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> In a country with functioning democracy, citizens vote responsibly because they know they will own the consequences if they don’t. I never heard gerrymanderi
by yeukhon 10y ago
> In a country with functioning democracy, citizens vote responsibly because they know they will own the consequences if they don’t.
I never heard gerrymandering until after the 2016 election. It is scary how minority can still win the district election. So first fix that hole, and even getting rid of Electoral College, then we can talk about vote's value.
Cooperative platform seems to be a thing for this journalist. My reading is some socialism in this writing.
> would be to distribute that stock among the people who made it valuable in the first place: Facebook’s users. Like the British retailer John Lewis Partnership did for its employees, the stock could be held in a trust that users directly control and have the opportunity to benefit from.
I am going to say this is tough to do. Employee != users. Granted, there are fake accounts, how do you deal with that? You can't have a fake employee because that's a fraud.
> On the other hand, users might then have at least a seat in the boardroom when decisions are being made about what to do with their valuable, personal data now locked up in the platform.
Same argument above. Users can actually participate if they purchase stocks, but sure the entry cost is high.
I completely agree users should have influence in how a company runs and creates product, i.e. this is how a successful business should be, listen to users and take in the good advice. Let us supposed FB allows users to vote on features and how Facebook should run, then some malicious organization could create a lot of fake accounts to influence the outcome. Are we going to now required everyone to give out passport / proper government ID and verify our online status? Otherwise, how can you take these voting seriously? This is exactly what driving people away from Facebook the fact so many people are paranoid about their online privacy and identity. This is different from taking a user survey and asking WOULD YOU LIKE. Internet is fighting against fake news.
Until there is a solid solution, sorry, it's just idealism. The ideas are exciting but please give me a concrete implementation.
- wang_li 10y agoGerrymandering is required by the voting rights act. An redistricting that changes the racial make up of a district can be challenged in court. So when demographics change over the decades, the districts have to be drawn in more and more convoluted ways so as to not disenfranchise a racial minority.
- yeukhon 10y agoGerrymandering is a practice of taking advantage of the redistricting requirement which can be banned. You can have Jerrymandering if you want. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
- germinalphrase 10y agoThat is certainly one use of gerrymandering. Alternatively, it can be used to reduce the functional impact of minority votes to secure additional legislator seats for Republicans. This is the case in Wisconsin, though the prior redistricting maps have been found to unconstitutionally disenfranchise minority voters and must be redrawn before the 2018 elections. Really, it's ridiculous that voting districts maps are drawn by political parties at all. http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/judges-to-state-redraw-legislative-districts-before-election/article_bff10235-7420-57f0-a185-c0f8939ca9b4.html http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/jud...
- ColanR 10y ago> It is scary how minority can still win the district election. So first fix that hole, and even getting rid of Electoral College, then we can talk about vote's value. The electoral college is intended to give a fair say to minorities. It's a way to prevent a majority from completely overruling a minority.
- yeukhon 10y agoI don't know the intent, but I think it is 2017 and we need to update our democracy. If voting is essential in democracy, and if people should value voting in democracy, then vote should count, not electoral college's vote. The existence of EC is basically asking employees if they want salary increase, so majority said yes, but the management holds the power to say no. In this case, the EC of each state is the powerholder. Certainly in other democratic society the leader is elected from within a party after the majority party controls their version of Congress.
- tanderson92 10y agoNo, that is not true. It in fact was originally intended to protect slavery from the very electoral disadvantages (persons not eligible to vote, very many of whom were in the South) which slavery created[1]. http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/the-electoral-college-was-explicitly-designed-to-protect-slavery/ http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/the-electoral-college-was-ex...
- ColanR 10y agoI read your article. The author has nice primary citations, but ends up shoehorning his slavery agenda into quotations that don't support it. Here's Wikipedia. I think we can agree it's a better source. Federalist Paper 68 describes explicitly why the electoral college was designed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68#Hamilton.27s_understanding_of_the_Electoral_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68#Hamilton.27s... Edit: also, wikipedia addresses the slavery agenda just above where I cited it. Note the three fifths compromise, which benefited the slaveholding states under the EC, and the actual reasons for the EC given in the section I referenced.