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It's funny to me that obviously the "First-past-the-post" voting system is reason for so much problems in the US, from amplified corporate influence to a presid

by Darthy 9y ago

It's funny to me that obviously the "First-past-the-post" voting system is reason for so much problems in the US, from amplified corporate influence to a president who has very little support with the public. Why don't you - yes you who is reading this right now - start a long term grassroots campaign with the goal to move to a better system within 20 years. This would be the most important thing that you would have ever done, and it would make America better, and it would make the world better.

czinck 9y ago
Our (hopefully benevolent) AI overlords will be in control well before the US changes away from first-past-the-post, at least on the whole. The US is too geographically and culturally distinct (for good reasons, not just blue/red states) to implement proportional representation in a way that doesn't piss off everyone. I had written some more explaining why, but the simple fact that you'd need to convince roughly half of US states to vote to give themselves less power means this would never happen. We can't even get reforming the Electoral College through enough blue states, and the President is supposed to represent all states.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The US is too geographically and culturally distinct (for good reasons, not just blue/red states) to implement proportional representation in a way that doesn't piss off everyone. Candidate centered more proportional systems with multimember districts (e.g., STV) could be implemented without substantially changing the state based structure or apportionment of legislative power (if you go with fixed five-member districts for the House, you'd need to increase the quantum of apportionment to 5 seats, which would somewhat shift power unless you quintupled the number of seats.) This would leave the regional distortions in place, but address the limited-time problems of duopoly.

by Darthy 9y ago

czinck 9y ago

Our (hopefully benevolent) AI overlords will be in control well before the US changes away from first-past-the-post, at least on the whole. The US is too geographically and culturally distinct (for good reasons, not just blue/red states) to implement proportional representation in a way that doesn't piss off everyone. I had written some more explaining why, but the simple fact that you'd need to convince roughly half of US states to vote to give themselves less power means this would never happen. We can't even get reforming the Electoral College through enough blue states, and the President is supposed to represent all states.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> The US is too geographically and culturally distinct (for good reasons, not just blue/red states) to implement proportional representation in a way that doesn't piss off everyone. Candidate centered more proportional systems with multimember districts (e.g., STV) could be implemented without substantially changing the state based structure or apportionment of legislative power (if you go with fixed five-member districts for the House, you'd need to increase the quantum of apportionment to 5 seats, which would somewhat shift power unless you quintupled the number of seats.) This would leave the regional distortions in place, but address the limited-time problems of duopoly.