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My view of this for the last decade or so is that it's the result of First Past the Post political systems. They converge to a binary choice in every question a

My view of this for the last decade or so is that it's the result of First Past the Post political systems. They converge to a binary choice in every question and the identity building starts from there. Every political question is a gray scale, but the system does not allow that to be represented.

jpgvm 5y ago
I wish this was the case but as an Australian citizen with one of the worlds best designed voting systems we still fall prey to mostly binary politics. There are more powerful factors at work here. Some combination of exploitation of mass hysteria by politics, some amplification of that by modern technology/social media and some slow degradation of respect for custom and tradition that prevented such behaviour by politicians in the past. The culmination of this is modern politics in US/UK/Australia, all of which are frankly embarrassing for intellectual citizens of all three but somehow staggeringly effective in elections.
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  Australia still is First Past the Post in essence for the lower house, a bit better in the senate. Just see the number of seats the greens have compared to their vote, 10.23% of the vote led to 0.66% of the seats in 2019. The system does help intent to be shown by the first vote, but also shows that it does not lead to power. This is why all discussions about STV, instant runoff, multiple rounds are essentially irrelevant. They may help show intent, but does not change the status quo.
  - caf 5y ago
    You are confusing First Past the Post with Single Member Electorates. At the most recent House election, 12 electorates were won by the candidate that was in second-place based on the first preferences (ie, the result differed from that under FPTP). Interestingly the Greens' seat was not one of these - Bandt lead on the first preferences and would have won under FPTP. Single Member Electorates will often lead to overall non-proportional outcomes.

jpgvm 5y ago

I wish this was the case but as an Australian citizen with one of the worlds best designed voting systems we still fall prey to mostly binary politics. There are more powerful factors at work here. Some combination of exploitation of mass hysteria by politics, some amplification of that by modern technology/social media and some slow degradation of respect for custom and tradition that prevented such behaviour by politicians in the past. The culmination of this is modern politics in US/UK/Australia, all of which are frankly embarrassing for intellectual citizens of all three but somehow staggeringly effective in elections.

Gwypaas 5y ago
Australia still is First Past the Post in essence for the lower house, a bit better in the senate. Just see the number of seats the greens have compared to their vote, 10.23% of the vote led to 0.66% of the seats in 2019. The system does help intent to be shown by the first vote, but also shows that it does not lead to power. This is why all discussions about STV, instant runoff, multiple rounds are essentially irrelevant. They may help show intent, but does not change the status quo.
- caf 5y ago
  You are confusing First Past the Post with Single Member Electorates. At the most recent House election, 12 electorates were won by the candidate that was in second-place based on the first preferences (ie, the result differed from that under FPTP). Interestingly the Greens' seat was not one of these - Bandt lead on the first preferences and would have won under FPTP. Single Member Electorates will often lead to overall non-proportional outcomes.