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A Sick Giant

waitbutwhy.com

81–90 of 138 posts

Re: A Sick Giant

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality of the situation is the US was founded, both socially and politically on Judeo-Christian principles of morality, and the nuclear family The truth is it absolutely wasn't. It's true that various forms of Christianity (with more virulent anti-Semitism than any “Judeo” component) were broadly popular with the general population at the time of founding, the intellectual elite who were the thought leaders sh…

If you really think this, then all I have to say to you is you must read the Federalist Papers, Declaration of Independence and Constitution with quite the set of blinders on my friend. For example, consider this quotation from John Jay in Federalist No 2: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1329146-it-has-often-given-... > the intellectual elite who were the thought leaders shaping our model of government were largely…

The Anti-Masonic Party was a thing for a time.

There are certainly mood and history defining events for various historical periods that are under reported.

The earliest secularists were all freemasons.

Re: A Sick Giant

#83

He makes plenty of good points, but completely fails to make mention of how plurality voting (also known as "first past the post") results in two dominant parties, rather than electing people who represent the preference of the median voter. This is known as Duverger's Law, and I would argue it is about 90% responsible for everything he speaks of. Voting systems that don't do this exist. Approval voting is one of the…

[deleted]

Re: A Sick Giant

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the author says here is better said by a dozen others. I just had an overwhelming feeling of no shit sherlock when reading this -- yes, it's obvious our media is polarized, for obvious reasons. I'm going to guess his next chapter is about how money ruined the media and politics, which is "why you shouldn't write about these things" -- because the people with the loudest voice have the most to gain from the polar…

> What the author says here is better said by a dozen others. I just had an overwhelming feeling of no shit sherlock when reading this... As far as I can tell, other writings on the topic haven't had any noteworthy effect in rectifying the problem. Do have any insights on what we should do about the situation?

I do. Get rid of First Past the Post voting and replace it with something like Approval voting.

As it is, candidates in the middle can't get elected. Two dominant parties is an entirely predictable result of FPTP voting. Approval voting (or ones that tend to elect the Condorcet winner, which also should be the first choice of the median voter) would solve 90% of the problems cited in this article.

Re: A Sick Giant

#85

He makes plenty of good points, but completely fails to make mention of how plurality voting (also known as "first past the post") results in two dominant parties, rather than electing people who represent the preference of the median voter. This is known as Duverger's Law, and I would argue it is about 90% responsible for everything he speaks of. Voting systems that don't do this exist. Approval voting is one of the…

I'm a fan of single transferable voting, but the claim that FPTP is responsible for America's politics does not seem well borne out by the evidence. As the Wikipedia article on Duverger's Law notes: "In practice, most countries with plurality voting have more than two parties." The USA is very much an outlier here. Even if there remained only two _dominant_ parties, a significant third party like the NDP in Canada, or the Liberal Democrats in the UK, would reshape congressional politics very significantly.

Re: A Sick Giant

#86
post #85

He makes plenty of good points, but completely fails to make mention of how plurality voting (also known as "first past the post") results in two dominant parties, rather than electing people who represent the preference of the median voter. This is known as Duverger's Law, and I would argue it is about 90% responsible for everything he speaks of. Voting systems that don't do this exist. Approval voting is one of the…

I'm a fan of single transferable voting, but the claim that FPTP is responsible for America's politics does not seem well borne out by the evidence. As the Wikipedia article on Duverger's Law notes: "In practice, most countries with plurality voting have more than two parties." The USA is very much an outlier here. Even if there remained only two _dominant_ parties, a significant third party like the NDP in Canada, o…

Without FPTP I think you would get more parties, and as you say these parties will influence the politics or introduce actual dialogue between parties in composing governments. Essentially all countries that I know of with a more proportional representation system have more parties and a less polarised political system.

Re: A Sick Giant

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What the author says here is better said by a dozen others. I just had an overwhelming feeling of no shit sherlock when reading this... As far as I can tell, other writings on the topic haven't had any noteworthy effect in rectifying the problem. Do have any insights on what we should do about the situation?

That would require an assumption that there is something that can be done. I'm not saying we all throw up our hands and die; but any attempt to fix the situation just adds another voice to the echo chamber and doesn't really solve the problem. As far as I can tell from reading history, it's always been like this. We just haven't had a massive mutually-destructive war in anyone's lifetime to remind us why we should wo…

Indeed, looking back through history there's no shortage of reasons for pessimism - Mother Nature certainly left a lot of work for us to do ourselves. But if you're claiming that there isn't also plenty of reasons in history for optimism, you should maybe consider looking through a different lens.

At the risk of sounding glib, this style of thinking sounds a bit too much like the proverbial "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!" I mean seriously, while lots of people are drawing attention to these old issues with a modern twist, has anything really been tried to fix them? Perhaps it's going to take some time to get our act together at the political level, but is there anything stopping communities like this from putting on our thinking caps and seeing if we can come up with some new and useful ideas?

Re: A Sick Giant

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What the author says here is better said by a dozen others. I just had an overwhelming feeling of no shit sherlock when reading this... As far as I can tell, other writings on the topic haven't had any noteworthy effect in rectifying the problem. Do have any insights on what we should do about the situation?

I do. Get rid of First Past the Post voting and replace it with something like Approval voting. As it is, candidates in the middle can't get elected. Two dominant parties is an entirely predictable result of FPTP voting. Approval voting (or ones that tend to elect the Condorcet winner, which also should be the first choice of the median voter) would solve 90% of the problems cited in this article.

That seems like a fine idea to me. How might one actually accomplish it?

Re: A Sick Giant

#89

He makes plenty of good points, but completely fails to make mention of how plurality voting (also known as "first past the post") results in two dominant parties, rather than electing people who represent the preference of the median voter. This is known as Duverger's Law, and I would argue it is about 90% responsible for everything he speaks of. Voting systems that don't do this exist. Approval voting is one of the…

I think the purpose of democracy should primarily be to avoid civil conflict and only secondarily be to represent the median voter. First past the post voting ensures a two-party system which means that people will make compromises while voting and not outsource that responsibility to politicians. The latter might cause voters to not own the consequences of trading favors (which is necessary for coalition building) and potentially lead to civil conflict.

Re: A Sick Giant

#90
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment is not fitting to the article, but I wanted to respond to it anyways because I found it interesting and it's not something talked about here much, for obvious reasons. The problem is going to escape many on the left, including most people here as well, as many people here are mostly agnostic/atheistic/anti-faith and believe having faith is somehow anti-intellectual. The reality of the situation is the US…

The backbone of the USA in its formative years was slavery and outright slaughter of native Americans. By people who went to church. This dark legacy stretches into today - the last lynching was in 1981, and white Christian America still worships a vision of a nice, pearly white European looking Jesus, presented by millionaire preachers in mega churches who say “just give me some money and you too can be redeemed”. A…

> The backbone of the USA in its formative years was slavery and outright slaughter of native Americans.

Actually, most founding states sought to abolish slavery when the Constitution was being drafted. The Southern States were vehemently opposed to such action to the point that they would not ratify the Constitution. As a compromise, slavery was allowed, and no law could be made restricting the importation of slaves until 1808.

Consider, though, that the importation of slaves was banned on the first day which was legally allowed.

I think your problem is that what you refer to as "the USA" is really "the South." The South fought hard for slavery because of economics; slaves were cheap, and plantation owners were powerful. My view is that the powerful Southerners who benefited from slavery created a cult which poisoned the minds of other Southerners into believing that slaves were necessary. It takes a long time to erase all that.

> the last lynching was in 1981

And a school district in Alabama was ordered to desegregate less than ten years ago. What's your point? These are outliers. They don't represent the majority view. You're cherrypicking to make things seem worse, which is exactly what the post discusses.

> white Christian America still worships a vision of a nice, pearly white European looking Jesus

Consider that the book (and movie) "The Shack" portrays the three parts of God as an African-American woman, a Middle-Eastern carpenter, and an Asian woman as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, respectively. "White Christian America" still ate it up. But, according to your logic, they never could have because Jesus wasn't presented as white. Perhaps your viewpoint isn't actually correct here.

> And not to mention their pseudo worship of a man who is so laughably espouses the exact opposite of the Christian teachings. A man who had sex with a pornstar while his second (or third?) wife was pregnant at home and has never read the Bible.

Should a Muslim hate Trump? Should a Jew? Should he only be loved by athiests? What are you saying? People are far more than their religions.

I am close to someone who does things I could and will not do in my regular course of life. I see their lifestyle as degenerative and a coping mechanism, and that's my damn right. Yet, I still bought them a book on their least-harmful hobby.

People can still care and want to see others do well for themselves while recognizing the limits of their ability to affect change. Should we hope that Trump is a failure? That's like hoping for the bus driver you hate to crash into a tree; if that happens, you're gonna get hurt as well.

Maybe those people just see the world from a different perspective than you. It sounds like you're pretty "woke," but have you ever had a kind, thoughtful conversation to genuinely understand their point of view? By mocking them in this way, you're invalidating their opinion. But wait, isn't the left tolerant...

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