Topics created by mosbrooker

@mosbrooker said in Voting Theory sooo boring if not for the key to everything!:

All roads pointed to law, the rule book of society. All laws pointed to the US Constitution. I have no interest in other nation’s laws because we are, by very far, closest to the people rule the law not vice-versa.

Are you sure about that? I don't think the US is generally seen internationally as a shining beacon in terms of democracy.

I started to game theory this whole business. Start with an island (so no outside influence or interference) and One Leader. When does the OL face an opponent?
…this is about where I start to fall asleep. I’ve written this so many times it’s killing me. SOOO tired

Fast forward…
The OL (me because who else is going to get this ball rolling if not the discoverer of Democracy?) is subject to immediate removal upon the simultaneous dissent of over half of all people. I choose my opponent, Lisa of course.

I think we discussed your leadership model before and getting to choose your opponent was a bit of a sticking point for me.

Now that we are living in harmony and budgeting our resources, what’s the end plan? No way are we going to fly a spaceship to a near (1000 light years away) planet to set up shop. Not gonna happen. Get used to it. When we are done with Earth, we are done as a species. Been a good run.

BUT we must help life get a footing elsewhere. We can load bits of life (amoebas, cells etc.) abord a flying freezer and hurtle it off to other galaxies. Whether we aim for a planet in or throw a dart at a massive galaxy, our offering might just spark life somewhere else. Maybe, just maybe, life will take hold, and, in 20 million short years, people will be picking up dry cleaning and are back to leaving bad yelp reviews. From there, the planet will begin to succumb to the mismanagement of its resources, a person will design a blueprint specifying a system so that people can live with each other in peaceful and fun harmony until their last day upon which a spaceship carrying life’s building blocks is launched…

This is getting a bit off-topic now, but you think there's no chance of getting intelligent life away from Earth without evolving again from scratch? What about uploading minds and beaming the information across the universe?

@mosbrooker said in Can Democracy have an air-tight legal definition?:

OMOV

I assume OMOV is One Man, (Person) One Vote? (Defining your acronyms the first time you use them is always helpful.)

If so, I'm curious if you have heard of the Equality Criterion, which many of us believe is a stricter definition of One Person, One Vote. A few of us just published an article on it which you can read here that attempts to formally define One Person One Vote and build on the Supreme Court Ruling that stated that the "weight and worth of the citizens' votes as nearly as is practicable must be the same."

I'll paste in a quote for discussion, and you can also find a more lay friendly explanation over at the Equal Vote Coalition website here and here.

"We posit that by passing the Equality Criterion, vote-splitting caused by the voting method itself can be eliminated. The Equality Criterion states that for any given vote, there is a possible opposite vote, such that if both were cast, it would not change the outcome of an election.7 The Equality Criterion ensures that if one party had the support of 51% of the voters and ran multiple candidates, and another party had the support of 49% of the electorate and ran only one candidate, the majority faction would always have some way to give all of their candidates full support and thus guarantee a win, even if the front-runners were unknown.

In 1964, Wesberry v. Sanders, (Black, 1964) The U.S. Supreme Court declared that equality of voting—one person, one vote—means that “the weight and worth of the citizens’ votes as nearly as is practicable must be the same.” Passing the Equality Criterion ensures that it’s possible for voters who disagree to cast equally weighted and opposite votes, no matter how many candidates are on their side. Approval, Score, Smith/Minimax, and STAR Voting all pass this basic and ’practicable’ criteria; Plurality and Instant Runoff Voting do not."

@mosbrooker said in Me again...:

laws that censor dangerous people (Ron DeSantis) from harming people (the entire LGBTQ community).

I'm on your side (....?), but still I think this is more political than I recommend for this group. Not everyone agrees on whether the person you mention is harmful. He's currently a fairly likely to win (25% or so, according to prediction markets) the us presidential election.

And I'm not necessarily on your side in terms of thinking we should "censor" such people.... censure, maybe.

Democracy can actually put divisive figures into power if it is to "run its course", unless that democracy is specifically designed to not do so. That's why I stay interested in this topic, the ability to shape the democracy so it actually works. There is no one best way, but some are certainly better than others. Some systems, such as the "first past the post"/"plurality" one that is so common in the US, actually drive people apart. Unfortunately, a lot of people think the word democracy means plurality. (although they often mislabel it "majority")

But it does seem rather weird to say "let democracy run its course", while also saying "we need laws that censor dangerous people". Who is going to put those laws in place? Elected people? But clearly our democracy will elect people who don't agree with your idea of what a dangerous person is (while claiming that all kinds of things that you probably support are dangerous)

@cfrank @Toby-Pereira
Thx for the tag assist. I live I learn!
I pray to the universal equalness of all people living today that we, somehow, achieve heaven on earth where life is good and that the future is promising. I pray that wars, poverty, climate destruction, depression, resignation are all things of the past. I make this prayer to god (as defined above) and that we realize our full human potential quickly and completely with no offsetting quid pro quo or "bad twist ending theater" to "balance out" this prayer. Amen.
That's how I pray. For a lot of stuff. To me, the one truism is the equaleness of all people. This one simple, self-evident fact, is the fuel that, with an appropriate efficient engine, can get us to where we all want to be.
So how do we funnel our equalness, all 8 billion's worth, into running this shit show?
The two burning questions 1) can we do it? Is there some way to harness the whim of all people, without anyone playing god and predetermining a rule book that can and will be exploited to nefarious ends? and 2) should we do it? If we have a machine that fits the bill, would it be a good idea to turn it on?
So anyhow, I apologize for not directly responding to your notes. The Federalist Papers, Constitution Convention, Pre-amble etc. are of great interest to me. I'm just trying to do something that is very different that I think will really help. Kind of, sort of, like Chastain's NASCAR wall ride. Hilarious btw if you haven't seen it!
As always, if at anytime I cross your perceived line of sanity, I apologize and of course don't expect a response.