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The crazy thing is that in the recent 2024 US election, there were a number of ballot initiatives to replace FPTP, and FPTP won every time. Ranked choice was e

The crazy thing is that in the recent 2024 US election, there were a number of ballot initiatives to replace FPTP, and FPTP won every time. Ranked choice was even repealed in Alaska. The majority spoke, and they said they prefer an "inferior" system. Democracy has a fascinating "self-refuting" quality to it.

int_19h 2y ago
It kind of stands to reason when you consider the incentives in a hyper-partisan environment. FPTP generally benefits one major party over the other - which party it is varies depending on the location, but either way, it means that the same people who generally run the place and have the most long-term political power in it have the incentive to reject reform. And the vast majority of voters aren't going to delve into the details; if the people whom they generally already vote for tell them that ranked choice etc is a "power grab" by the other guys, they'll believe it. These days, such agitprop is often couched in terms that deliberately evoke various cultural issues - e.g. where Democrats are the ones opposing ranked choice, it is often presented as "diluting the power of minority voters".
- vundercind 2y ago
  It admittedly gets game-theoretically a bit less than straightforwardly-good to unilaterally open up one's state's races to more parties when that probably means weakened political influence, in an environment where the vast majority of races are still FPTP and the two-party system will dominate. Plus both of those two parties' leadership-class agree it's a bad idea, because it would weaken their parties and their personal power, so will tend to propagandize against such measures.
digging 2y ago
Democracy is not exactly a single thing though, but current forms kind of do have that quality, yes. "Casting binary votes on specific questions and no take-backs" is actually a kind of terrible model of democracy. There's got to be other ways. If we take "a healthy interpersonal relationship between people with mutual respect, self-knowledge, and strong communication skills" as a model, we can see how two or more people continually grow into the kinds of lives they want to lead by working together, and that's the kind of democracy I'd like to have. Obviously, this doesn't scale. But that doesn't mean we just give up and take the lazy, clearly bad option. We ought to evaluate the situation we're actually in and adapt. I mean, FPTP is obviously bad, but if we're being honest, we should expect a plurality if not majority of people to be unable to recognize a bad decision even when it's presented to them as such. We know that if you run enough emotionally-triggering ads and you will get supporters of virtually any idea - this is basically the concept of manufactured consent. And I think our society can't really evolve in a healthy way until we accept that more widely. (By accept, I mean "beware of", not "exploit".) If you want a program to run efficiently and give you good results, you don't just keep taking lazier and lazier approaches and delete functions you don't understand. You carefully refactor. It's a continuous process. That's what we're supposed to do with our democratic institutions, but unfortunately, we're stuck focusing on specific outputs so much that we can't even understand the root problems.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Here in Colorado, it was interesting to see one of the few things the D and R parties could agree on is that FPTP was the best possible system. I'm pretty confident because without it, more parties would show up if people could actually vote for who they most align with instead of voting for (who they most align with who they believe will have a chance to win the election).
0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
Actually the Alaska thing seems to be very close https://alaskapublic.org/2024/11/19/ranked-choice-repeal-ballot-measure-now-failing-by-just-45-votes-after-tuesday-results-update/ https://alaskapublic.org/2024/11/19/ranked-choice-repeal-bal...

int_19h 2y ago

It kind of stands to reason when you consider the incentives in a hyper-partisan environment. FPTP generally benefits one major party over the other - which party it is varies depending on the location, but either way, it means that the same people who generally run the place and have the most long-term political power in it have the incentive to reject reform. And the vast majority of voters aren't going to delve into the details; if the people whom they generally already vote for tell them that ranked choice etc is a "power grab" by the other guys, they'll believe it. These days, such agitprop is often couched in terms that deliberately evoke various cultural issues - e.g. where Democrats are the ones opposing ranked choice, it is often presented as "diluting the power of minority voters".

vundercind 2y ago
It admittedly gets game-theoretically a bit less than straightforwardly-good to unilaterally open up one's state's races to more parties when that probably means weakened political influence, in an environment where the vast majority of races are still FPTP and the two-party system will dominate. Plus both of those two parties' leadership-class agree it's a bad idea, because it would weaken their parties and their personal power, so will tend to propagandize against such measures.

digging 2y ago

Democracy is not exactly a single thing though, but current forms kind of do have that quality, yes. "Casting binary votes on specific questions and no take-backs" is actually a kind of terrible model of democracy. There's got to be other ways. If we take "a healthy interpersonal relationship between people with mutual respect, self-knowledge, and strong communication skills" as a model, we can see how two or more people continually grow into the kinds of lives they want to lead by working together, and that's the kind of democracy I'd like to have. Obviously, this doesn't scale. But that doesn't mean we just give up and take the lazy, clearly bad option. We ought to evaluate the situation we're actually in and adapt. I mean, FPTP is obviously bad, but if we're being honest, we should expect a plurality if not majority of people to be unable to recognize a bad decision even when it's presented to them as such. We know that if you run enough emotionally-triggering ads and you will get supporters of virtually any idea - this is basically the concept of manufactured consent. And I think our society can't really evolve in a healthy way until we accept that more widely. (By accept, I mean "beware of", not "exploit".) If you want a program to run efficiently and give you good results, you don't just keep taking lazier and lazier approaches and delete functions you don't understand. You carefully refactor. It's a continuous process. That's what we're supposed to do with our democratic institutions, but unfortunately, we're stuck focusing on specific outputs so much that we can't even understand the root problems.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Here in Colorado, it was interesting to see one of the few things the D and R parties could agree on is that FPTP was the best possible system. I'm pretty confident because without it, more parties would show up if people could actually vote for who they most align with instead of voting for (who they most align with who they believe will have a chance to win the election).

0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago

Actually the Alaska thing seems to be very close https://alaskapublic.org/2024/11/19/ranked-choice-repeal-ballot-measure-now-failing-by-just-45-votes-after-tuesday-results-update/ https://alaskapublic.org/2024/11/19/ranked-choice-repeal-bal...