Jack Moore
827 posts
@jackmacd84 Not according to Wikipedia’s list of senators from Vermont!
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Vermont’s class 1 senate seat has never been held by a Democrat in its entire history.
Ramin Nasibov@RaminNasibov
What historical fact sounds fake but is true?
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@parasociality Solution: divide the 100M into groups of 100, have each group pick the smartest from among themselves. Divide the winners into groups of 100 and repeat until you find the 1 smartest person.
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My theory is that meritocracy hits a point of diminishing returns.
If you have a group of 100 people, and you pick the smartest one, that person will most likely be both very smart and basically normal.
If you have a group of 100,000,000 people and try to pick the smartest one
arctotherium@arctotherium42
Positive selection on Congressmen increased over time (meanwhile Congress as an institution become useless and retarded).
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@TruueDiscipline I’m amazed that 68-70% of Americans know about the Huntington-Hill method!
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Eh, civic knowledge isn't that different between parties:
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@Alicia_Smith19 It’s just having AI write code for you, even if you don’t understand what it’s doing.
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I don’t know what “vibecoding” is and I can’t say I particularly care to lol
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@politicalmath @eigenrobot I think that position is very much like Middle Knowledge, rather than Calvinism (or Arminianism).
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@eigenrobot My interpretation of Calvin is that God is above the dimension of time and, as such, knows the outcome of all things. The 'elect' are little more than those who are already (from God's perspective) in heaven
It is the concepts of heaven and hell that remain difficult to me
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we dislike calvin because his notion of the elect is repugnant to our democratic mores
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@Alicia_Smith19 Unless/until we adopt proportional representation, gerrymandering is going to be something that keeps happening.
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Yep - everyone frustrated with the VA result should be just as angry that TX Republicans gerrymandered their map, and vise versa
I know it’s “pie in the sky”!but gerrymandering is wrong no matter which party is doing it, it disenfranchises voters and distorts our system of govt
Alex גדעון בן װעלװל@JewishWonk
Gerrymandering is bad. It was bad when Republicans did it in WI, bad when Trump ordered TX, MO, and NC to redraw mid-decade to hold the House, and it's bad now in VA. We're in a democratic-backsliding trend. Both parties need to agree to disarm. Until then, it will get worse.
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@EleanorPoitiers @VeryBadLlama Ok, so it sounds like this is just for appointing the head of state, a largely ceremonial position. Head of gov (eg. PM in Australia, President in US) would be elected separately? Because good luck getting Republicans and Democrats in the US to agree on a head of gov…
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@jackmacd84 @VeryBadLlama It’s precisely the model that was proposed for Australia in the referendum in 1999. Wish it had worked. We have compulsory preferential (rank choice) voting for the lower house and proportional for the senate. 2/3 majority just means the 2 major parties support it.
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there's just no way that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords could be even half as bad as this
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@EleanorPoitiers @VeryBadLlama My first thought is that choosing the head of state by sortition is quite risky, but choosing a parliament by sortition and having them elect the head is state might work?
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@jackmacd84 @VeryBadLlama Anyone who up to date with their taxes is in the lottery, once selected check they qualify as a citizen, if not then pick again until you get one.
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@EleanorPoitiers @VeryBadLlama In your ideal system, how is each house elected? And what happens if a 2/3 majority cannot be reached for head of state?
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@jackmacd84 @VeryBadLlama I hate sortiton and would definitely rather a parliamentary system where the head of state is appointed by a 2/3 majority of both houses sitting together. But even a lottery where a random American is selected to be president would be better than this. Let the IRS run it.
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@EleanorPoitiers @VeryBadLlama I’d love to hear you flesh out more how this would work 😊
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@VeryBadLlama Solid anti-monarchist here and the USA is ripe for sortiton as an election method.
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@theblessedsalt My radical opinion is that redrawing all state lines should be near the top of our list of priorities
You can fix the issues with the Senate but also with policy favoring certain areas (especially in large states, think upstate NY being represented by NYC politicians)
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I’m used to X forcing idiots, anti-Semites, and idiot anti-Semites on me with the algorithm. But X fed me this garbage in my “following” tab. I don’t follow him. Never heard of him. Have no desire to hear from him. now blocking him.
Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.@RecTheRegime
Matt Goetz humiliates AIPAC and what do you know, suddenly the zio-media brings up this pseudo-scandal again.
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The current gerrymandering arms race is really, really bad. We desperately need competitive districts. They’ve already been in the decline over past 25 years, but it’s now just being completely supercharged.
Not good.
Jake Sherman@JakeSherman
Abbott floats eliminating 10 of the 12 Democrats in the Texas congressional delegation.
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@Richard81751384 @RRR33344455566 @NateSilver538 Are you opposed to MMP specifically or any form of proportional representation? Why?
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@RRR33344455566 @NateSilver538 MPP would be impossible to pass and something I am not for. Shortest line is interesting would like to see what districts look like. I still think the chances are slim just because federalizing a states election function would be unprecedented.
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100%. I don't like the rules but those are the rules as defined by SCOTUS in 2019. BTW you can restrict partisan gerrymandering in Congress even under that ruling. But it's easier to do that if you win more seats. Until then it's like an NBA team refusing to shoot 3-pointers.
Seth Burn@SethBurn
The end goal should be to ban gerrymandering, but in the interim, you have to play by the same rules of your competitors. The only other alternative is conceding power to them permanently. That's not preferable.
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@lxeagle17 @DanRShafer The solution is to pass a proportional representation law the next time they have a national trifecta. Any system that keeps single-member districts in place will be subject to gerrymandering.
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@DanRShafer What is your suggestion? What other ways exist to fight gerrymandering beyond this that are even 10% as effective?
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I’m living in the one where Republicans ruined our politics in Wisconsin for a decade through gerrymandering, and it has made me 1000% against it in all forms.
Fight Republican gerrymandering by any other means before ever considering doing the same.
Keith Murphy@murphdogg29
What world is Dan living in?
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@dorkburger84 @MaxNordau No… He was accused of this, but the accusation wasn’t true: ‘Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’ -Jn18:36
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@MaxNordau They forget Jesus was executed for sedition by the Roman occupiers. He was an Israeli Zionist rebel leader
Piedmont, CA 🇺🇸 English
@MZannettis I don’t really like PR, and even with an expanded House you’ll have to deal with states like WY and VT.
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Smaller districts makes it more difficult to enact an extreme gerrymander but to make this really work you need some sort of compactness criteria and a restriction on splitting counties/municipalities.
Tyler Fisher@TylerFisherCO
I support enlarging the U.S. House but this is nonsensical and an example of democracy reformers over-promising. If we had more districts… A. Single district states that can’t gerrymander now would able to. B. Smaller, state-level legislative maps are heavily gerrymandered.
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