6 ms·

you can be a liberal without being a bleeding-heart. but you can't vote liberal without voting in bleeding-hearts. it's the same for conservatives. sooner or l

by oxide 10y ago

you can be a liberal without being a bleeding-heart. but you can't vote liberal without voting in bleeding-hearts. it's the same for conservatives. sooner or later you're going to have to vote for an absolute anti-science/anti-intellectual/anti-environment/etc lunatic. when partisanship trumps all, almost none of it is so black and white. it becomes shades of grey.

Taek 10y ago
That I think is a huge problem in our government. Why can't I vote for both smaller military and bigger NASA at the same time? Why when I decide climate change is super important do I also have to align with 15 other unrelated policies as well? Parties are all-or-nothing and that's painful. Because I find that no party represents me in more than like 20% of my political positions. I should be able to delegate better.
- jlarocco 10y ago
  That's a self-imposed problem. There were 22 choices for president on my ballot. Until people wake up and start looking at the other 20 parties the current system is what we get.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    It's an electoral system problem. From a game theory standpoint there is no reason to ever vote third party. If we'd had a more nuanced system that allowed voting negative in addition to positive... pretty sure Johnson would have won.
    - BrandonM 10y ago
      I'm hoping that Maine's Ranked Choice Voting[0] (instant runoff) is an answer to some of the problems inherent in our current winner-take-all system. It passed in Maine; hopefully it achieves its aims and spreads. [0] http://www.rcvmaine.com/ http://www.rcvmaine.com/
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - spynxic 10y ago
    "If we'd had a more nuanced system that allowed voting negative in addition to positive..." We must prove that something which may be more complex than our current system is still just as fair (or more fair).
    - 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
      Running simulations on voting systems is easy. Also lots of countries have preferential voting systems. Lots of people in AU don't vote for the major parties. The US system is just crazy.
    - Taek 10y ago
      There are some simple changes which make pretty well understood improvements. For example rank voting. You rank the candidates when you vote. When counting, you count all the votes for each candidate. You eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes. Everyone who had that candidate as a first choice reallocates their votes to their second choice. Repeat until there's a winner. Suddenly it's okay to vote for that third party, because through rank voting you can ensure that your third party vote does not end up propping up the candidate you like the least.
      - spynxic 10y ago
        That's genius! As it stands, if I were to vote for a 3rd party candidate then I'm essentially throwing away my vote. However, if what you suggest were in place then the risk of a meaningless vote is vastly decreased, essentially eliminated. Why isn't it used today?
        2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
        Can't tell if you're being facetious or not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting_system
        75j 10y ago
        Because the people with the power to change it aren't so keen on doing so, I'd guess.
  - ComputerGuru 10y ago
    ..and there were only four on mine. I wrote in pretty much the only write-in candidate (write-ins must still be approved with the state or else they're tossed away) - and I was one of only a handful to do so.
- losteric 10y ago
  I don't know your specific situation, but HN folks tend towards "Money-rich time-poor"... so, donate to 3rd party candidates. 3rd party candidates have enough grass roots support to get started but many struggle with getting funding to get visibility. Not just $5 here or $20 there. Donate to match your desire for a better future.
- laksjd 10y ago
  I'm sorry to say this but your country uses an outdated, deprecated implementation of Democracy. While we respect it greatly for its historical value as one of the first stable implementations, it is no longer recommended for production environments due to its many known critical bugs, most famously the first-past-the-post issue in its election algorithm. Instead we'd recommend one of the European-republic forks (E.g. Germany's federalism 2.0) or, if you're feeling adventurous, one of the smaller forks like 'Direct Democracy' or the nordic-style forks. Please note that those newer implementations have significantly higher system requirements, usually calling for a well educated population that is willing to debate and compromise rationally.
  - lentil_soup 10y ago
    how is Germany's system better in that regard? I still can't cherry pick policies, it is still all or nothing as far as I am aware, no?
    - LeanderK 10y ago
      there are more realistic choices (left, left/green, far left, conservative (but very centrist, even sometimes a bit left-leaning), liberal (unfortunately economic-liberal) and idiots), also if you don't vote for a mainstream party there is a real chance that they might make it (threshold is 5%). In the last years we saw more political experiments in the form of new parties. On local elections there is even more choice, depending on the state. It's still not electing policies, but there is one party proposing such a plan (pirates).

by oxide 10y ago

Taek 10y ago

That I think is a huge problem in our government. Why can't I vote for both smaller military and bigger NASA at the same time? Why when I decide climate change is super important do I also have to align with 15 other unrelated policies as well? Parties are all-or-nothing and that's painful. Because I find that no party represents me in more than like 20% of my political positions. I should be able to delegate better.

jlarocco 10y ago
That's a self-imposed problem. There were 22 choices for president on my ballot. Until people wake up and start looking at the other 20 parties the current system is what we get.
- ethbro 10y ago
  It's an electoral system problem. From a game theory standpoint there is no reason to ever vote third party. If we'd had a more nuanced system that allowed voting negative in addition to positive... pretty sure Johnson would have won.
  - BrandonM 10y ago
    I'm hoping that Maine's Ranked Choice Voting[0] (instant runoff) is an answer to some of the problems inherent in our current winner-take-all system. It passed in Maine; hopefully it achieves its aims and spreads. [0] http://www.rcvmaine.com/ http://www.rcvmaine.com/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- spynxic 10y ago
  "If we'd had a more nuanced system that allowed voting negative in addition to positive..." We must prove that something which may be more complex than our current system is still just as fair (or more fair).
  - 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
    Running simulations on voting systems is easy. Also lots of countries have preferential voting systems. Lots of people in AU don't vote for the major parties. The US system is just crazy.
  - Taek 10y ago
    There are some simple changes which make pretty well understood improvements. For example rank voting. You rank the candidates when you vote. When counting, you count all the votes for each candidate. You eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes. Everyone who had that candidate as a first choice reallocates their votes to their second choice. Repeat until there's a winner. Suddenly it's okay to vote for that third party, because through rank voting you can ensure that your third party vote does not end up propping up the candidate you like the least.
    - spynxic 10y ago
      That's genius! As it stands, if I were to vote for a 3rd party candidate then I'm essentially throwing away my vote. However, if what you suggest were in place then the risk of a meaningless vote is vastly decreased, essentially eliminated. Why isn't it used today?
      - 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
        Can't tell if you're being facetious or not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting_system
      - 75j 10y ago
        Because the people with the power to change it aren't so keen on doing so, I'd guess.
- ComputerGuru 10y ago
  ..and there were only four on mine. I wrote in pretty much the only write-in candidate (write-ins must still be approved with the state or else they're tossed away) - and I was one of only a handful to do so.
losteric 10y ago
I don't know your specific situation, but HN folks tend towards "Money-rich time-poor"... so, donate to 3rd party candidates. 3rd party candidates have enough grass roots support to get started but many struggle with getting funding to get visibility. Not just $5 here or $20 there. Donate to match your desire for a better future.
laksjd 10y ago
I'm sorry to say this but your country uses an outdated, deprecated implementation of Democracy. While we respect it greatly for its historical value as one of the first stable implementations, it is no longer recommended for production environments due to its many known critical bugs, most famously the first-past-the-post issue in its election algorithm. Instead we'd recommend one of the European-republic forks (E.g. Germany's federalism 2.0) or, if you're feeling adventurous, one of the smaller forks like 'Direct Democracy' or the nordic-style forks. Please note that those newer implementations have significantly higher system requirements, usually calling for a well educated population that is willing to debate and compromise rationally.
- lentil_soup 10y ago
  how is Germany's system better in that regard? I still can't cherry pick policies, it is still all or nothing as far as I am aware, no?
  - LeanderK 10y ago
    there are more realistic choices (left, left/green, far left, conservative (but very centrist, even sometimes a bit left-leaning), liberal (unfortunately economic-liberal) and idiots), also if you don't vote for a mainstream party there is a real chance that they might make it (threshold is 5%). In the last years we saw more political experiments in the form of new parties. On local elections there is even more choice, depending on the state. It's still not electing policies, but there is one party proposing such a plan (pirates).