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The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

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Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#451

Post by sinuspi »

I'd actually modify most referenda and other public elections to include a brief quiz about the choice taken.

For example,

I VOTE:

[_] LEAVE [_] REMAIN:

My choice above means (choose one): (_) more welfare; (_) less welfare. Foreign trade will be (choose one): (_) simplified; (_) complicated. etc.

If the quiz choices don't match the vote itself, the vote is INVALID.

Thus the amount of uninformed votes would be reduced to zero.

Of course the options would have to be agreed upon by both sides.

"Oh, but someone could easily be taught to 'cheat', you could tell someone what answers to pick!" Well, sure. Good luck convincing an immigrant to tick the "(_) less jobs for immigrants" box.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#452

Post by ZeroGravitas »

dazzawazza wrote: post #315
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the British Parliament, there are lines which separate the MPs on the two sides. These lines are a bit more than two swordlengths apart, to prevent them from stabbing each other.

This is regarded as a bit of a myth. Search for swords in this official PDF https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-offi... . MPs have never been able to carry weapons in to the chamber so if it was a rule it's a bit silly (which doesn't mean it's not true given how silly the rest of the UK democracy is).

They do still, to this day, have a loop on the cloakroom for hanging their swords on though so it's not totally out of character.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#453

Post by runako »

raverbashing wrote: post #443
runako wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a curious claim, so I did a little checking. It turns out that Switzerland is smaller than the Los Angeles metro area both in GDP and population.

Are you sure? It seems it's comparable in size, but not smaller Take a look http://mapfrappe.com/?show=40241 (it's a rough sketch of Switzerland but the size should be right) Edit: yes, I think parent meant population, not actual size

You're right that Switzerland is physically bigger than the LA metro area. I didn't compare land masses.

Edit: Also, Wikipedia is possibly a better source for comparing sizes of landmasses.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#454

Post by [deleted] »

raverbashing wrote: post #443
runako wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a curious claim, so I did a little checking. It turns out that Switzerland is smaller than the Los Angeles metro area both in GDP and population.

Are you sure? It seems it's comparable in size, but not smaller Take a look http://mapfrappe.com/?show=40241 (it's a rough sketch of Switzerland but the size should be right) Edit: yes, I think parent meant population, not actual size

[deleted]

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#455

Post by DonaldFisk »

taylorwc wrote: post #85

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

He also said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

"Perhaps the late Lord Attlee was right," she [Mrs Thatcher] observed, "when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues."

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#456

Post by zghst »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #434
zghst wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is that this proposition is valid notwithstanding the very real power struggle in society. Why would one want to even put someone through something as humiliating as an intelligence test to determine their rights. It reminds me of the reading tests during segregation to suppress black voters. If we would have implemented this test then, tell me would they have a fair chance in society? At least from my…

Why would you put someone through something as humiliating as a college education, and their final exams? Presumably you want a measure of their knowledge and capability. In my system, no one has the right to become a representative. It's a job like any other, that requires non-standard admissions procedures (namely random sampling) to avoid corruption. I'm unsure if traditions could be enshrined to make my system st…

So how do communities gain appropriate representation in your system? Does everything come down to a test?

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#457

Post by zghst »

WorldMaker wrote: post #448
thomasahle wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could work (because better decisions were made), or could be terrible (because people stopped feeling responsible). We should try it :-)

Time to assemble all the evidence in both directions from sci-fi (such as most of Star Trek: TOS, some of Futurama, etc), feed it into a deep learning algorithm and see if it models a better machine society or a worse one. I trust this is a useful first case to test this hypothesis. :)

This algorithm needs to be very crafty to avoid manipulation. We'll have to constantly re-adjust the weights

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#458

Post by kidsil »

Inthenameofmine wrote: post #145
netcan wrote: post #82

I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do. On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling struct…

> We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas? As a Swiss citizen, I think the swiss system is very close to perfect in this regard. Sure, emotional and stupid arguments sometimes prevail, but most of the time the people make the perfect decision. Public discourse is most often also very rational, more so than most world parliaments. Irrational arguments…

The first time women had the right to vote in Switzerland was 1971.

Quite far from perfect in my view.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#459

Post by partiallypro »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #437
partiallypro wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also very hard for a poorer or even middle class immigrant to move to a place like Switzerland because the cost of living is so high. This creates an environment of unanimity you wouldn't see in more diverse cultures like the U.S. or the U.K. I think that's largely why Switzerland and the Scandinavian states get accolades from U.S. politicians (not as much division.) But they don't seem to get that the cultures…

>that's largely why Switzerland and the Scandinavian states get accolades from U.S. politicians (not as much division.) I have to disagree with you. I have a lot of friends in Sweden that do nothing but complain about the immigration crisis they are facing. In fact one of my Swedish friends is here in the US now looking for a job because immigration has become such an issue in Sweden. She can name many immigrants she…

I don't disagree with you in terms of -now-, I mean historically. The Syrian refugee crisis has changed demographics in Europe in a way that I don't think we've yet seen the full ramifications of.

Re: The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

#460

Post by TWAndrews »

sspiff wrote: post #260
Inthenameofmine wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas? As a Swiss citizen, I think the swiss system is very close to perfect in this regard. Sure, emotional and stupid arguments sometimes prevail, but most of the time the people make the perfect decision. Public discourse is most often also very rational, more so than most world parliaments. Irrational arguments…

I think the Swiss system is pretty good, but I don't know about the Swiss people. Are they smarter than other citizens? Are they less vulnerable to populist propaganda? I also think this is something that works best on "smaller" scales - that is, not on the scale of France, or the UK, or Germany, but on the scale of Switzerland, Luxemburg, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, ...

Swiss culture is very small-c conservative, with heavy value on making rational, pragmatic decisions. It is no surprise that they have a system which reflects that, and performs well for that population.
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