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Ross Perot Has Died

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171–180 of 222 posts

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#171
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They allowed a third party candidate in a general debate I was only eight years old at the time, but I remember watching that debate specifically because it was a big deal that he was on the stage. To eight-year-old me, that was history in the making. Thinking back, I was a pretty weird kid. I also vividly remember pretending I was asleep until my grandparents went to bed, then sneaking back to the living room and…

Similar childhood here: at a little under 5 I watched the 1980 election, rooting for the third-party candidate[0] because I thought he was Orville Redenbacher[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Anderson [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orville_Redenbacher

I would probably have voted for Orville Redenbacher without even knowing what his politic leanings are.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#172
post #32
post #29

Remember his famous “Giant Sucking Sound” comment? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound

I'd say he was right: "We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but…

The bill was left for Clinton to sign as a strategic move so that Republicans wouldn't get any blame for the bill that they crafted, enacted, and was supported by their man in the oval office who would have signed it too if he had won.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#173
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say he was right: "We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but…

If you can build a car for cheaper elsewhere, why wouldn't you? If your goal is to keep people gainfully employed, well how about working on improving their skills so that a laborer in a developing country isn't more productive than they are?

Are you asking why a corporation wouldn't build stuff cheaper elsewhere, or why we as a populace might want to prevent it?

Because those are two different questions with two different answers.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#174
post #16

I chanced to be next to him in line for the buffet at the big NeXT unveiling event at SF’s Davies Hall and chatted briefly with him. Nobody seemed to be aware of who / what he was at the time. I wonder how many zillionaire investors are semi-anonymous these days.

I was there too but only saw Woz and some of the original Mac team. Started late as was Steves habit in the early years (and probably flakey computers too). The essence of the demo was multimedia capabilities- uncommon in that era. I was Stanford faculty that time. The computer was aimed ar education, but I did not why it was so much better than others. An OS mostly OOP ground up was nifty.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#175
I remember his run in 92. He got branded as out of touch and cooky by the press with the help of the political parties. It didn't help that he quit the race and gave some strange reason and then jumped back in. He even made light of it by picking Patsy Cline's "Crazy" as his theme song.

He seemed like a very good man that stuck by his beliefs. Peace be with him.

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#176
post #74
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ranked voting actually does enable third party candidate wins (assuming they can garner sufficient public support) with ranked choice voting the stigma of voting third party is removed and people can safely vote primarily for who they want instead of primarily voting strategically.

Where does it work? Australia has single-representative voting districts with instant-runoff voting, and they seem to have something that looks to me being close to a two-party system in practice. I admit, I didn't browse though all possible countries, so perhaps you know a better example? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Aust...

As the sibling comment from anderkaseorg says, IRV is one of the worst single-winner voting systems that isn't plurality voting.

Third parties would greatly benefit from range-voting[1]. I used to favor Condorcet voting methods as an improvement over plurality, but now I favor range-voting. Mostly for how much more straightforward the vote outcomes are, and the simplicity of explaining it. The no-show paradox inherent in Condorcet systems also bothers me[2].

There is a good summary of the properties of different voting systems on wikipedia[3].

[1] https://www.rangevoting.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_criterion

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#179
post #60
post #25

> ran into the establishment What he ran into was the inevitable math of a first past the post electoral system. You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Even if you're fine with the main parties, RCV is probably better in terms of electing who most people want. You could argue that Bush senior might have won with it if the Perot voters ranked 1) Perot 2) Bush. Bush junior might hav…

> You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem : "When voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no ranked voting electoral system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a specified set of criteria: unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency,…

1. Arrow's Theorem only applies to ranked methods, not rated methods like Score Voting and Approval Voting. http://scorevoting.net/ArrowThm

2. Arrow's Theorem really has nothing to do with escaping duopoly.

3. If you want to escape duopoly, you need Score Voting or Approval Voting.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180922145553/https://asitought...

Re: Ross Perot Has Died

#180
post #66
post #25

> ran into the establishment What he ran into was the inevitable math of a first past the post electoral system. You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Even if you're fine with the main parties, RCV is probably better in terms of electing who most people want. You could argue that Bush senior might have won with it if the Perot voters ranked 1) Perot 2) Bush. Bush junior might hav…

> You want third parties, you need ranked choice voting or something similar. Ranked choice or similar would only give you an occasional third party win here and there, in some small number of electoral districts. It will not give you serious and viable third parties with long living organizations. What you'd need is, proportional voting for the House. Electoral districts the size of at least 10 House representatives…

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