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EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

nytimes.com

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Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#61

Post by wyager »

RKoutnik wrote: post #12
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary. I wouldn't chalk this one up to a design issue, rather implementation (in this case, weighting votes by geographic region). We've submitted a patch and are waiting for enough reviewers to approve: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

> It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary.

She has, in many respects, just as many problems as Trump. If the US used the popular vote, we would just be screwed in a different manner.

This is not a "patchable" problem with some implementation detail. It's a fundamental problem with trying to force hundreds of millions of people with dozens of vastly different cultures to live under the same overburdened legal and regulatory system.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#62

Post by Mikeb85 »

overcast wrote: post #33
RKoutnik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary. I wouldn't chalk this one up to a design issue, rather implementation (in this case, weighting votes by geographic region). We've submitted a patch and are waiting for enough reviewers to approve: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Campaign trails are also designed with the electoral vote in mind. Saying Hillary would have won if the election was based on popular vote, is not necessarily true.

This. Trump optimized to win the election, and Hillary ignored a bunch of states she thought she'd easily win (some of which she didn't).

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#63

Post by ArkyBeagle »

_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

The United States isn't a democracy. It's a Republic. A lot of the apparent jingoism was first WWII propaganda, then cold War propaganda. Prior to that, Americans simply considered the rest of the world to be mostly irredeemably corrupt.

I don't know if we can determine Trump's actual opinion on climate change. He's opportunistically jumping on a bandwagon.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#64

Post by throwaway91111 »

_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

The population limit for democracy is about 500 people. That's why we have a republic.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#65

Post by serge2k »

blazespin wrote: post #37
RKoutnik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary. I wouldn't chalk this one up to a design issue, rather implementation (in this case, weighting votes by geographic region). We've submitted a patch and are waiting for enough reviewers to approve: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

The electoral college is not the problem. If we remove that, than states that lose representation they were promised when they joined should have the right to secede.

Why? They would get the chance to participate in any amendment to abolish the electoral college.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#66

Post by CamperBob2 »

RKoutnik wrote: post #12
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary. I wouldn't chalk this one up to a design issue, rather implementation (in this case, weighting votes by geographic region). We've submitted a patch and are waiting for enough reviewers to approve: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

But how is it any more fair to let three large metro areas override the preferences of most of the rest of the country?

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#67

Post by scrollaway »

erklik wrote: post #32
daenz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say he denies climate change, are you referring to climate change itself, or man made climate change? I know man made climate change deniers who fully believe in climate change. But the term "climate change denier" gets thrown around so loosely (sometimes I wonder if that's intentional), that I don't know what people are actually referring to.

I think most, when referring to "climate change denier" mean to say "anthropogenic climate change denier". Most people who are "climate change denier"s in the above sense do actually believe in climate change in general just not the fact that we have influenced it.

You'd be surprised the amount of people who very seriously say "Global warming isn't real! There's snow outside!".

This is why there's been a push towards the "climate change" wording in the first place.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#68

Post by ArkyBeagle »

_uhtu wrote: post #14
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

The United States can't be a functioning democracy not because of it's size but because our actual political rules are awful. The electoral college, built in gerrymandering, weak restrictions on lobbying, the rules of our democracy are immensely undeomocratic when compared to other first world nations.

Arguments for a plebiscite - a full-democracy - were pretty much shot down in the Federalist Papers and haven't been entertained seriously since.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#69

Post by jonathankoren »

blazespin wrote: post #37
RKoutnik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary. I wouldn't chalk this one up to a design issue, rather implementation (in this case, weighting votes by geographic region). We've submitted a patch and are waiting for enough reviewers to approve: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

The electoral college is not the problem. If we remove that, than states that lose representation they were promised when they joined should have the right to secede.

The electoral college is antiquated and premised on an idea that didn't pan out. Specifically that people would have a primary allegiance to their state and not the federation. This was true since World War I at the latest, and Reconstruction at the earliest.

Quite frankly it's asinine that my town has more population and less representation than 6 states.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#70

Post by [deleted] »

blazespin wrote: post #37
RKoutnik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary. I wouldn't chalk this one up to a design issue, rather implementation (in this case, weighting votes by geographic region). We've submitted a patch and are waiting for enough reviewers to approve: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

The electoral college is not the problem. If we remove that, than states that lose representation they were promised when they joined should have the right to secede.

[deleted]
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