Savant

There will always be an opposing force so long as there is evil in the world

Sure, and there will always be non-evil people who fight to stop them. But if you can reduce both factions by reducing fighting in general, you should, as it will mitigate the fallout.

I think we've seen a small increase on the site but just from old DDO and DART members. To my knowledge, no one from the YouTube channel or even Google search.

It's the end of World War I, and you're a world famous philosopher. Several armchair commentators have theorized that another world war may break out in a few decades, but they're not sure over what. Meanwhile, there is vigorous debate going on about just war theory, whether nations are ever justified in killing civilians, the non-aggression principle, and so forth. Most philosophers argue that war is justified under certain conditions but not under others. You are inclined to agree with them, although you disagree slightly on what the conditions are. So, what should you do?

Now, suppose you argue that war is sometimes justified and give a list of criteria, such as responding to aggression. When the Nazis take power, they will inevitably argue, as best they can, that they meet the criteria, and hence that World War II is justified. Now, world famous as you are, it will probably be difficult beforehand to anticipate exactly what the new world war will be fought over, and your criteria may be vague enough that either side can appropriate your argument. Even if you do exclude the Nazis when arguing what makes war justified, they can easily appropriate the rest of your argument and replace the things you said justify war with their own grievances. It's not difficult to take an argument saying that self-defense justifies violence and stretch it to argue that harms against the German people justify warfare. Add to this that the Nazis will inevitably lie about what's happening and invent a list of harms to justify war.

But suppose you instead argue that war is always wrong, that people should refuse to fight no matter what. If this logic becomes somewhat popular everywhere, even a little, it will make it more difficult for any aggressor to justify war. They can say that other nations are plotting against them, but if their population has a lot of die-hard pacifists, then those arguments won't do much to convince them.

Since you don't know who will listen to your arguments for or against pacifism, you should therefore advocate for violence not to be used ever, because if everyone uses violence less it will be a net gain for everyone. If the Axis powers use fewer soldiers and attack fewer civilians, and the Allies use fewer soldiers and attack fewer civilians, then the win probabilities remain roughly equal, but fewer people die.

Disclaimer: I'm actually not 100% sure if this logic holds up or not, but I thought it was worth sharing. A downside of this approach may be that lying about your conclusions leads to people accepting bad logical premises.

The working class didn’t just vote against their own interests.

Let's stop pretending that workers have "class" interests. They have personal interests. Hence why labor unions pushed for Chinese Exclusion Act when it was seen as in their interest.

They worshipped the billionaires robbing them

Almost every faction hates some rich people and loves others. Everyone knows "the rich" doesn't include whatever influencer is telling you to hate the rich.

They cheered while the rich wrote off private jets as tax deductions.

I don't think a significant number of poor people are cheering for this, presuming the jet is being used for personal use, which is what you're implying. If something is used for business, then it can be calculated as a business expense. Jets aren't special in this regard. The law probably gets abused, but I don't know who is cheering for tax abuse besides the tax abusers themselves.

I'm not saying we should just implement this immediately. I'm not sure the best way to test this, but I think it's of some utility to come up with potential optimal forms of democracy, because someday people might get a chance to experiment and discover this works better.

of something doesn't work on the macro we shouldn't test it on the micro or visa versa

Why not? Representative democracy is effectively testing something on the micro (direct voting on every policy) that didn't work on the macro.

In a legislature all the votes are public and you're counting hundreds of votes, not millions. It would be extremely hard to get the math wrong if it's all public and literally anyone can fact check. I'm not proposing the general public rank candidates, just Parliament.

I agree but he did mention poverty rates and median incomes

Every time RCV is tried in the real world it has more unfair practices than other forms of voting that preceded it. Terrible ideal

The criticism I've seen is that it's hard to understand, but in my system it's the legislature doing it not the public.

Rank up voting is incredibly difficult when you have over 999 candidates.

You have people vote for parties that publish lists of candidates. Ranked choice isn't needed electing legislature.

I'm not saying that a majority of people all agree on the same candidate, just that they can compromise. If the Red team all wants the same guy and the Blue team wants two guys and the Blue team is bigger, I'm saying let the Blue team coordinate to select a single guy so that the median voter is represented.

If they know, what you are saying wont be true because majority will vote for best candidates. And if they don't know, then really, no voting system is better than random guessing.

Just because the majority knows doesn't mean they can coordinate. It could be that more people would rather have Candidate B than Candidate A, but if they don't realize they are the majority they will be afraid of wasting their vote and fail to coordinate.

Of course, a council can pick someone and instruct him, or negotiate directly

Well that's what my system does.

This could cause an issue with vote splitting

Okay, so?

So people might only go for well known candidates because they're afraid of splitting the vote on minor ones, and hence minor candidates who are better than the existing ones don't ever get a fair chance.

No presidents

The country needs someone to negotiate on its behalf in geopolitical affairs, with the ability to back up what they say.

People just vote, and the top 999 of those who get votes become members of council.

This could cause an issue with vote splitting.

A few thoughts going in: I think attaching representation to land or anything static will backfire long-term since there's no guarantee that the groups given disproportionate representation in a hundred years will actually deserve it. I think it's also better to have a strong executive as long as they aren't too extreme. Also, all things being equal, I think it's better to have six moderates in a row rather than alternate between far left and far right candidates.

My current proposal is this: Have a proportionally elected Parliament with 1,000 members and no minimum threshold for party entry. Use ranked choice voting within Parliament to select an executive, which assures they will represent the median voter. Then allow laws to pass with 40% of the legislature plus the executive. At any time, Parliament can hold a vote of no confidence with a simple majority, triggering another RCV for an executive.

I think RCV and no confidence options will be a check against dictatorship, and the 40% threshold will mean tiny extremist parties aren't able to hold a moderate agenda hostage. Eliminating the threshold for entry will also mean large parties split when they get too big, and heck, the max size of a party could even be capped at 100 seats or something. In theory you could have two parties that act as one, but with enough friction between them, it will be too politically tempting for them to compete with each other.

The main benefit here will be getting a lot of moderate reforms through fast, and also that voters don't overcompensate for bad governance by turning to extremists. As long as the moderate executive is getting things done, I think votes of no confidence would be used sparingly (and even if they were frequent, the instant RCV would save a lot of time without requiring a ton of time for coalition building). This requires Parliament to select a consistent vision (represented by the executive), but it will be one that represents the median voter.

Please join if you are interested!

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1. Savant

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You can be a theist without being part of one specific religion.

Doesn't that make him a theist?

they admit that there is at least one correct religion

Your profile says you are an atheist though?

That was civil court, but yeah, there was evidence so he had to pay. I don't think anonymous tips meet that same threshold, and even if they did, there's a difference between civil and criminal court.

You are officially maga bootlicker rapist defender.

For thinking the legal system should require proof to convict?

I believe much of what was released mentioning Trump were anonymous tips that they weren't able to follow up on, no? If there's proof, throw the book at him, but I don't think anonymous tips are really reliable.

That would be oat, not obt

Soviet soldiers fought the Nazis, but I'm skeptical the the leadership being communist made it easier. The USSR played far nicer with the Nazis than they had to leading up to the war, and Stalin's poor management meant they had to rely on sending their people to the meat grinder rather than using strong industrial power as the US did. It's not like Russia's success was due to an amazing economy. The Allied victory relied on lend-lease (US aid), British intelligence, and Soviet soldiers. Stalin's contribution was raising the blood tax on his own people.

Everyone from #2 or below is going to hell anyway, so why bother ranking past that point?

My first debate on DART is literally defending the police, I haven't given rioters a pass.

Isn't that exactly what you are doing by excusing the Governor's and Mayor's immoral actions?

I didn't excuse them. I haven't criticized them directly yet, but that's not the same as saying they are justified. I do think that they are accountable for their corrupt actions though, I didn't mean to imply they were not.

Being principled means you can criticize the people being manipulative and have greater credibility when doing so. Yeah it's predictable, but no one wants to cooperate with an unpredictable person.

If you give in to the moral panic and outrage and excoriate ICE for 'bad training' or whatever, you are doing exactly what the people who are the ultimate cause of the disorder and violence want

So when someone does something immoral, I should give them a pass for political reasons? I think that kind of thing leads to pretty bad outcomes. Not gonna whitewash either side just because the other side is doing bad things.