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[Iduno]

Bernie may have won Iowa in 2020, but I don't see him in the White Palace. Our system isn't set up so that His Most Christian Majesty Donald XVII, 61st President of the United States of America and Protector of Greater Alphabet-Amazon-Disney-Walmart need concern Himself with such trifles. Get over it.

He and Bezos hate each other. I'da gone with Boeing or several military contractors. I was thinking Fox was Disney, but not Fox News.

Edit: meaning Fox News (Newscorp, the most dystopian-named company) could go on your list.

[Reelya]

Get over it.

Fuck off with this sentiment. This country has a record of, when being told "this is the way it be, get over it", fixing the issue.

But you don't have a record of that. You have a record of bodging worse systems on top of old systems so that you don't have to get rid of the old systems when they're not longer any good. Watch some John Oliver episodes and try and tell me that USA is a nation that has a record of fixing issues that pop up. You don't.

Case in point: you're basically the only nation in the world that hasn't gone over to metric. And you've had spacecraft explode because of the refusal to fix that issue.

[scourge728]

tbf, the us was never told that the metric system is the way things be

[Mephisto]

Fine. You want to pick some nits.

The issue may not get fixed because no one in this godsforsaken world knows what the fuck they're doing. But at least attempts are made. And I'd say attempting to improve is infinitely better than rolling over and saying "this is how it is, woe is me, nothing can ever change."

[TamerVirus]

Case in point: you're basically the only nation in the world that hasn't gone over to metric.

Nuh-uh! The USA is in good company with...*checks trivia website* Myanmar and Liberia!

[Dunamisdeos]

Case in point: you're basically the only nation in the world that hasn't gone over to metric.

Nuh-uh! The USA is in good company with...*checks trivia website* Myanmar and Liberia!

I legit didn't know that.

[Trekkin]

Case in point: you're basically the only nation in the world that hasn't gone over to metric.

Nuh-uh! The USA is in good company with...*checks trivia website* Myanmar and Liberia!

I legit didn't know that.

The really weird thing is the US has officially gone over to the metric system; our customary units are all defined in terms of metric units, and we label everything in metric too. Our science is exclusively metric, and industry nearly so.

It's hard to fault American conspiracy theorists for feeling like their world is fake when so much of it is deliberately maintained exclusively for their benefit.

[McTraveller]

Metric / Imperial - trivialities. Especially in the era of ubiquitous pocket computers, why does this even come up in discussion?  (I personally like the random fact that miles to km is really close to the golden ratio...)

Regarding electoral college: you can pry that from my (and may others') cold dead fingers.  The electoral college, flawed as it may be, protects us against tyranny of the majority, which is still by far a worse situation than tyranny of a minority.  I do not want to live in a situation where either CA or TX or FL or NY can basically decide the direction of the country.

Until we fix the balances of power and the Senate specifically gets its act together, there is no way I would want such a thing to happen.

[Quarque]

The electoral college, flawed as it may be, protects us against tyranny of the majority, which is still by far a worse situation than tyranny of a minority.

"Tyranny of the majority" - that is basically the definition of democracy. It means that every person with voting rights has equal influence on the outcome. You prefer the current situation, where a large part of the majority has their votes basically ignored? And the ones with bigger influence are not the brightest ones, or anything.. just the ones who happen to live in a particular region.

I'm really curious what makes you think this is good. Could you please explain?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No votes in CA, TX, or NY matter for Presidential elections due to the electoral college. Each goes one way each election, meaning both those supporting the dominant party and those against it cannot affect the outcome. This is also the case for every other state that isn't a battleground state.

FL matters, marginally, but only for the party that wins. This is the case in swing states in general, and even then the most useful votes are only those that turn out unexpectedly for one group or another, as we saw in 2016.

So the funny thing about the electoral college is, the arguments against removing it are in fact all in favor of the thing those arguments hate. Removing the EC frees California Republicans and Wyoming Democrats both.

[sluissa]

No votes in CA, TX, or NY matter for Presidential elections due to the electoral college. Each goes one way each election, meaning both those supporting the dominant party and those against it cannot affect the outcome. This is also the case for every other state that isn't a battleground state.

FL matters, marginally, but only for the party that wins. This is the case in swing states in general, and even then the most useful votes are only those that turn out unexpectedly for one group or another, as we saw in 2016.

So the funny thing about the electoral college is, the arguments against removing it are in fact all in favor of the thing those arguments hate. Removing the EC frees California Republicans and Wyoming Democrats both.

The argument against that though is that Wyoming Democrats and California Democrats often don't have much in common. Probably true of NY Republicans and North Dakota Republicans as well. The EC isn't supposed to be in place for the benefit of the parties (Even though they've adapted to take advantage of it.) It's supposed to be in place for the benefit of individual states. It's not really doing much in that regard anymore.

It's in this awkward half way position where it can't do it's original job, which is allow representative delegates to negotiate and elect a president, and it doesn't do the job people hope for which is provide a adequate measure of the voice of the people.

I do think there's solid arguments for going back to a process where the delegates hands aren't tied and are allowed to do a bit more of a job negotiating about who will be president, but I don't really think there's much chance people are going to go farther away from a popular vote process, so might as well go all the way. Standing in the threshold is not doing anyone any good though.

[SalmonGod]

Newscorp, the most dystopian-named company

(prior to Iowa Caucus 2020)

[McTraveller]

Yes, I do agree the electoral college is in an awkward position.  Yet another example of codifying a method rather than codifying the thing you want to accomplish resulting in trouble.

If we can't get back to the idea of a unified collection of different groups with different ideals working together despite the differences, then it will probably fracture; hopefully peaceably.

[Naturegirl1999]

I’d rather a peaceful fracture than a war, however, wars are much more common than peaceful fractures, given human history

[Rolan7]

Metric / Imperial - trivialities. Especially in the era of ubiquitous pocket computers, why does this even come up in discussion?  (I personally like the random fact that miles to km is really close to the golden ratio...)

Regarding electoral college: you can pry that from my (and may others') cold dead fingers.  The electoral college, flawed as it may be, protects us against tyranny of the majority, which is still by far a worse situation than tyranny of a minority.  I do not want to live in a situation where either CA or TX or FL or NY can basically decide the direction of the country.

Until we fix the balances of power and the Senate specifically gets its act together, there is no way I would want such a thing to happen.

I have no hope of seeing the Electoral College removed anytime soon.  I also don't see the justice of it.  I've previously shown the math on how voters in low-population states have much more voting power per person due to minimum-representation in the House and EC, not to mention the Senate.  The Senate was explicitly designed to mitigate the will of the people, the others are more subtle and seemingly accidental.

It's like if a vote for Student Body President was done by polling each club at a school, giving each club a minimum of three votes for some reason.  Somehow this is supposed to prevent the biggest clubs from dominating the smaller ones... but how does forcing the clubs to vote as blocs do that? (and then some clubs choose to split their votes anyway?!)

And then a bunch of bright individuals create their own one-person clubs which still get the minimum three votes.  They tend to vote together in most ways, wielding great voting power, while constantly wringing their hands about how small each of their "clubs" is.  The big math club gets 20 votes, while the 10 of them only get 3 each!  It's *so unfair*.  The evil math club must be resisted!

And then on policy issues every single one of them has exactly as much voting power as the entire math club (The Senate).  But this is okay because it's on purpose.  Clubs are literally more important than students - that's explicitly the design goal.

Populism is an actual concern, which is why I don't generally complain about the Senate (just the House and EC).  But the EC is not remotely fair to anyone involved, really, and I fail to see what purpose it serves.  Our votes go through a pachinko machine, and we wonder why voters feel helpless and dissatisfied... even distrustful of their representation.  It all feels like a con job, and in a way it literally *is*.  Again, the Senate exists to resist popular opinion.  I just don't think the framers foresaw California and North Dakota interacting in the same union.