8 ms·

> Frankly, I think we should not only abolish the electoral college, but the states as well. I was with you until this part. States gave us a path to gay marr

> Frankly, I think we should not only abolish the electoral college, but the states as well. I was with you until this part. States gave us a path to gay marriage, and allow people to move to different areas that hold different values than the whole nation. I'd suggest trying instant runoff voting before moving to something as drastic as abolishing states. I think IRV would allow people to express their votes and opinions more clearly than the system we have today.

ocfx 11y ago
States arguably also inhibited the path to gay marriage as well. You can't really know that one for sure.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Maybe, but it would not have stuck if passed unilaterally. When we collectively decided to legalize gay marriage, it was very clear there was a majority in favor. This came about by pockets of the government trying it out first. You're overlooking the fact that people and politicians need time to grow and hone their skills. Without states, without giving them some ability to be corrupt, there is no testing ground. Politicians at the national level would not be experienced negotiators because the first step in being a politician would be joining the federal government. And I don't think forcing gay marriage on the US would've been a good idea any sooner even if we'd had a sufficiently progressive president and congress. I have deep sympathy for all the people who had to wait so long for society to officially accept them, but I think even they can respect that we might not be as strong of a unified society if gay marriage had become legal in, say, the 80s, rather than today. A unilateral decision by a president and majority congress could have set the issue back even further.
nkurz 11y ago
I think 'rayiner' might just have meant "it would be preferable that the President be elected by popular vote of the entire nation without regard to state boundaries". While it's possible he was suggesting that the States themselves should be abolished, I think it's just awkward phrasing.
- rayiner 11y ago
  Nope, I think we should get rid of the states and turn them into administrative districts of the federal government. The state governments are hotbeds of corruption, ruled by minority interests because state elections have low voter turnout, and add an enormous administrative tax to pretty much every economic or legal transaction that happens in the U.S.
  - studentrob 11y ago
    Respect for elaborating. > The state governments are hotbeds of corruption, ruled by minority interests because state elections have low voter turnout, and add an enormous administrative tax to pretty much every economic or legal transaction that happens in the U.S. Maybe that needs to happen once in awhile for us to wake up and start exercising our rights again. I don't think the world has gotten any easier to administrate. If anything it's gotten tougher. I like the idea of allowing smaller areas to administrate themselves outside the national constitution. The world is changing more quickly every day, states have worked well for 240 years at preventing dissolution, and if we consolidate more power we risk creating a majority who is unhappy enough to revolt, in my opinion. Our goal is not to become all powerful and ignore citizens who aren't making use of their right to vote. Our goal is to be balanced, and in doing so we find strength as a byproduct. When you seek power as a goal, you have already started down the path to failure when someone inevitably usurps your authority. Sustainability is our goal, and balance is the way.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      Technically, the states have only prevented dissolution for a bit less than 151 years. The previous streak lasted about 79 years. Surely, the Confederate secession qualifies as a dissolution. I am of the opinion that the U.S. would fare better with more states, rather than fewer. If Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, and San Diego all became city-states, the usual civic corruption would have less impact on the statewide governments of the donor states.
  - squozzer 11y ago
mikelward 11y ago
In Australia, which has IRV, it's not clear to me there's much difference. Candidates are still elected to single-member constituencies, and we still get a two-party system little different from the US. Do you think IRV alone helps? What exactly do you propose? Aside: in Australia, which has IRV, gay marriage is still not legal. Yay democracy. /s
- studentrob 11y ago
  > In Australia, which has IRV, it's not clear to me there's much difference. Candidates are still elected to single-member constituencies, and we still get a two-party system little different from the US. How long has Australia had IRV? I don't think it's a magic solution on its own. But I do think it allows voters to more clearly express their wishes without playing as many games wondering what the rest of the voter base will do. That's not democracy. Anyway, IRV does not guarantee your favorite will win and it only gives different results in certain situations, such as close elections. Maybe Australia hasn't had the right circumstances come up yet. There are still a lot of barriers to becoming a presidential candidate, and many good people just don't want that job, like Biden. I'm sure that's true at other levels of government too. I know I would not like to be in a room arguing for gay marriage against some Christians. Or discussing budget for things I don't understand. Or any other number of boring things. And at the end of your term, if you aren't reelected, there's a good chance many people don't like you. Public office isn't glorious while you're there. It's only glorious after you're long dead, and even then you probably had to do something hugely important to be praised. > Do you think IRV alone helps? What exactly do you propose? A good government is made up of active voters. I propose making good use of your voice through the internet, in person, and on the phone and in letters to your representatives. Inspire others to do so, keeping the focus on supporting issues you care about, and less so much about people or particular candidates. Share facts. Don't try to brainwash your fellow citizen by convincing them to vote in your man. Discuss and debate with mutual respect for everyone you meet, because we are all equals, you, me, the president, and those natives in Brazil who don't want to meet anyone from outside their jungle village. The more you can discuss without disrespecting someone's right to their own opinion, the more trustful and open our society will become, and we will advance to use technologies you can't imagine today. I know this because we're living in that future that people from the 1950s couldn't fathom. Use your vote and your voice, or risk losing it. It's your choice.
eru 11y ago
Approval Voting is much simpler, and without the perverse incentives that come with instant runoff voting.
- winstonewert 11y ago
  Here's my problem with Approval Voting: Let's say you are left-wing, and there is a left-wing, centrist, and right-wing candidate running. Do you approve the centrist candidate? If you approve the centrist candidate, you may block the right-wing candidate, but you also may block the left-wing candidate. There is no clear and obvious way for the voter to translate their preference into an approval vote.
  - eru 11y ago
    That's an interesting point. Yes, approval voting, like all other voting systems, requires voters to not only know their preferences, but also to play a little `game' (in the game theory sense of the word). The optimal strategy on who to vote for depends not only on preferences, but also on what you know about the other voters. Polls help here. The nice thing about approval voting is that, even though their might not be one single, clear and obvious way to translate your preference into your vote; but there is a clear and obvious family of ways to do so. And they have nice properties. In-first-past-the-post, people often elect to give their vote to the lesser evil, instead of their preferred (third-party) candidate. In approval voting, you will never have to give a compromise candidate more `vote' than any other candidate you prefer. Ie all families of sensible voting strategies for approval voting look like this: - sort candidates in order of preference - figure out a cutoff - approve anyone above the cutoff The optimal cutoff depends on the peculiarities of the election (polls etc). In practice, people manage this quite well intuitively. (I have run approval votings for small things, like which restaurant to take the team to.)
    - gfunk911 11y ago
      I like the idea but don't agree that all you do is vote above the cutoff. If there are 10 choices and I approve of 3, but I know my 7 and 9 are the only possible winners, I'll likely vote 1 2 3 7.

ocfx 11y ago

States arguably also inhibited the path to gay marriage as well. You can't really know that one for sure.

studentrob 11y ago
Maybe, but it would not have stuck if passed unilaterally. When we collectively decided to legalize gay marriage, it was very clear there was a majority in favor. This came about by pockets of the government trying it out first. You're overlooking the fact that people and politicians need time to grow and hone their skills. Without states, without giving them some ability to be corrupt, there is no testing ground. Politicians at the national level would not be experienced negotiators because the first step in being a politician would be joining the federal government. And I don't think forcing gay marriage on the US would've been a good idea any sooner even if we'd had a sufficiently progressive president and congress. I have deep sympathy for all the people who had to wait so long for society to officially accept them, but I think even they can respect that we might not be as strong of a unified society if gay marriage had become legal in, say, the 80s, rather than today. A unilateral decision by a president and majority congress could have set the issue back even further.

nkurz 11y ago

I think 'rayiner' might just have meant "it would be preferable that the President be elected by popular vote of the entire nation without regard to state boundaries". While it's possible he was suggesting that the States themselves should be abolished, I think it's just awkward phrasing.

rayiner 11y ago
Nope, I think we should get rid of the states and turn them into administrative districts of the federal government. The state governments are hotbeds of corruption, ruled by minority interests because state elections have low voter turnout, and add an enormous administrative tax to pretty much every economic or legal transaction that happens in the U.S.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Respect for elaborating. > The state governments are hotbeds of corruption, ruled by minority interests because state elections have low voter turnout, and add an enormous administrative tax to pretty much every economic or legal transaction that happens in the U.S. Maybe that needs to happen once in awhile for us to wake up and start exercising our rights again. I don't think the world has gotten any easier to administrate. If anything it's gotten tougher. I like the idea of allowing smaller areas to administrate themselves outside the national constitution. The world is changing more quickly every day, states have worked well for 240 years at preventing dissolution, and if we consolidate more power we risk creating a majority who is unhappy enough to revolt, in my opinion. Our goal is not to become all powerful and ignore citizens who aren't making use of their right to vote. Our goal is to be balanced, and in doing so we find strength as a byproduct. When you seek power as a goal, you have already started down the path to failure when someone inevitably usurps your authority. Sustainability is our goal, and balance is the way.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Technically, the states have only prevented dissolution for a bit less than 151 years. The previous streak lasted about 79 years. Surely, the Confederate secession qualifies as a dissolution. I am of the opinion that the U.S. would fare better with more states, rather than fewer. If Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, and San Diego all became city-states, the usual civic corruption would have less impact on the statewide governments of the donor states.
- squozzer 11y ago

mikelward 11y ago

In Australia, which has IRV, it's not clear to me there's much difference. Candidates are still elected to single-member constituencies, and we still get a two-party system little different from the US. Do you think IRV alone helps? What exactly do you propose? Aside: in Australia, which has IRV, gay marriage is still not legal. Yay democracy. /s

studentrob 11y ago
> In Australia, which has IRV, it's not clear to me there's much difference. Candidates are still elected to single-member constituencies, and we still get a two-party system little different from the US. How long has Australia had IRV? I don't think it's a magic solution on its own. But I do think it allows voters to more clearly express their wishes without playing as many games wondering what the rest of the voter base will do. That's not democracy. Anyway, IRV does not guarantee your favorite will win and it only gives different results in certain situations, such as close elections. Maybe Australia hasn't had the right circumstances come up yet. There are still a lot of barriers to becoming a presidential candidate, and many good people just don't want that job, like Biden. I'm sure that's true at other levels of government too. I know I would not like to be in a room arguing for gay marriage against some Christians. Or discussing budget for things I don't understand. Or any other number of boring things. And at the end of your term, if you aren't reelected, there's a good chance many people don't like you. Public office isn't glorious while you're there. It's only glorious after you're long dead, and even then you probably had to do something hugely important to be praised. > Do you think IRV alone helps? What exactly do you propose? A good government is made up of active voters. I propose making good use of your voice through the internet, in person, and on the phone and in letters to your representatives. Inspire others to do so, keeping the focus on supporting issues you care about, and less so much about people or particular candidates. Share facts. Don't try to brainwash your fellow citizen by convincing them to vote in your man. Discuss and debate with mutual respect for everyone you meet, because we are all equals, you, me, the president, and those natives in Brazil who don't want to meet anyone from outside their jungle village. The more you can discuss without disrespecting someone's right to their own opinion, the more trustful and open our society will become, and we will advance to use technologies you can't imagine today. I know this because we're living in that future that people from the 1950s couldn't fathom. Use your vote and your voice, or risk losing it. It's your choice.

eru 11y ago

Approval Voting is much simpler, and without the perverse incentives that come with instant runoff voting.

winstonewert 11y ago
Here's my problem with Approval Voting: Let's say you are left-wing, and there is a left-wing, centrist, and right-wing candidate running. Do you approve the centrist candidate? If you approve the centrist candidate, you may block the right-wing candidate, but you also may block the left-wing candidate. There is no clear and obvious way for the voter to translate their preference into an approval vote.
- eru 11y ago
  That's an interesting point. Yes, approval voting, like all other voting systems, requires voters to not only know their preferences, but also to play a little `game' (in the game theory sense of the word). The optimal strategy on who to vote for depends not only on preferences, but also on what you know about the other voters. Polls help here. The nice thing about approval voting is that, even though their might not be one single, clear and obvious way to translate your preference into your vote; but there is a clear and obvious family of ways to do so. And they have nice properties. In-first-past-the-post, people often elect to give their vote to the lesser evil, instead of their preferred (third-party) candidate. In approval voting, you will never have to give a compromise candidate more `vote' than any other candidate you prefer. Ie all families of sensible voting strategies for approval voting look like this: - sort candidates in order of preference - figure out a cutoff - approve anyone above the cutoff The optimal cutoff depends on the peculiarities of the election (polls etc). In practice, people manage this quite well intuitively. (I have run approval votings for small things, like which restaurant to take the team to.)
  - gfunk911 11y ago
    I like the idea but don't agree that all you do is vote above the cutoff. If there are 10 choices and I approve of 3, but I know my 7 and 9 are the only possible winners, I'll likely vote 1 2 3 7.