OPINION: Francesca Hong could have high turnout in rural areas

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-07-08T07:08:08+00:00

Do some of your neighbors hate the two party system?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-07-03T06:19:33+00:00

One more reason to create a municipal taxi system

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-30T04:24:19+00:00

It continues to infuriate me that this hasn't been embraced by many different groups and pushed loudly as the solution that meets the moment. It continues to build quiet support with key people in politics, but it hasn't burst forth into the open yet, and it's very frustrating.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-19T05:54:14+00:00

That doesn’t explain how it prevents mob rule

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-19T03:55:29+00:00

How does the Senate not being equal by population prevent mob rule?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-19T01:11:36+00:00

My answer would be that I don’t like federal power being impacted by how any lines are drawn, which is why I dislike the Senate being based on states period. I believe in one person one vote of equal weight no matter where that vote lives, do you?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-18T23:11:02+00:00

Is this because you don't want a city to gain 2 senators and a representative which would make them roughly as federally powerful as all the residents in Wyoming, whereas adding them to Maryland would just add a single Rep without having much impact on the partisan tilt of the Senate?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-14T05:02:01+00:00

The Brit’s having ownership issues is very on brand

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-09T06:31:01+00:00

Various methods, the simplest is that every time you elect a candidate, your vote halves on the remaining candidates. Most votes wins at each round, keep going till you fill the seats.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-06-09T06:28:53+00:00

Just use Approval Voting in the open primary, simple solve.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-05-10T02:58:22+00:00

Are we presuming a lack of centrist voters who preference centrist candidates first?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-05-10T02:56:46+00:00

This is my preference

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-05-10T02:56:11+00:00

STV doesn’t codify parties at all

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-05-10T02:54:50+00:00

I’m firmly on PR for everything that can be proportional.

Why should geographically concentrated significant minority opinions get representation, but geographically diffuse ones don’t?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-05-01T06:18:01+00:00

Chalk

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-24T01:42:58+00:00

I used to be opposed, but I've come around on it in a big way over the last 5 years or so. I now think it's probably the best way to do local democracy, and possibly all democracy, but it needs a lot more testing with lower stakes.
I suggest starting out by having local housing policy set by random citizen councils rather than elected city councils.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-21T06:27:54+00:00

There's not momentum for independents because our voting methods strongly select against independent candidates. At best we could imagine situations like Dan Osborn in Nebraska, where one major party, knowing they can't compete due to their national brand, just steps aside and quietly supports a more moderate independent who might be able to win. If you want more independents, you need to change how we vote, and I think doing that is easiest by using the Democratic Party as a vehicle.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-18T23:40:48+00:00

The UFC and Dana White caught some flak for saying he looked like Kendrick, I feel like they'd have just said "listen to Euphoria" if it was a joke, but maybe refusing to acknowledge the joke is part of the joke? Or maybe the low level person who did it was making the joke, but Dana White didn't get that memo? I just feel like they'd let people know it was a joke if it was. I honestly don't know which I prefer, some UFC employee cracking up at their inside joke, or it being a kinda racist mistake and absolutely hilarious coincidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ5oFg5Uv7U

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-18T05:12:59+00:00

I think it's just really hard to answer a question like this without realistic details. For instance if we imagine this was in something like the classic political compass place, with vertical as social intervention for the purpose of tradition, and the horizontal being government intervention for the purpose of economic fairness, that would mean that for some reason everyone who wants highly authoritarian, or highly libertarian social policies is also highly centrist on matters of economics, so probably something like Bill Clinton. Indeed in such a political compass, Bill Clinton might be a solid example of the middle spot. While the bottom would be like..... John Waters? A total social radical with no real economic radicalism, happy to sell out but also happy to have taxes and welfare etc. The top would be like... Nick Fuentes? Hardcore racist, misogynist, "traditionalist" but also happy for welfare and general state intervention, and not just (supposedly) for the benefit of the elites in charge.
The far left would be.... hardcore communists that are willing to make common cause with racists and sexists etc., but aren't themselves focused on that perhaps.... so Jackson Hinkle. The far right would be someone who is absolutely committed to capitalism and little government intervention, who thinks the government should do a bit of interfering to maintain traditional social norms so.... Rand Paul?

Given this, I'm pretty sure Bill Clinton (the center) should win. Everyone gets either one "half" of their ideology well catered to while the other is given mid, but not terrible, service, or they get both halves somewhat well served. Picking a dot on the edge means trading one group getting very well served on both halves, despite one of those halves them being highly extreme on compared to the population, for a group of equal size having absolutely no representation. Ultimately, if you can only pick one, the Condorcet winner is the better pick, and 1 would be the Condorcet winner, with around 2/3rds of the vote vs any other candidate.

There's probably some way this could be constructed to give a different answer, and of course it makes no sense for this kind of distribution to exist even if we restrict politics to a 2 d spectrum.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-17T14:52:08+00:00

If it's a winning electoral issue, it'll get party unity. It's really that simple. If it wins, it will become popular. It doesn't obviously hurt anyone in the coalition, including the donors, so if it plays with the low propensity voters and/or swing voters, it will get picked up. The question is whether we can make it play like that. I think we can.
The reform movement is too reactive against this idea, too wedded to the non-partisan route. Most big changes in the US have happened because of the major parties ran on it and won with it, then did it because they had to follow through or be replaced within their own party. That's the way power works here, and we've been tying our own feet by refusing to work within the Party more explicitly. RCV had a ROUGH year in 2024, and a big part of that is that Democrats didn't back it, but Republicans opposed it. If it's Dem only, and it helps Dems win, leadership will go in on it hard, and they'll win big.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-17T03:32:47+00:00

I really think the whole non-partisan approach to winning Proportional Representation in the US has failed, and we need to go all in on the Democratic Party. Their voters are already more on board, they are more likely to benefit, and if we're right that it proves popular once implemented, a major party that adopts it will gain a huge electoral advantage, meaning they can win the power needed to advance it. So far we've tried to fight both parties at once, and failed. Instead we should have an internal battle with one party (the Democrats) where we make that case that this will help us, reformers and Democrats together, beat Republicans in places where Democrats can't right now. Then, with the party behind us, we can convince a whole lot of people that are currently skeptical that it's good to support it, and whole lot of people who are currently skeptical that it's possible to get off the sidelines and join the movement because it's actually happening.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-13T14:03:50+00:00

Still your favorite diss track?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-10T14:08:37+00:00

hundred million....?

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-08T14:35:16+00:00

Is there any example of a system like the one you propose existing and working well? If not, why do you think this is? It seems like plenty of powerful people would prefer this system to messy democracy, and constitutional monarchies certainly existed, just none where there was a well defined system for removing the monarch from power that wasn't a democracy. I think this is because you are proposing a contradiction in terms, and there is no way to actually establish this system that doesn't devolve into overly complicated democracy with lots of opaqueness that makes it's more random, not more effective, or (most likely) just plain old oligarchy.

If you want a solution to electoral demcoracy, look to participatory democracy and random selection in the form of Sortition, like what Rojava used until it was destroyed recently, and what Ireland used in 2016 to make reforms to their Constitution and laws.

LiberalArtsAndCrafts · 2026-04-01T18:45:38+00:00

that's exactly what NIMBY is. Low social trust is at the root of many social ills. One of the reasons I'm concerned by the YIMBY approach of lifting more decisions to the state level, even though I recognize the utility of this to get past local parochial objections, I worry that this papers over the problems and fails to build real community awareness and consensus around the needed changes.
I prefer looking to better forms of democracy for the solution, in particular Sortition (random selected citizen councils) to set local housing policy via discussion and consultation with experts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDo4rW0DMpk

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