Uh, FYI, I'm not in favor of the electoral college, I'm all for direct election of the president. I just don't like the apathetic opinion that the votes of some people don't matter at all. That's only true if you're black and in Florida.
Because one party rule is always a disaster. For example, the democratic government during the 30s and 40s was a complete failure. As was the republican government of the 1860's. And the "era of good feelings" was called that because single party rule by the Democratic-Republicans lead to such internal strife.
It's not like there are safeguards in place to prevent one party tyranny, like the senate fillibuster or the Supreme Court. And it's not like one party rule frees public officials from ideology to pursue good government and leads to reinvention of the political process (birth of the GOP. Reinvention of the Dems and GOP in the 1860's and 1950's respectively.) Clearly, if the public believes in one party's message to give them control of the government, the public is insane and must be stopped.
And I'm telling you to consider the wider good. You want to argue from the act utilitarian perspective (which by the way modern scholars of ethics reject in favor of rule utilitarianism) so I'm arguing against you from act utilitarianism. Higher turn out is better for the world at large. By a lot.
Suppose for a moment that you have a one in a billion chance of producing the difference between a Gore like and Bush like candidate over a lifetime of voting (in reality the odds are much better.) Betting that you do means you'll probably lose some forty hours of time spent voting over the course of your entire life. Now, do some simple arithmatic and you'll find that a risk benefit analysis means that you've given humanity the equivilent of six people living in a green world w/out a war on terror and an invasion of Iraq and pandering to corporate interests etc. And that's with a serious underestimation of the impact of voting. Certainly the chance of producing this better world is worth forty hours of your time spent voting rather then trolling about how your vote doesn't matter.
Obviously it's not a direct analogy to bacon. I was just trying to point out that it's a risk-benefit analysis.
Also, I need to learn how to format.
Even states deep in the solidly republican or democratic heartlands can flip over from time to time. Virginia is IMHO the state to watch this election and it's voted GOP for the last 40 years.
But the location thing is a relavent point. The validity of the electoral college has changed with the change in the country. There's a not unsizable movement to change over to a popular vote.
Not so. Society has long required the intelligent to respect the opinions of people who aren't well educated enough to have those opinions. Safety standards in proffessional codes are an excellent example whereas the political concept is often linked to Issiah Berlin's "Possitive Liberty." So, even if I think that supply side economics is idiotic, if I think that my peer, knowing all I know, would still cling to supply side, I should respect her opinion even while maintaining my own. I might be wrong after all (Roussau's "sovereign will" and Rawl's "viel of ignorance" FTW!) But the danger of what Madison called "factionalism" is that one group might create disporportionate influence so that the inclinations of others in their political society are irrelavent as politics are dominated by the views of a slender minority (federalist paper number 6 is an excellent exploration of this idea.) Factionalism can be avoided while improving the quality of the vote however. I think most people will agree that newspapers dont create any groupthink, although they still educate people.
...the chance that this piece of bacon will put me over the tipping point and give me a heart attack is so tiny that I should just eat all the bacon I want!
So what if my vote has a tiny chance of mattering? The differences, when you consider the vast impact of American elections, are enormous. Just think of the impact that a handful of votes made in electing Bush over Gore. You are a citizen of a goddamn democracy. This caries obligations which you should man up to already. I don't care if a couple hours of your time seems like an unfair trade for living in a free and (fairly) fair society, the chance of the world being a lot less screwed up because you voted is too important to pass on. The needs of the many versus the few and whatnot.
... to a really simple problem.
I want to adjust the velocity that the bullet flies at. Okay. Well, most of the time, that's going to be because I just loaded up with rubber bullets, meaning I just changed ammo, meaning that I could have loaded a smaller propellant via a conventional set up.
But let's suppose I don't want to change ammo but still want to lower the speed. Well, I could siphon off power by letting more of the gas escape without propelling the bullet. We're so interested in decreasing the amount of gas wasted by automatic reloading mechanisms that actually increasing the gas wasted seems like it should be really easy.
Maybe I'm wrong and custom propellant injection is an awesome solution, but it seems to me like the pentagon just bought themselves another expensive toy without bothering to see if they were spending their money well or not.
CO2 might be 95% of the atmosphere on mars, but the atmosphere on mars is only 1% as thick as on earth. The upshot is that CO2 us 10 times as common in the martian atmosphere as on earth. That's a lot but it sure doesn't scream "liquid oxygen!" to me.
Where oxygen is incredibly easy to get is outside of gravity wells! Ceres alone has one tenth the water of all the earths oceans, enough to keep a society drinking for years with plenty left over for rocket fuel. If you want oxygen, just find a small body with plenty of it and you could bring either the oxygen or the entire small body anywhere in the solar system w/ a low impulse engine. It's a lot easier then planetary colonization.
Also, the only real need for liquid oxygen based propellants in to get out of the earth's gravity well. If you launched from the moon or from Olympic Mons on Mars, there's no atmosphere to worry about and your escape velocity is low enough to use mass drivers. Once your actually in space, you want to use a low impulse drive like an ion drive or solar sail.
If you want a sustainable source of any material, look to the asteroids, they have 3000 earth's worth of materials and no gravity well. If you want a quick source, look at the moon, it's got a small gravity well and a low delta v (velocity difference to overcome.) Mars amd Venus on the other hand require a tough trip and decades of habitat building or centuries of terraforming. Certainly don't go to them for resources.
Slashdot Mirror
Constitutional amendment not needed. Most voters like this idea, I think it'll happen in a decade or two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
Uh, FYI, I'm not in favor of the electoral college, I'm all for direct election of the president. I just don't like the apathetic opinion that the votes of some people don't matter at all. That's only true if you're black and in Florida.
Because one party rule is always a disaster. For example, the democratic government during the 30s and 40s was a complete failure. As was the republican government of the 1860's. And the "era of good feelings" was called that because single party rule by the Democratic-Republicans lead to such internal strife. It's not like there are safeguards in place to prevent one party tyranny, like the senate fillibuster or the Supreme Court. And it's not like one party rule frees public officials from ideology to pursue good government and leads to reinvention of the political process (birth of the GOP. Reinvention of the Dems and GOP in the 1860's and 1950's respectively.) Clearly, if the public believes in one party's message to give them control of the government, the public is insane and must be stopped.
And I'm telling you to consider the wider good. You want to argue from the act utilitarian perspective (which by the way modern scholars of ethics reject in favor of rule utilitarianism) so I'm arguing against you from act utilitarianism. Higher turn out is better for the world at large. By a lot. Suppose for a moment that you have a one in a billion chance of producing the difference between a Gore like and Bush like candidate over a lifetime of voting (in reality the odds are much better.) Betting that you do means you'll probably lose some forty hours of time spent voting over the course of your entire life. Now, do some simple arithmatic and you'll find that a risk benefit analysis means that you've given humanity the equivilent of six people living in a green world w/out a war on terror and an invasion of Iraq and pandering to corporate interests etc. And that's with a serious underestimation of the impact of voting. Certainly the chance of producing this better world is worth forty hours of your time spent voting rather then trolling about how your vote doesn't matter. Obviously it's not a direct analogy to bacon. I was just trying to point out that it's a risk-benefit analysis. Also, I need to learn how to format.
Even states deep in the solidly republican or democratic heartlands can flip over from time to time. Virginia is IMHO the state to watch this election and it's voted GOP for the last 40 years. But the location thing is a relavent point. The validity of the electoral college has changed with the change in the country. There's a not unsizable movement to change over to a popular vote.
Not so. Society has long required the intelligent to respect the opinions of people who aren't well educated enough to have those opinions. Safety standards in proffessional codes are an excellent example whereas the political concept is often linked to Issiah Berlin's "Possitive Liberty." So, even if I think that supply side economics is idiotic, if I think that my peer, knowing all I know, would still cling to supply side, I should respect her opinion even while maintaining my own. I might be wrong after all (Roussau's "sovereign will" and Rawl's "viel of ignorance" FTW!) But the danger of what Madison called "factionalism" is that one group might create disporportionate influence so that the inclinations of others in their political society are irrelavent as politics are dominated by the views of a slender minority (federalist paper number 6 is an excellent exploration of this idea.) Factionalism can be avoided while improving the quality of the vote however. I think most people will agree that newspapers dont create any groupthink, although they still educate people.
...the chance that this piece of bacon will put me over the tipping point and give me a heart attack is so tiny that I should just eat all the bacon I want! So what if my vote has a tiny chance of mattering? The differences, when you consider the vast impact of American elections, are enormous. Just think of the impact that a handful of votes made in electing Bush over Gore. You are a citizen of a goddamn democracy. This caries obligations which you should man up to already. I don't care if a couple hours of your time seems like an unfair trade for living in a free and (fairly) fair society, the chance of the world being a lot less screwed up because you voted is too important to pass on. The needs of the many versus the few and whatnot.
... would be smart enough to see that the species is unfit for political society and start their own.
... to a really simple problem. I want to adjust the velocity that the bullet flies at. Okay. Well, most of the time, that's going to be because I just loaded up with rubber bullets, meaning I just changed ammo, meaning that I could have loaded a smaller propellant via a conventional set up. But let's suppose I don't want to change ammo but still want to lower the speed. Well, I could siphon off power by letting more of the gas escape without propelling the bullet. We're so interested in decreasing the amount of gas wasted by automatic reloading mechanisms that actually increasing the gas wasted seems like it should be really easy. Maybe I'm wrong and custom propellant injection is an awesome solution, but it seems to me like the pentagon just bought themselves another expensive toy without bothering to see if they were spending their money well or not.
CO2 might be 95% of the atmosphere on mars, but the atmosphere on mars is only 1% as thick as on earth. The upshot is that CO2 us 10 times as common in the martian atmosphere as on earth. That's a lot but it sure doesn't scream "liquid oxygen!" to me. Where oxygen is incredibly easy to get is outside of gravity wells! Ceres alone has one tenth the water of all the earths oceans, enough to keep a society drinking for years with plenty left over for rocket fuel. If you want oxygen, just find a small body with plenty of it and you could bring either the oxygen or the entire small body anywhere in the solar system w/ a low impulse engine. It's a lot easier then planetary colonization. Also, the only real need for liquid oxygen based propellants in to get out of the earth's gravity well. If you launched from the moon or from Olympic Mons on Mars, there's no atmosphere to worry about and your escape velocity is low enough to use mass drivers. Once your actually in space, you want to use a low impulse drive like an ion drive or solar sail. If you want a sustainable source of any material, look to the asteroids, they have 3000 earth's worth of materials and no gravity well. If you want a quick source, look at the moon, it's got a small gravity well and a low delta v (velocity difference to overcome.) Mars amd Venus on the other hand require a tough trip and decades of habitat building or centuries of terraforming. Certainly don't go to them for resources.