4 ms·

> Its a compromise that while political power is still very much centered in Reykjavík, they can't blindly ignore the country population. I don't understand ar

by ajross 3y ago

> Its a compromise that while political power is still very much centered in Reykjavík, they can't blindly ignore the country population. I don't understand arguments like this. This logic is symmetric! Can't Reykjavík residents equally claim that their interests are being "blindly ignored" by the rural population who rule them? Isn't there a "power imbalance" at work already? Why does cutting the population based on location make sense to "reduce the political power imbalance" but not by other demographic metrics like gender or age or religion which also correlate with political preference? This argument[1] seems to take as a prior that not just any minority group, but specific minority groups[2] need to be given power disproportionate to its population? If someone tried to deploy this logic in favor of another minority group (Catholics? Men? Trade workers?) you'd agree that would be wrong, right? [1] Which we all know isn't about Iceland at all. [2] Suspiciously, always groups aligned with the person making the argument.

rayiner 3y ago
Iceland has multiple levels of government (national and municipal). A wide range of things are handled at the municipal level. Folks in Reykjavík can govern themselves by simple majority vote. What they need more than a majority for us to govern folks outside Reykjavík. Location is special—because it’s special. It’s incorrect to think of it as just another characteristic of individuals. Humans live in their geographical surroundings, and location creates natural boundaries and limits on people. I’m from Bangladesh, which in my parent’s lifetime declared war on Pakistan—a country where people share the same race and religion—so it could govern itself instead of being a far-flung province. In that case Bangladesh actually had a slight majority of the combined population, but it wouldn’t have been any different if it had 1/4 of the population. The point was to make to make the voting more closely associated with the land.
- ajross 3y ago
  > Iceland has multiple levels of government (national and municipal). A wide range of things are handled at the municipal level. Folks in Reykjavík can govern themselves by simple majority vote. What they need more than a majority for us to govern folks outside Reykjavík. Again: Rural Iceland can govern itself at the municipal level. Folks outside Reykjavík can govern themselves. What they need more than a majority for is to govern folks in Reykjavík. Get the point? It's symmetric! Why is one direction right and one wrong? Why do rural Icelanders[1] matter more in your calculus? If the population inversion flipped and there were fewer Reykjavíkers than outsiders, would you really be making the same argument to reduce the voting power of the rural population? So we get arguments like this: > Location is special—because it’s special. Yeah, pretty much. This is just a losing argument, logically, and you know it. This is like when left wingers try to go to bat for affirmative action as a permanent policy instead of a temporary workaround: it just doesn't work. We all agree that everyone should be equal, right? Right? So one person, one vote is the clear goal here. Trying to construct policy arguments around bad logic is poor governance. [1] And, again, we all know we're not talking about Iceland.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    > If the population inversion flipped and there were fewer Reykjavíkers than outsiders, would you really be making the same argument to reduce the voting power of the rural population? Yes. I don’t know about the history of this in Iceland. But in the US, voter distribution helped Democrats for much of the 20th century, because rural voters were a key part of the FDR coalition. JFK won by just 200,000 popular votes, but over 80 electoral votes. Biden had a popular vote margin of 4.5 points compared to JFK’s 0.2 points. But JFK had a bigger electoral vote margin than Biden. Obama, who did well with rural voters, could have lost the 2012 popular vote to Romney and still won the electoral vote. Republicans weren’t complaining about the electoral college back then. > Yeah, pretty much. This is just a losing argument, logically, and you know it. It’s the winning argument. We have an entire world based on location. People fight wars so they can align voting with location. The minority view on this issue are the individualists, why everyone else attaches so much importance to soil.
    - ajross 3y ago
      > People fight wars so they can align voting with location. This is a needless digression, and it's clear you won't change your mind. But FWIW, this is 100% backwards. Wars are over "location" because by definition it's not possible to fight a war to win voting share or opinions[1]. War can win territory, period. That's all it does. So we've traditionally aligned our political boundaries with whatever lines were drawn up by the last conqueror to come through the region. That's a bug! Democracy is the fix for this disaster. You're claiming the disaster is a feature! [1] It is possible, however, to use the tools of war to affect demographic distributions. We call that "genocide", and I really don't think you want to be aligning your logic in this direction.
      - rayiner 3y ago
        > This is a needless digression, and it's clear you won't change your mind. It’s not a digression. “Democracy” isn’t just about voting mechanisms. People all over the world care about self determination—governing whatever they consider to be their own society. > Wars are over "location" because by definition it's not possible to fight a war to win voting share or opinions “Opinions” aren’t what glue people together. And the things that do glue people together are locational, for the same reason wars are. As long as humans exist primarily in meat space, geographic boundaries will also naturally reflect people’s families, neighbors, workplaces, recreational places, etc. Particular boundaries might be redrawn, etc., but the relevant boundaries will be geographic. The average American lives only 18 miles from their mother. 58% of Americans live in the state where they were born. 1 in 6 have never left their home stage. > Democracy is the fix for this disaster. You're claiming the disaster is a feature! Democracy doesn’t fix the problem, because democracy presupposes that a particular group of people have consented to being part of a body politic on certain terms. “I trust you enough to participate in joint decision making with you” is a threshold issue, before you get to “what is the mathematical technique for making a decision jointly.”

by ajross 3y ago

rayiner 3y ago

Iceland has multiple levels of government (national and municipal). A wide range of things are handled at the municipal level. Folks in Reykjavík can govern themselves by simple majority vote. What they need more than a majority for us to govern folks outside Reykjavík. Location is special—because it’s special. It’s incorrect to think of it as just another characteristic of individuals. Humans live in their geographical surroundings, and location creates natural boundaries and limits on people. I’m from Bangladesh, which in my parent’s lifetime declared war on Pakistan—a country where people share the same race and religion—so it could govern itself instead of being a far-flung province. In that case Bangladesh actually had a slight majority of the combined population, but it wouldn’t have been any different if it had 1/4 of the population. The point was to make to make the voting more closely associated with the land.

ajross 3y ago
> Iceland has multiple levels of government (national and municipal). A wide range of things are handled at the municipal level. Folks in Reykjavík can govern themselves by simple majority vote. What they need more than a majority for us to govern folks outside Reykjavík. Again: Rural Iceland can govern itself at the municipal level. Folks outside Reykjavík can govern themselves. What they need more than a majority for is to govern folks in Reykjavík. Get the point? It's symmetric! Why is one direction right and one wrong? Why do rural Icelanders[1] matter more in your calculus? If the population inversion flipped and there were fewer Reykjavíkers than outsiders, would you really be making the same argument to reduce the voting power of the rural population? So we get arguments like this: > Location is special—because it’s special. Yeah, pretty much. This is just a losing argument, logically, and you know it. This is like when left wingers try to go to bat for affirmative action as a permanent policy instead of a temporary workaround: it just doesn't work. We all agree that everyone should be equal, right? Right? So one person, one vote is the clear goal here. Trying to construct policy arguments around bad logic is poor governance. [1] And, again, we all know we're not talking about Iceland.
- rayiner 3y ago
  > If the population inversion flipped and there were fewer Reykjavíkers than outsiders, would you really be making the same argument to reduce the voting power of the rural population? Yes. I don’t know about the history of this in Iceland. But in the US, voter distribution helped Democrats for much of the 20th century, because rural voters were a key part of the FDR coalition. JFK won by just 200,000 popular votes, but over 80 electoral votes. Biden had a popular vote margin of 4.5 points compared to JFK’s 0.2 points. But JFK had a bigger electoral vote margin than Biden. Obama, who did well with rural voters, could have lost the 2012 popular vote to Romney and still won the electoral vote. Republicans weren’t complaining about the electoral college back then. > Yeah, pretty much. This is just a losing argument, logically, and you know it. It’s the winning argument. We have an entire world based on location. People fight wars so they can align voting with location. The minority view on this issue are the individualists, why everyone else attaches so much importance to soil.
  - ajross 3y ago
    > People fight wars so they can align voting with location. This is a needless digression, and it's clear you won't change your mind. But FWIW, this is 100% backwards. Wars are over "location" because by definition it's not possible to fight a war to win voting share or opinions[1]. War can win territory, period. That's all it does. So we've traditionally aligned our political boundaries with whatever lines were drawn up by the last conqueror to come through the region. That's a bug! Democracy is the fix for this disaster. You're claiming the disaster is a feature! [1] It is possible, however, to use the tools of war to affect demographic distributions. We call that "genocide", and I really don't think you want to be aligning your logic in this direction.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      > This is a needless digression, and it's clear you won't change your mind. It’s not a digression. “Democracy” isn’t just about voting mechanisms. People all over the world care about self determination—governing whatever they consider to be their own society. > Wars are over "location" because by definition it's not possible to fight a war to win voting share or opinions “Opinions” aren’t what glue people together. And the things that do glue people together are locational, for the same reason wars are. As long as humans exist primarily in meat space, geographic boundaries will also naturally reflect people’s families, neighbors, workplaces, recreational places, etc. Particular boundaries might be redrawn, etc., but the relevant boundaries will be geographic. The average American lives only 18 miles from their mother. 58% of Americans live in the state where they were born. 1 in 6 have never left their home stage. > Democracy is the fix for this disaster. You're claiming the disaster is a feature! Democracy doesn’t fix the problem, because democracy presupposes that a particular group of people have consented to being part of a body politic on certain terms. “I trust you enough to participate in joint decision making with you” is a threshold issue, before you get to “what is the mathematical technique for making a decision jointly.”