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I once read an interesting article that said in multipolar political systems, coalitions between opinion groups happen after the election; whereas in two-party

I once read an interesting article that said in multipolar political systems, coalitions between opinion groups happen after the election; whereas in two-party systems, the coalition forms before the election. So you get people who think taxation is theft allied with people who Back The Blue. You get people who think life is so sacred abortion should be banned allied with people who'd like to see an AR-15 under every pillow. You get people who think nazi flags and the N word are free speech, allied with people who think books with gay and trans characters should be banned. And personally I'm pro-environment and think nuclear power has a part to play; I think we should help the homeless by increasing the housing supply and letting builders do their thing; that the police should exist but need substantial reform to stamp out corruption and brutality; and that women's issues like abortion and trans women in abuse shelters should be decided by women, not men like me. But I'm in a political coalition with people who think nuclear power is bad, that we need rent control, that we should defund the police, and so on. In an electoral system with proportional representation, largely unrelated views would all be different parties, no party would have a majority, and after the election they'd form alliances to build a ruling coalition. But because of America's electoral system, someone has to take all those views, duct-tape them together and call it a consistent political ideology.

shw1n 2y ago
this is probably my favorite comment on this post so far, super interesting if you can find the article I'd love to read it
netsharc 2y ago
[flagged]
verisimi 2y ago
> that women's issues like abortion and trans women in abuse shelters should be decided by women, not men like me. This got me wondering... Thinking in reverse, are there any issues that you think should be decided by men only? Underlying your thought, seems to be the idea that some people should be excluded from certain political/ideological conversations. Whereas for me, I see all people as individuals, each with a right to their opinions. Ie, I wouldn't start from a point of separation as this bakes in special interests, sexism, racism, etc.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >This got me wondering... Thinking in reverse, are there any issues that you think should be decided by men only? Military conscription and field duties would be an example I can think of. For example, in my European country we have mandatory conscription for men over 17 but there was a referendum a while ago if this should still be kept, and it was funny that women also got to vote on whether men get conscripted or not lol. And guess what, most women (and boomers) voted in favor of the mandatory conscription of young males by quite a margin and unsurprisingly the only ones who voted against but got outvoted, were the young men.
  - verisimi 2y ago
    Yes this discriminates, but your example illustrates the exact reverse way to what I meant. Being subject to conscription is like a negative right/loss of rights - men are being forced to potentially put their lives on the line. Can you think of a female equivalent where females are ordered by the government to put themselves in harm's way? In both cases it seems like the discrimination is not in favour of men. Apparently men ought not to get a say in "women's issues", but it is also right that men be forced to put their lives on the line. If that is correct, it is the case that men have less rights.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      If absolute gender equality is what we're after, I think the premise is flawed form the start. Men have less rights by nature/biology because they are expendable (women are the reproductory bottleneck of the species) and they are the only gender with the physique optimized for physical fighting and hard labor, hence the famous line "women and children first". We can say it's unfair and imbalanced but that's not gonna change biology and the status quo when push comes to shove and an enemy invades or a natural disaster hits and human meat is needed for the grinder, hence why there's no sympathy towards men and why much less societal help available to men in need (men have 10x the suicide and homelessness rates than women). Men and women can never be equal in absolute terms outside an utopia of peace and prosperity, because evolutionary biology and gender dysmorphia has engineered our bodies to be good at completely different tasks meant to complement each other in order to ensure the survival and procreation of the tribe/species.
myrmidon 2y ago
This is a very interesting take, and I agree with your perspective. I think the "anti-woke" messaging was a particularly effective example, because in reality this means completely different things to many voters (some of those contradictory). Your nuclear position is interesting, and has become significantly more common over the last decade I feel. Personally, I disagree-- In my view, nuclear power is not on a trajectory where it is ever gonna be competitive (levelized cost) with renewable power. This will lead to renewables "ruining" electricity spot prices whenever they are available which is very bad for nuclear power economics. Nuclear power also shares basically the same drawback with renewables that it wants to be paired with peaker plants for dispatchability (instead of operating in load-following mode itself), but renewables basically just do it cheaper. At this point, it would basically take a miracle for me to believe in nuclear power again (a very cheap, safe, simple, clean, quick-to-build reactor design) but I don't see this happening any time soon (and honestly the exact same argument applies to fusion power even more strongly-- I think that is an interesting research direction that will never find major a application in power generation). I will concede however that nuclear power that was built 10-30 years ago (before renewables were really competitive) was and is helpful to reduce CO2 emissions.
pjc50 2y ago
[flagged]
- roenxi 2y ago
  > The anti-abortion people do not care about actual outcomes. There's no interest in safer obstetrics or early years care or preventing school shootings, they're hyper-focused only on abortion. That is consistent with the position. School shootings are explicitly banned and there'd be a strong consensus that obstetrics should be done to a high standard. Someone has to draw a line between sperm and human for when the anti-murder laws kick in. The line is fundamentally arbitrary except for 2 logical points (moment of conception and actual birth [0]) that are broadly unpopular choices. It is certainly easy to disagree with any particular line choice but it is all but impossible to rank them theoretically except by letting the political process play out. [0] Theoretically we could even find a third one and draw the line some time significantly after birth when awareness really starts to build up; but that is a can of worms no-one wants to open because babies are very lovable and probably protected by hard-coded emotions built up from evolutionary pressure.
- jeffhuys 2y ago
  It's really simple to me: - abortion should only be allowed if needed because of health or exceptional cases like rape - abortion should not be used as a form of birth control, use condoms or the morning-after pill I'm fine with states deciding the details. I think it should be mandated that it's always allowed when health is in danger (I believe this is already true), and it should be mandated that even if a state allows abortion "just by choice" (so, as birth control), it should definitely not be allowed after 9 months even. > The anti-abortion people do not care about actual outcomes. I'm anti-abortion, but I really, really do care about outcomes. So if you want to discuss this with me, I'd love to. - > You get people who think life is so sacred abortion should be banned allied with people who'd like to see an AR-15 under every pillow I don't understand the problem with this... Not wanting to kill unborn life but still wanting to be able to protect yourself and your family when someone breaks into your house. It's statements like this that make me question the intellectual honesty of people. It doesn't take much thinking to understand it, right?
JKCalhoun 2y ago
> But I'm in a political coalition with people who think nuclear power is bad, that we need rent control, that we should defund the police, and so on. I don't think that's true though. I think you're just listening to the loudest voices.
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  Not even the loudest voices. Biden said "fund the police" at a State of the Union address. The people with the most power and influence within the left wing of US politics are not in support of defunding the police.

shw1n 2y ago

this is probably my favorite comment on this post so far, super interesting if you can find the article I'd love to read it

netsharc 2y ago

[flagged]

verisimi 2y ago

> that women's issues like abortion and trans women in abuse shelters should be decided by women, not men like me. This got me wondering... Thinking in reverse, are there any issues that you think should be decided by men only? Underlying your thought, seems to be the idea that some people should be excluded from certain political/ideological conversations. Whereas for me, I see all people as individuals, each with a right to their opinions. Ie, I wouldn't start from a point of separation as this bakes in special interests, sexism, racism, etc.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
>This got me wondering... Thinking in reverse, are there any issues that you think should be decided by men only? Military conscription and field duties would be an example I can think of. For example, in my European country we have mandatory conscription for men over 17 but there was a referendum a while ago if this should still be kept, and it was funny that women also got to vote on whether men get conscripted or not lol. And guess what, most women (and boomers) voted in favor of the mandatory conscription of young males by quite a margin and unsurprisingly the only ones who voted against but got outvoted, were the young men.
- verisimi 2y ago
  Yes this discriminates, but your example illustrates the exact reverse way to what I meant. Being subject to conscription is like a negative right/loss of rights - men are being forced to potentially put their lives on the line. Can you think of a female equivalent where females are ordered by the government to put themselves in harm's way? In both cases it seems like the discrimination is not in favour of men. Apparently men ought not to get a say in "women's issues", but it is also right that men be forced to put their lives on the line. If that is correct, it is the case that men have less rights.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    If absolute gender equality is what we're after, I think the premise is flawed form the start. Men have less rights by nature/biology because they are expendable (women are the reproductory bottleneck of the species) and they are the only gender with the physique optimized for physical fighting and hard labor, hence the famous line "women and children first". We can say it's unfair and imbalanced but that's not gonna change biology and the status quo when push comes to shove and an enemy invades or a natural disaster hits and human meat is needed for the grinder, hence why there's no sympathy towards men and why much less societal help available to men in need (men have 10x the suicide and homelessness rates than women). Men and women can never be equal in absolute terms outside an utopia of peace and prosperity, because evolutionary biology and gender dysmorphia has engineered our bodies to be good at completely different tasks meant to complement each other in order to ensure the survival and procreation of the tribe/species.

myrmidon 2y ago

This is a very interesting take, and I agree with your perspective. I think the "anti-woke" messaging was a particularly effective example, because in reality this means completely different things to many voters (some of those contradictory). Your nuclear position is interesting, and has become significantly more common over the last decade I feel. Personally, I disagree-- In my view, nuclear power is not on a trajectory where it is ever gonna be competitive (levelized cost) with renewable power. This will lead to renewables "ruining" electricity spot prices whenever they are available which is very bad for nuclear power economics. Nuclear power also shares basically the same drawback with renewables that it wants to be paired with peaker plants for dispatchability (instead of operating in load-following mode itself), but renewables basically just do it cheaper. At this point, it would basically take a miracle for me to believe in nuclear power again (a very cheap, safe, simple, clean, quick-to-build reactor design) but I don't see this happening any time soon (and honestly the exact same argument applies to fusion power even more strongly-- I think that is an interesting research direction that will never find major a application in power generation). I will concede however that nuclear power that was built 10-30 years ago (before renewables were really competitive) was and is helpful to reduce CO2 emissions.

pjc50 2y ago

[flagged]

roenxi 2y ago
> The anti-abortion people do not care about actual outcomes. There's no interest in safer obstetrics or early years care or preventing school shootings, they're hyper-focused only on abortion. That is consistent with the position. School shootings are explicitly banned and there'd be a strong consensus that obstetrics should be done to a high standard. Someone has to draw a line between sperm and human for when the anti-murder laws kick in. The line is fundamentally arbitrary except for 2 logical points (moment of conception and actual birth [0]) that are broadly unpopular choices. It is certainly easy to disagree with any particular line choice but it is all but impossible to rank them theoretically except by letting the political process play out. [0] Theoretically we could even find a third one and draw the line some time significantly after birth when awareness really starts to build up; but that is a can of worms no-one wants to open because babies are very lovable and probably protected by hard-coded emotions built up from evolutionary pressure.
jeffhuys 2y ago
It's really simple to me: - abortion should only be allowed if needed because of health or exceptional cases like rape - abortion should not be used as a form of birth control, use condoms or the morning-after pill I'm fine with states deciding the details. I think it should be mandated that it's always allowed when health is in danger (I believe this is already true), and it should be mandated that even if a state allows abortion "just by choice" (so, as birth control), it should definitely not be allowed after 9 months even. > The anti-abortion people do not care about actual outcomes. I'm anti-abortion, but I really, really do care about outcomes. So if you want to discuss this with me, I'd love to. - > You get people who think life is so sacred abortion should be banned allied with people who'd like to see an AR-15 under every pillow I don't understand the problem with this... Not wanting to kill unborn life but still wanting to be able to protect yourself and your family when someone breaks into your house. It's statements like this that make me question the intellectual honesty of people. It doesn't take much thinking to understand it, right?

JKCalhoun 2y ago

> But I'm in a political coalition with people who think nuclear power is bad, that we need rent control, that we should defund the police, and so on. I don't think that's true though. I think you're just listening to the loudest voices.

UncleMeat 2y ago
Not even the loudest voices. Biden said "fund the police" at a State of the Union address. The people with the most power and influence within the left wing of US politics are not in support of defunding the police.