There is a fairly strong push for proportional representation (as opposed to districted representation) in some circles. Personally I believe that a combination of both is a good idea. Proportional would help ensure that a diversity of ideas are represented, but without districts I fear rural areas would suffer as the politicians gravitate toward cities, especially the capitol.
One thought I've had is to make bicameral state legislatures base one house on proportionality, and the other on districts. At the US level, the two houses differ because one promotes the popular interests while the other promotes the states' interests. But in the states, most have two houses both representing a given districts interests. Why the redundancy? Why not go unicameral like Nebraska then? Voting for a party rather than a person would neatly solve the wasted vote problem, because your party is guaranteed representation proportional to the support base.
Run-off systems are just as broken. Imagine a "left" candidate and a "right" candidate each with relatively broad support, and a "moderate" candidate with much smaller core support. Liken these to the US Democrat (liberal/left), Republican (conservative/right), and old (Perot) Reform (socially liberally, fiscally conservative) parties, if you will. Both the left and the right candidates would prefer Mr. Moderate over the "other" guy. Intuitively, a compromise that 10% love and 90% can live with is better than an extremist that 55% (a majority!) despise, even if the largest single block (still a minority!) do love him.
The problem is that candidates are evaluated sequentially instead of simultaneously. If you eliminate any candidates before his preferences are fully evaluated, you are cheating the voters! A runoff system only evaluates preferences of those who like one of the two most pluralistic candidates, and only against his biggest competitor. You have not evaluated the right/moderate preferences, you have not evaluated the left/moderate preferences, and you completely throw out the top preference of everyone who liked Mr. Moderate as if they had no voice at all! Everyone who voted honestly for the moderate candidate in this scenario has still "thrown their vote away".
You said that in your system, you need a true majority. The only way you can guarantee a true majority all the time is to have only two candidates. A good political system (one that cherishes freedom) has to provide more options than that. What you are really looking for is a system that puts every candidate in a true head-to-head match against every other candidate. (How can you know that Nader votes would go to Gore, if Nader was never in head-to-head with Bush? And why couldn't we also say that Gore votes would go to Nader? Why does Nader have to be the one to drop out - why doesn't Gore drop out instead?) This is what the Condorcetmethod does - allow voters to express a full slate of preferences, and then all possible head-to-head matches are simulated based on those preferences. Now the definition of "winning" is not "who gets more votes than anyone else" but instead "who wins more voter preferences than anyone else"! That's what we're really trying to measure - honest voter preference - isn't it?
A good system ought to be able to please most people to some degree. A simple plurality system, or even a runoff system, caters to the largest (most vocal) minority. Please please please review the Condorcet method before you promote this uninformed runoff idea any more.
Education. We've got to be vocal, and we've got to tell all those fed-up people that stay home on election day that staying home is not a viable form of protest. They need to go out and vote anything other than Dem/Rep.
Think about this: if the ~50% of people that didn't bother to vote in the last presidential election had voted (for one of the 5 "minor" parties that had a chance of winning) there would have been a very close 4-way race to the finish. The other 3 that would have qualified for at least several EC votes, if every state followed Maine and Nebraska's lead, since you'd only need a few percent to capture one in California.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage.
There probably already is one. Green, Libertarian, Constitution, Natural Law, Communist, America First, etc. The question is, are you willing to stand with them against the two-party Duopoly to make a difference? There's nothing inherently wrong with the Dem/Rep parties as such - it's the system itself that's broken, as it promotes domination by two parties and protects incumbents.
Any system based on "runoff rounds" is going to fail. All the candidates need to be evaluated simultaneously not sequentially. Instant Runoff Voting is just a a dressed-up Plurality system; worse actually, because third parties are given the illusion that they can win. We need CondorcetVoting - cast votes in the same was as IRV, but count them differently. Condorcet is the only system I know of that allows voters to vote honestly instead of strategically - that in itself is a worthy goal for a voting system. Any good voting system must allow this liberty of conscience, and not ask voters to choose the "lesser of two evils".
Almost 10 years now and I've never had problems with the Internet. So why do governments feel the need to control it?
It's the very nature of government to want to control everything in sight, and use its power to expand control over more and more areas. That's why governments should be strictly limited, and held accountable to those limits by the people.
Just leave us the hell alone damn it. It's none of your damn business.
That's what happens when the voting system forces the preeminence of two parties, who then pander to the middle to win votes. You wind up with a single two-headed monster, the only difference between them being (sometimes) the rhetoric. The sooner we ditch plurality voting for something like Condorcet's method, the happier I'll be, for that is the day the Duopoly will die.
Quite honestly, I wouldn't be suprised if it leads to another Great Depression.
Me, neither. The deception of paper money (as opposed to hard currency) and easy credit - both of which are easily manipulated by those in positions of power - is what was responsible for the first one. If you get the chance, find a copy of Remarkable Remedy (ISBN 0962899321) by Jean Carpenter. I couldn't find it at B&N, but did at LFOD.
This is a reflection of those men and not Xianity.
Funny, I say the same thing about the men who started and continued the Inquisition, and many other travesties of history. These people are not "Christianity", they are a mar on the name that many many more have carried and expressed far more faithfully.
Such men have always triggered a considerable amount of resistance and resentment from the religous establishment.
Sometimes "establishments" can rot at the core. "Establishments" are still just people. Don't confuse "establishments" with true Christianity.
Xianity has always had a dark side that would allow it to be mired in theocracy.
As I said, there is no dark side to Christianity. There is a dark side to mankind, which Christianity recognizes: sin. The core message of Christianity is God's love for the world, expressed in Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. There is no dark side to love. It is the dark side of man to pervert any authority given to it for one's own gain. Large monolithic power-weilding establishments are best avoided for this very reason. Most of the Founders of this country knew this, having seen the abuse of power in Europe, and created a limited government for this very reason.
There are even xian factions now in the US that would gladly institute their own version of a Taliban regime if they had the power to do so.
I'm sure there are religious organizations that would love to weild authority for their own gain, just as there are secular organizations that would. But I wouldn't consider these religious organizations "Christianity" any more than I would consider many current government institutions "constiutional". Don't confuse the message with the people that pervert it. Just because our government sucks doesn't mean I think we should throw out the Constitution. Just because many people have hurt others "in the name of Christ" doesn't mean we throw out Christ's teaching.
I'd recommend a book, if you have the time. It addresses the dark things that Christendom has done, but shows that they are far outweighed by the good. It includes citations. There are far more "unsung heroes" than there are "infamous miscreants" if anyone bothers to look.
Except you forget (or are unaware) that many thinkers of that era (including Galileo and Newton, among others) studied the world around them in a scientific manner because they believe God was rational and would create things in a logical way. The advancement of science was because of their religious faith. The bible says to "love the Lord your God with all your mind" as well as heart, soul, and strength. God has never asked for mindless unthinking devotion.
Last time I checked, nobody
ran our culture... It kinda runs itself.
Tell that to the guys in Washington (on both sides of the aisle) who constantly try to define societal norms with legislation. Time to start voting for smaller, less-intrusive government.
For a couple hundred bucks I could get a G3/400, which would let me run Jaguar, and even Panther. If I could just get Jag installed on the beige, I'd be happy for another couple years as it is, and a G4/533 upgrade would stretch it another couple more.
Dang, man! I can't even find a B+W G3 by itself for under $250 on eBay! *sigh* My beige G3 just doesn't cut the OS X mustard, and my budget doesn't come anywhere near a dualie G5.
I read it as "mangled" originally, but "manged" adds a whole new element.... I assume the poster actually meant "managed".
And for those posters who are not familiar with what mange (as in the saying "mangy dog") is, I found some pictures. I've seen it in person, and it's not pretty.
Umm, yeah. Like my main box that has 6MB VRAM. Heck, I've got a machine without any VRAM that (very occasionally) runs X. I trust this would be an optional extension.
Since an AK-47 is meant only to kill, and it is not required to kill game, it has no legitimate use.
Sure it has a legitimate use. Someone's coming after me to kill me. I have the legal right to defend my life. I have the right to employ the force necessary to do that, including an AK-47. Owning superior firepower is a recognized deterrent to aggression. Any weapon is a legitimate self-defense tool. Only people who think that some life isn't worth defending favor limits on gun ownership.
Freedom carries risks. You protect the right to bear arms, and it's true that a few nutcases might use their weapons for aggression - but the vast majority, the law-abiding citizens, will not. Is it worth making the majority prey for the minority to terrorize? Living in fear is not freedom.
Nobody's forcing you to use a "big" window manager. Use what you prefer. My main home computer is 5 y.o., runs Linux and Blackbox. My other home computer is 13 y.o., runs NetBSD and (on the rare instances I launch X) iceWM - fairly acceptably too. I'm always impressed by the capabilities those "little" WM's have while remaining responsive.
Re:Take back your time through grad school
on
Take Back Your Time!
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I went to grad school. Got my MS. I have yet to see more opportunities or higher pay because of it. Most jobs I see requiring a MS also say "or two years additional experience in field". So what the heck did I pay to go to school for when I could have gotten paid to work and get the equivalent experience?
Why? When providers make them more economical than the oil-based alternatives, the free market will adopt them. I'm sure not going to pay more money to get the mere equivalent of something I'm already getting. I'm not so naive that I think government subsidies don't come out of my pocket, too. If these new technologies want promotion, let them get an investor that believes in the long-term ROI to run some advertising campaigns. If it's not worth the risk of a private individual/company, why foist it on a public who have no say in it?
The larger problem is that I can't find any authority for Congress to do this. Until the federal government stops usurping and centralizing power, there will always be the threat of these types of shenanigans.
Don't vote for the lesser of two evils. Vote third party; vote the Dems/Reps out. But by all means get out and vote - don't stay home! That's exactly what the incumbents want.
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There is a fairly strong push for proportional representation (as opposed to districted representation) in some circles. Personally I believe that a combination of both is a good idea. Proportional would help ensure that a diversity of ideas are represented, but without districts I fear rural areas would suffer as the politicians gravitate toward cities, especially the capitol.
One thought I've had is to make bicameral state legislatures base one house on proportionality, and the other on districts. At the US level, the two houses differ because one promotes the popular interests while the other promotes the states' interests. But in the states, most have two houses both representing a given districts interests. Why the redundancy? Why not go unicameral like Nebraska then? Voting for a party rather than a person would neatly solve the wasted vote problem, because your party is guaranteed representation proportional to the support base.
Run-off systems are just as broken. Imagine a "left" candidate and a "right" candidate each with relatively broad support, and a "moderate" candidate with much smaller core support. Liken these to the US Democrat (liberal/left), Republican (conservative/right), and old (Perot) Reform (socially liberally, fiscally conservative) parties, if you will. Both the left and the right candidates would prefer Mr. Moderate over the "other" guy. Intuitively, a compromise that 10% love and 90% can live with is better than an extremist that 55% (a majority!) despise, even if the largest single block (still a minority!) do love him.
The problem is that candidates are evaluated sequentially instead of simultaneously. If you eliminate any candidates before his preferences are fully evaluated, you are cheating the voters! A runoff system only evaluates preferences of those who like one of the two most pluralistic candidates, and only against his biggest competitor. You have not evaluated the right/moderate preferences, you have not evaluated the left/moderate preferences, and you completely throw out the top preference of everyone who liked Mr. Moderate as if they had no voice at all! Everyone who voted honestly for the moderate candidate in this scenario has still "thrown their vote away".
You said that in your system, you need a true majority. The only way you can guarantee a true majority all the time is to have only two candidates. A good political system (one that cherishes freedom) has to provide more options than that. What you are really looking for is a system that puts every candidate in a true head-to-head match against every other candidate. (How can you know that Nader votes would go to Gore, if Nader was never in head-to-head with Bush? And why couldn't we also say that Gore votes would go to Nader? Why does Nader have to be the one to drop out - why doesn't Gore drop out instead?) This is what the Condorcet method does - allow voters to express a full slate of preferences, and then all possible head-to-head matches are simulated based on those preferences. Now the definition of "winning" is not "who gets more votes than anyone else" but instead "who wins more voter preferences than anyone else"! That's what we're really trying to measure - honest voter preference - isn't it?
A good system ought to be able to please most people to some degree. A simple plurality system, or even a runoff system, caters to the largest (most vocal) minority. Please please please review the Condorcet method before you promote this uninformed runoff idea any more.
Education. We've got to be vocal, and we've got to tell all those fed-up people that stay home on election day that staying home is not a viable form of protest. They need to go out and vote anything other than Dem/Rep.
Think about this: if the ~50% of people that didn't bother to vote in the last presidential election had voted (for one of the 5 "minor" parties that had a chance of winning) there would have been a very close 4-way race to the finish. The other 3 that would have qualified for at least several EC votes, if every state followed Maine and Nebraska's lead, since you'd only need a few percent to capture one in California.
There probably already is one. Green, Libertarian, Constitution, Natural Law, Communist, America First, etc. The question is, are you willing to stand with them against the two-party Duopoly to make a difference? There's nothing inherently wrong with the Dem/Rep parties as such - it's the system itself that's broken, as it promotes domination by two parties and protects incumbents.
Any system based on "runoff rounds" is going to fail. All the candidates need to be evaluated simultaneously not sequentially. Instant Runoff Voting is just a a dressed-up Plurality system; worse actually, because third parties are given the illusion that they can win. We need Condorcet Voting - cast votes in the same was as IRV, but count them differently. Condorcet is the only system I know of that allows voters to vote honestly instead of strategically - that in itself is a worthy goal for a voting system. Any good voting system must allow this liberty of conscience, and not ask voters to choose the "lesser of two evils".
Delegate one L point to each continent. The penguins in Antarctica don't get one, and Australia's the smallest so we'll leave it out too.
It's the very nature of government to want to control everything in sight, and use its power to expand control over more and more areas. That's why governments should be strictly limited, and held accountable to those limits by the people.
Spoken like a true libertarian.
That's what happens when the voting system forces the preeminence of two parties, who then pander to the middle to win votes. You wind up with a single two-headed monster, the only difference between them being (sometimes) the rhetoric. The sooner we ditch plurality voting for something like Condorcet's method, the happier I'll be, for that is the day the Duopoly will die.
Oh, I can only dream.... No more "Enhanced For Internet Explorer 5 and Higher" sites!
Me, neither. The deception of paper money (as opposed to hard currency) and easy credit - both of which are easily manipulated by those in positions of power - is what was responsible for the first one. If you get the chance, find a copy of Remarkable Remedy (ISBN 0962899321) by Jean Carpenter. I couldn't find it at B&N, but did at LFOD.
Funny, I say the same thing about the men who started and continued the Inquisition, and many other travesties of history. These people are not "Christianity", they are a mar on the name that many many more have carried and expressed far more faithfully.
Sometimes "establishments" can rot at the core. "Establishments" are still just people. Don't confuse "establishments" with true Christianity.
As I said, there is no dark side to Christianity. There is a dark side to mankind, which Christianity recognizes: sin. The core message of Christianity is God's love for the world, expressed in Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. There is no dark side to love. It is the dark side of man to pervert any authority given to it for one's own gain. Large monolithic power-weilding establishments are best avoided for this very reason. Most of the Founders of this country knew this, having seen the abuse of power in Europe, and created a limited government for this very reason.
I'm sure there are religious organizations that would love to weild authority for their own gain, just as there are secular organizations that would. But I wouldn't consider these religious organizations "Christianity" any more than I would consider many current government institutions "constiutional". Don't confuse the message with the people that pervert it. Just because our government sucks doesn't mean I think we should throw out the Constitution. Just because many people have hurt others "in the name of Christ" doesn't mean we throw out Christ's teaching.
I'd recommend a book, if you have the time. It addresses the dark things that Christendom has done, but shows that they are far outweighed by the good. It includes citations. There are far more "unsung heroes" than there are "infamous miscreants" if anyone bothers to look.
Except you forget (or are unaware) that many thinkers of that era (including Galileo and Newton, among others) studied the world around them in a scientific manner because they believe God was rational and would create things in a logical way. The advancement of science was because of their religious faith. The bible says to "love the Lord your God with all your mind" as well as heart, soul, and strength. God has never asked for mindless unthinking devotion.
Tell that to the guys in Washington (on both sides of the aisle) who constantly try to define societal norms with legislation. Time to start voting for smaller, less-intrusive government.
But it sounds like SCO has contracted a hit.
For a couple hundred bucks I could get a G3/400, which would let me run Jaguar, and even Panther. If I could just get Jag installed on the beige, I'd be happy for another couple years as it is, and a G4/533 upgrade would stretch it another couple more.
Dang, man! I can't even find a B+W G3 by itself for under $250 on eBay! *sigh* My beige G3 just doesn't cut the OS X mustard, and my budget doesn't come anywhere near a dualie G5.
I read it as "mangled" originally, but "manged" adds a whole new element.... I assume the poster actually meant "managed".
And for those posters who are not familiar with what mange (as in the saying "mangy dog") is, I found some pictures. I've seen it in person, and it's not pretty.
Maybe that's an indicator that the good reverend is not very orthodox in his beliefs?
Umm, yeah. Like my main box that has 6MB VRAM. Heck, I've got a machine without any VRAM that (very occasionally) runs X. I trust this would be an optional extension.
Sure it has a legitimate use. Someone's coming after me to kill me. I have the legal right to defend my life. I have the right to employ the force necessary to do that, including an AK-47. Owning superior firepower is a recognized deterrent to aggression. Any weapon is a legitimate self-defense tool. Only people who think that some life isn't worth defending favor limits on gun ownership.
Freedom carries risks. You protect the right to bear arms, and it's true that a few nutcases might use their weapons for aggression - but the vast majority, the law-abiding citizens, will not. Is it worth making the majority prey for the minority to terrorize? Living in fear is not freedom.
Nobody's forcing you to use a "big" window manager. Use what you prefer. My main home computer is 5 y.o., runs Linux and Blackbox. My other home computer is 13 y.o., runs NetBSD and (on the rare instances I launch X) iceWM - fairly acceptably too. I'm always impressed by the capabilities those "little" WM's have while remaining responsive.
I went to grad school. Got my MS. I have yet to see more opportunities or higher pay because of it. Most jobs I see requiring a MS also say "or two years additional experience in field". So what the heck did I pay to go to school for when I could have gotten paid to work and get the equivalent experience?
Why? When providers make them more economical than the oil-based alternatives, the free market will adopt them. I'm sure not going to pay more money to get the mere equivalent of something I'm already getting. I'm not so naive that I think government subsidies don't come out of my pocket, too. If these new technologies want promotion, let them get an investor that believes in the long-term ROI to run some advertising campaigns. If it's not worth the risk of a private individual/company, why foist it on a public who have no say in it?
The larger problem is that I can't find any authority for Congress to do this. Until the federal government stops usurping and centralizing power, there will always be the threat of these types of shenanigans.
Don't vote for the lesser of two evils. Vote third party; vote the Dems/Reps out. But by all means get out and vote - don't stay home! That's exactly what the incumbents want.