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"Gerrymandering is universal in any political system that has geographic units that demand representation." A unstated assumption here is a winner-takes-all ele

"Gerrymandering is universal in any political system that has geographic units that demand representation." A unstated assumption here is a winner-takes-all election system, which is common in the US and UK, but not other countries, where parliament is proportional, and coalitions are common. It works. A more interesting question would be how to build incentives in a winner-takes-all election system towards reducing gerrymandering, and to discuss what it would take to change away from a winner-takes-all geographical election system.

lkrubner 4y ago
"A unstated assumption here is a winner-takes-all election system" In terms of the math, increasing the number of representatives from each district is the same as making the districts smaller. As the essay said: "As the districts get smaller, then the size of the shift needed (to punish the previous majority party) describes the asymptote of the tangent, converging towards the reality of what the public actually wants." Increasing the number of representatives from each district is the same thing, as the number increases, the shift needed (to punish the previous majority party) describes the asymptote of the tangent, converging towards the reality of what the public actually wants. But there remains some distortion, however small. You eventually get into infinitesimals that have no practical impact, but it is still there. If you have districts that only have 1,000 people each, and each district elects 1,000 representatives (everyone in the district) then the distortion disappears, but if you have districts with 1,000 people, and they only elect 999 representatives, the distortion reappears, however small that might be. Also, from the essay: --------------------- Some nations have fine-grained representation of land but course-grained representation of ideas Some nations have fine-grained representation of ideas but course-grained representation of land You cannot have both, unless you're willing to have a legislature that has something like 5,000 people in it, which is not practical. (For instance, the USA has 50 states, so if we wanted 100 representatives from each state, the legislature would have 5,000 people in it — clearly not realistic.)
- StillBored 4y ago
  You cannot have both, unless you're willing to have a legislature that has something like 5,000 people in it, which is not practical. (For instance, the USA has 50 states, so if we wanted 100 representatives from each state, the legislature would have 5,000 people in it — clearly not realistic.) I think as one of the comments on the article mentions, that this concept is far too easily dismissed. A large part of creating a functioning democracy is actually gridlock when a strong majority can't agree. There are a _LOT_ of advantages of expanding the US house of representatives back out to not only 5k members but maybe 15-20 thousand to match the 30k-50k people per representative that the country was founded with. Starting with the fact that it would cost large organizations a _LOT_ more money to lobby them, vs the amount of lobbying that an individual could perform, and gerrymandering suddenly is a lot more difficult, a representative could actually meet all their constituents, etc. Many of the difficulties are simply wiped out by the fact that we have computers to count votes, and the ability to record and stream multiple debates at the same time. And of course nothing says that any given representative needs to vote on smaller issues that don't affect their district/etc, and it becomes harder to have country wide parties because local ideals are allowed to express themselves. Basically everything suddenly has the option to become finer grained, and the difficulties that presents are mostly actual advantages.
  - lkrubner 4y ago
    So, one limit that I face is that most people won't read an essay on the Web if it is longer than 3,000 or maybe 4,000 words. So it is impossible for me to repeat every idea in every essay. But I did recently (this week) write suggesting a larger intermediate assembly, holding perhaps 5% of the population (the exact number doesn't matter). Please see here: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe... Of course, to iron out a deal, typically some leadership needs to meet, so I make the assumption that there will be some smaller, higher level assembly that allows the leadership to move quickly, especially when facing an emergency. Parliamentary systems have the distinction between the assembly and the Cabinet. But I think having a mass assembly, as an intermediate structure between the general public and the higher levels, is a great idea.
oxnrtr 4y ago
Agreed. Despite the author namedropping some other places, the whole piece is struggling to gain the validity it seeks due to pretending the US is the only country on earth and no one else could have figured out some solutions. Also, the wrong use of "gerrymandering" makes me wonder how much the author actually knows about the topic.

lkrubner 4y ago

"A unstated assumption here is a winner-takes-all election system" In terms of the math, increasing the number of representatives from each district is the same as making the districts smaller. As the essay said: "As the districts get smaller, then the size of the shift needed (to punish the previous majority party) describes the asymptote of the tangent, converging towards the reality of what the public actually wants." Increasing the number of representatives from each district is the same thing, as the number increases, the shift needed (to punish the previous majority party) describes the asymptote of the tangent, converging towards the reality of what the public actually wants. But there remains some distortion, however small. You eventually get into infinitesimals that have no practical impact, but it is still there. If you have districts that only have 1,000 people each, and each district elects 1,000 representatives (everyone in the district) then the distortion disappears, but if you have districts with 1,000 people, and they only elect 999 representatives, the distortion reappears, however small that might be. Also, from the essay: --------------------- Some nations have fine-grained representation of land but course-grained representation of ideas Some nations have fine-grained representation of ideas but course-grained representation of land You cannot have both, unless you're willing to have a legislature that has something like 5,000 people in it, which is not practical. (For instance, the USA has 50 states, so if we wanted 100 representatives from each state, the legislature would have 5,000 people in it — clearly not realistic.)

StillBored 4y ago
You cannot have both, unless you're willing to have a legislature that has something like 5,000 people in it, which is not practical. (For instance, the USA has 50 states, so if we wanted 100 representatives from each state, the legislature would have 5,000 people in it — clearly not realistic.) I think as one of the comments on the article mentions, that this concept is far too easily dismissed. A large part of creating a functioning democracy is actually gridlock when a strong majority can't agree. There are a _LOT_ of advantages of expanding the US house of representatives back out to not only 5k members but maybe 15-20 thousand to match the 30k-50k people per representative that the country was founded with. Starting with the fact that it would cost large organizations a _LOT_ more money to lobby them, vs the amount of lobbying that an individual could perform, and gerrymandering suddenly is a lot more difficult, a representative could actually meet all their constituents, etc. Many of the difficulties are simply wiped out by the fact that we have computers to count votes, and the ability to record and stream multiple debates at the same time. And of course nothing says that any given representative needs to vote on smaller issues that don't affect their district/etc, and it becomes harder to have country wide parties because local ideals are allowed to express themselves. Basically everything suddenly has the option to become finer grained, and the difficulties that presents are mostly actual advantages.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  So, one limit that I face is that most people won't read an essay on the Web if it is longer than 3,000 or maybe 4,000 words. So it is impossible for me to repeat every idea in every essay. But I did recently (this week) write suggesting a larger intermediate assembly, holding perhaps 5% of the population (the exact number doesn't matter). Please see here: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe... Of course, to iron out a deal, typically some leadership needs to meet, so I make the assumption that there will be some smaller, higher level assembly that allows the leadership to move quickly, especially when facing an emergency. Parliamentary systems have the distinction between the assembly and the Cabinet. But I think having a mass assembly, as an intermediate structure between the general public and the higher levels, is a great idea.

oxnrtr 4y ago

Agreed. Despite the author namedropping some other places, the whole piece is struggling to gain the validity it seeks due to pretending the US is the only country on earth and no one else could have figured out some solutions. Also, the wrong use of "gerrymandering" makes me wonder how much the author actually knows about the topic.