111–120 of 279 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rural does not mean poor/3rd world In the same way there's a lot of wealthy places in let's say Mexico City and other capitals of 3rd world countries
3rd world means non-NATO aligned states (or communist aligned states). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
But today it mostly means "developing countries" (which is actually an euphemism for "stuck in underdevelopment")
Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…
The constitution we have now isn't the first version. It was created with the ability to be changed with the process of amendments. We have 27 of them so far. More could be added to change the voting system or whatever else, if there was political will to do so; but currently there isn't. (And this is ignoring the idea of the judiciary reading into the constitution new rights that weren't there to begin with.)
Then I actually researched it a bit, and it turns out that quite a few countries have actually moved away from FPTP. [1] That's interesting, and something to be hopeful about.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Lis...
Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…
The US has an interesting constitution:
- First past the post. Such systems tend to favour fewer parties. The UK (also FPTP) barely has more than two parties. In most of continental western europe, there's considerably more, due to proportional representation. On the continent you end up having a bunch of different opinions, and you don't have to squish every issue onto a liberal/conservative axis. For instance you get socially conservative big state parties. Or socially liberal big state parties. Or socially liberal small state. And there's other axes too.
- A separate executive. In the UK even though they have FPTP, they have a government formed by the leader of one of the parties, and they "whip" the MPs to vote according to the party line, subject to various forms of sanction depending on how important an issue is. In the US, you choose two legislatures and a separate president. If they're not in agreement, it de facto entrenches the existing status quo by making it hard to change the law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about starting from the other side? Decreasing the number of electors to be more the way it was when USA was founded? So people with no income earning property ('passive income' as it is called here), do not vote? Before 1820s, they didn't.
If you're interested in fixing the problem the article discusses, this is pretty much exactly the wrong approach. You would actually be hard-pressed to find a solution more diametrically opposed to fixing the problem.
Other problems are fixable with more attention/funding to law enforcement, and yes using all the AI toys: crime prediction, drones, etc.
How long until we see favelas in the US? Low income areas completely devoid of economic opportunity, more or less ceded by local municipalities, with lawless informal economies and virtually no basic city services? Or do we already have them by another name?
Ghettos, the projects?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What countries don't have any impoverished neighborhoods?
Developed ones. A more serious answer: each country has impoverished neighborhoods. The difference between developed countries and developing ones is the magnitude of the impoverished neighborhoods. So far I haven't seen any really big slums in Germany, for example.
Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…
> Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? Almost certainly. The US was doing fine for most of the 20th century. Globalism is what has brought wages down. Globalism combines the economies of the richest countries with the economies of the poorest in an attempt to "help" poor countries. As rich countries and poor countries combine economies, they mo…
But an abnormal period, and we are now returning to the normality of capitalism described by critics like Marx or Dickens over 100 years ago.
The distinction between "developing" and "developed" is a dubious distinction anyways especially now. "Developing" implies that liberal capitalism has a linear narrative towards something (presumably something that looks like "the west"). There's a lot of hubris in that statement, and I don't think it is supported by any evidence.
Is this just happening in the US or is it also happening across many other "Western/European" nations? I wonder if it is isolated or widespread in part because there will be some equalization as other developing nations rise -- like China and India.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about starting from the other side? Decreasing the number of electors to be more the way it was when USA was founded? So people with no income earning property ('passive income' as it is called here), do not vote? Before 1820s, they didn't.
If you're interested in fixing the problem the article discusses, this is pretty much exactly the wrong approach. You would actually be hard-pressed to find a solution more diametrically opposed to fixing the problem.