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A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

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Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#81

Post by mschuster91 »

weberc2 wrote: post #69
crazygringo wrote: post #9

It's clever, but it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem isn't with strong preferences -- it's with extreme preferences. If there were 7 versions of a bill (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) ranging from ultra-conservative (a "A") to ultra-liberal (a "G"), in a polarized community people could still be spending the minimum 1 point each on the A's or G's and none on B-F. The problem with politics today isn't that people are si…

> it's that the natural evolution of the two-party system has forced us into choices that are more polarized than ever before in the history of the US I don't think this is supported by the evidence. Polarization in the US hasn't been unidirectional (there are many long periods during which the US became less polarized) and the recent massive spike is, well, a recent spike--it's not a natural evolution at all. Someth…

> Something happened in the last twenty years or so that increased our polarization.

I'd expand the timeframe to 30 years and say the biggest contributors to this are the rise of neoliberal politics combined with globalization leaving a lot of working class people "behind" while corporations made ever more and more profits, combined with the rise of the Internet where the most outrageous content gets the most clicks/likes/eyeball-time with next to no institutions to provide as "quality filter".

Stuff like antivaxxers, flat earthers, "great exchange of the white people" and other conspiracy bollocks was relegated to physical mailings of fringe groups naturally limiting its distribution, nowadays the reach capability is in the millions for everyone.

In addition, countless fuck-ups (aided by propaganda) demolished trust into journalism and experts in general, which led to the erosion of fact-based viewpoints as the base for democratic discourse.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#82

Post by logfromblammo »

mc32 wrote: post #2

Looks like this would favor highly coordinated groups to have outsized influence over poorly coordinated groups. So people who vote in isolation have less influence than people who organize and vote as a bloc. I think it also means that places where one party predominates would require the minority party to be highly coordinated in order to have any chance with one single silver “bullet” whereas the dominant party ca…

The voting method breaks down entirely when you consider strategic voting by groups, and multiple-repetitions game strategies.

100 players would form a voting cartel, and each member would spread their votes out among all the members' favorite issues. Reneging on the cartel's rules means that the entire cartel retaliates on the next vote.

So each party has exactly 100 issues in their platform, and no individual voter can do anything to stop them.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#83

Post by jdpedrie »

larrydag wrote: post #35
crazygringo wrote: post #9

It's clever, but it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem isn't with strong preferences -- it's with extreme preferences. If there were 7 versions of a bill (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) ranging from ultra-conservative (a "A") to ultra-liberal (a "G"), in a polarized community people could still be spending the minimum 1 point each on the A's or G's and none on B-F. The problem with politics today isn't that people are si…

I agree. For this "tribal" reason of picking a party I've been more inclined to have term limits on Congress.

Pick your poison. I live in a state with strong term limits on the state legislature (MI), and it has huge problems too. The large turnover means a dearth of institutional experience. So much of legislative power depends on the few legislators who are strong and smart enough to wield it. One thinks of Henry Clay, or Ted Kennedy, or Robert Byrd, or Mitch McConnell. Regardless of your thoughts on them, they were long-time legislators who cared about protecting the power of their institution and were wily enough to do it.

The power to make laws is going to go somewhere. If the legislature won't or can't accept it, it'll end up in the bureaucracy (admittedly a huge problem with out non-term limited national Congress, though for different reasons), or in the case I'm familiar with, by executive fiat and outside groups and lobbyists.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#84

Post by cjslep »

hannasanarion wrote: post #75
cjslep wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, those people are called "voters". That's how it's supposed to work. We want congresspeople to feel beholden to them. No it's not. It's to the people with money which let's them get to the voters. Because otherwise that money is going to an alternate candidate that plays ball. Have you ever wondered where the blue-collar Democrats of the 1970's went, for example? Businesses and those with money instead financi…

So if your real problem is with money in politics, why not get money out of politics instead of targeting this weird, roundabout, more difficult to implement, and antidemocratic method that may not have any actual impact on the problem?

> weird

Term limits already exist for other positions. It is not a strange concept.

> roundabout

My problem is not with "money in politics", it is with career politicians.

> more difficult to implement

Forgive my laughter, setting a term limits is way easier than your abstract idealism of removing money from politics.

> antidemocratic

Everyone can still vote and is still emancipated. The America after the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is no less a Representative Democracy than before.

I'm all for honest and open discussion but it is clear this is not one of them.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#86

Post by chrislloyd »

crazygringo wrote: post #9

It's clever, but it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem isn't with strong preferences -- it's with extreme preferences. If there were 7 versions of a bill (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) ranging from ultra-conservative (a "A") to ultra-liberal (a "G"), in a polarized community people could still be spending the minimum 1 point each on the A's or G's and none on B-F. The problem with politics today isn't that people are si…

From https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2755844

> g Likert has never done; engages a higher level of thoughtfulness; attenuates extremism to expose deeper insight; and predicts behavior better than Likert at high levels preference intensity.

Basically extreme views and polarization are poorly weighted in large populations and this can be _exposed_ by QV.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#87

Post by jcadam »

cjslep wrote: post #62
hannasanarion wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Term limits in congress aren't really a good thing though. We have term limits for President because the President is uniquely powerful, they can almost unilaterally bend the aparatus of government to their will. If allowed to rule for too long, a president can easily become a dictator. The same is not true of a congressperson who weilds 1/535th of the power of a branch. Besides, if the people want to put someone in…

Career congresspersons are beholden to those that secure their reelection. That's the current steady state system we have now. Term limits forces that dynamic to no longer apply to the final term, which frees congresspeople from this dynamic for at least one term. It also forces clearer the revolving door between the private sector and politics as then the no-longer congressperson gets hired into a company.

Make service in the House work more like jury duty. Everyone living in a district who meets the minimum requirements (age, etc) has their name thrown into a lottery. Representatives get selected randomly and have to serve for one session, then they go home.

Oh, and have Senators be appointed by state governments again, like they used to be.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#89

Post by greggyb »

dev_dull wrote: post #79
crazygringo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery was a particularly and uniquely intractable problem where a "moderate" or "centrist" solution was particularly unappealing. There's extensive literature on what's been driving polarization, but it really is a new "era" for it and not a cyclical thing. Factors include: - More democratic/open primaries, which select extreme candidates - More statistically targeted media (including social media) to take advantag…

> Increasingly partisan news media made possible by more fragmented media (first cable, then the Internet) Isn’t the entire mainstream media owned by only like 6 corporations[1]? https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/these-6...

There used to be literally three channels. We've doubled!

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#90

Post by localhostdotdev »

weberc2 wrote: post #74
localhostdotdev wrote: post #58

> An intriguing new tool of democracy just had its first test in the real world of politics, and it passed with flying colors. how can you even measure if a voting system is a success?

Specifically, how does one measure democracy ? I hadn't thought about this before, but I'm intrigued and no good answers are springing to mind.

there is a democracy index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

there is something similar for voting systems but it isn't as elegant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...

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