ruinous wars with Germany, France and Spain, not by any un-goodness induced historic punishment.


Third, holding the same reasoning in the late 1800's would have you be a white supremacist, in 1935 you would be a Bolshevik, and in 1941 a fascist.

You know, when I've said "long-term success", I should've put a special emphasis on the "long-term" part, because it is the fucking key point. White Suprematism, Bolshevism, Fascism, all those enjoyed some short, temporary success. But they all failed in the end, because evil is self-destructive. Well organized evil can subsist quite a bit longer by sucking other civilizations dry of their resources, like British Empire did, but it's still self-destructive and less efficient than a proper good state - which is why British Empire has fallen, but the American Liberal and Democratic World Order still stands strong, though definitely less strong than two decades ago.

On that topic, the main issues seems to be : why give so much power to the president in a federation.


The US have the very logical and legitimate system of not giving every members of their federation a weight that only depend on their number of inhabitant.
That's just logical. But then they give a shitton of power to the president in a one single vote, and that part is retarded.

I mean the second part of the proposition pretty much negate the first :

-We'll use a mechanism that make sure that everyone is heard!
-AND NOW WE'LL MAKE AN VOTE THAT CAN SHIFT 100% THE DIRECTION OF THE COUNTRY FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS BASED ON A FEW % OF FLUCTUATION!!!!!

I mean wtf?

edit : 10 year for this election because of all the peoples Trump will be able to appoint.

Usually it's "we'll give you a lot of power for only 4 years, so we'll rely on you a lot but you won't have the time to implement any long term plans". Which is WTF esque too.

It's actually more than 10 years, because Supreme Court positions are for life.

Also, if some devoted Trump supporters successfully assassinate the liberal judges (and I'm not throwing the possibility away that some federal organizations, like FBI, may actually provide them with help in that endeavour), we could see a whole generation or two (i.e. 30-60 years) of 100% pro-Republican Supreme Court that will set civil rights back to 1950s era, or maybe even further back.

...

Or maybe I'm just horribly overreacting. That is quite a possibility, too. Probably should lay off the unconditional unlimited liberalism a little bit.

[McTraveller]

I'm sort of... I dunno at this point.

I personally think the apparent protectionist stance of the administration-elect is not a desirable outcome. But I also believe in the democratic process, so I'm kind of like "well, if this is what people asked for, and what they got in the confines of the rules of the system, so be it."  Do I really have the privileged position to tell millions of people that they are just wrong? This isn't like some abusive super minority - this is a slight minority of the voting population here - tens of millions of people.

It does make me think about what actions I would take given "really bad" situations - I almost think my approaches would probably be more direct-relational. Something along the lines of the underground railroad - just doing my part to personally help people, without worrying about what other folks are doing.

On a more theoretical note - I almost think a solution could be to just give more power back to the states, so "red states" could be red, and "blue states" could be blue. You don't like policies in one, move to the other.  Just stop trying to make all the states be identical.  Just have the feds enforce things like "you can't prevent people (or goods) from moving between states", "dollars in one state are good in another", "our military will protect all states equally", that sort of thing.

[Rockphed]

I have to say the US has had some awesome instances of Gerrymandering.

70%+ majority and they STILL lose because of how the districts were drawn.

At least some of this is because of the requirement for minority-majority districts.  Sure, lumping all the [minority] voters into one district can create a very safe district for one party (if they safely vote for that party), but it makes it easier for the other party to create a safe district for themselves.  In many states, the Republicans have joined forces with minority democrats to fight for minority-majority districts.

On that topic, the main issues seems to be : why give so much power to the president in a federation.

To a large extent, some conservatives agree with you 100%.  They even go so far as to say that the best way to "get money out of politics", is to reduce the power of the government.

[smjjames]

-snip-

Fair enough, I overreacted a little bit. Still, I'm rather afraid of Republicans. I don't remember a single good thing they did, and plenty of bad ones.

Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt were republicans. The one preserved the Union and freed the slaves and died for our sins, and the other broke up trusts and monopolies and didn't afraid of anyone. Those were the last good republicans afair.

I dunno, whether Hoover is responsible for the Great Depression is one for the historians to argue, Gerald Ford did okay, Eisenhower did okayish, though he did do the Operation Wetback thing. I agree that Abe Lincolin and Teddy Roosevelt are the last great republican presidents.

edit: Ben Carson is nominated for Housing and Urban Development Secretary. His cause may be noble, but he has no experience in government or in that area.

[Frumple]

... how's that working out, anyway? Didn't carson already turn a position down for precisely that reason? I mean, sure, it was pretty farcical he'd refuse a cabinet (or whatever it was) position on basis of lack of experience when he's ran for president, but... still.

[Bumber]

The problem with your rating system (e.g. if you gave 3 points to one candidate, 2 points to another, 1 point to a third one) is that it doesn't solve one of the main problems of FPTP: The Spoiler Effect. e.g. if there were two equally good Democrats, and a worse Republican, under a FPTP or "Star Rating" system, the votes would be split between the two democrats, ensuring that the Republican would win, even though he would have objectively lost against either of the Democrats running alone.

Instant Runoff Voting already exists, and it eliminates the spoiler effect.

e.g. in IRV you might vote #1 Sanders, #2 Clinton and #3 Trump in a 3-way contest. What you're actually saying is that "I want Sanders, but if it comes down to Clinton vs Trump, give my vote to Clinton".

It's not FPTP. You get to rank the Republican candidate as terrible, which makes it harder for them to win. Majority Judgement is almost like IRV, but it doesn't do as well in some of the voting criteria.

[smjjames]

... how's that working out, anyway? Didn't carson already turn a position down for precisely that reason? I mean, sure, it was pretty farcical he'd refuse a cabinet (or whatever it was) position on basis of lack of experience when he's ran for president, but... still.

He did say that earlier where he said (more like an aid said that he said) that he wasn't qualified for a cabinet position, which seems hypocritical because he ran for president, but then, Trump.

As for how it's working out, Democrats are already saying that he is totally unqualified (see my 'noble cause, but no experience' statement), saw that in a tweet on RCPs twitter feed: https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/805782871017422852 (not RCPs twitter feed, but that is the tweet, and theres one more above it).

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

So people have been talking about whether Trump is racist, or overtly racist, or blatantly racist, or pandering to racists, or preferred by racists. I'm not sure what I think, but I know one thing - it doesn't matter.

"What?!" Yep. I don't care if a candidate is a dick (which Trump totally is). It's only their policies (and their image/diplomatic style; they do represent America, and I'd rather not have a war) that matter.

Take, for instance, Jefferson. Jefferson was a dick, AFAIK. He was also pretty damn good at politicking. If we'd thrown him out because he was a dick, we would have lost who knows how much of the Declaration.

Imagine if your favorite candidate was a dick. (Sanders, that veteran woman from Hawaii, dream-candidate who agrees with you on everything, whatever.) What would you say if people screamed "he's/she's a dick!!!" Would you say "it doesn't matter, his/her policies are the absolute best!" I bet you would.

Trump is still an awful president. His policies and image look to be awful, and he's incompetent.

Trump is still an awful person. If he were my friend, I'd get him out of my life posthaste.

But do those two necessarily correlate?