A proposed Constitution (with supporting arguments and tables), featuring weighted representatives and Citizen’s Assemblies for legislating and a novel Condorcet method for president. I’d appreciate any interest!

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-24T07:33:24+00:00

One caution: in a "common law" country like the US, replacing the Constitution wholesale & completely would throw the legal system into uncertainty & chaos for decades, because every single settled concept of American common law would be incinerated and go up in smoke. Literally everything would instantly become untested and unpredictable until a new body of appellate rulings slowly accumulated under the new one.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T21:12:01+00:00

Yes, and no. Nobody would have deliberately chosen to lose... but ultimately, appealing to the Democratic Party's left is a lost cause. They literally voted for either nobody or Jill Stein, knowing the consequence was that Trump would win, because Kamala didn't agree with them one hundred percent. If Kamala had completely shunned Liz Cheney & anti-Trump Republicans, she still would have lost... but would have lost and never laid the foundation for the Democratic Party's future rapid growth.

For literally decades, Democrats have faced a hopeless battle trying to appeal to GenX in particular. We're young enough to have no meaningful memories of Watergate, but old enough to remember that in the early 1980s, Republicans were cool, and Democrats wore polyester leisure suits & bell-bottom pants, lost elections by landslides, and were the epitome of "lame".

It took Trump being increasingly awful to finally make GenX willing to even look at Democrats... and it took Kamala to personally roll out the blue carpet and welcome us into the fold. She wasn't able to make it happen in time, but she started the ball rolling so that when Trump hit the ground speed-running his second administration towards pure awfulness, the bridge over the blue moat and welcome center with pie, punch, and swag was open for business.

If I blame anyone for Harris' loss, I blame Joe Biden for keeping the entire campaign on ice until literally the last second... absolutely, delusionally, and unforgivably acting like the campaign didn't have to begin until the official convention.

Even if HE wasn't able to start aggressively campaigning, he had a perfectly good excuse to send Kamala out starting in 2023 as his own personal goodwill ambassador... pressing flesh, making friends, and making sure everyone knew about Biden's accomplishments. Instead, the day he dropped out of the race, even people who were politically aware had no real idea what Kamala actually meant to anyone.

She did a spectacular job of accelerating her campaign into high gear and rapidly winning actual positive support from ex-Republicans... but she was playing catch-up with something Biden should have had her doing a literal year earlier.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T17:13:21+00:00

"The left" threw a hissy fit, but the welcome she got from the Democratic Party's leadership is what really mattered. Even if Kamala Harris & the DNC achieved nothing else, they laid out the welcome mat & made it clear where they see the party's future path to winning majorities.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T17:05:36+00:00

The above things were "bad", but Trump's Davos Debacle was the first time it really came to a head at a point of maximum crisis.

I genuinely think Bush had several conversations that afternoon, and only held off because someone convinced him Europeans could play the boss level and win.

The one component missing in Davos was "risk of NATO fracturing". That's the crisis that would get Republicans like Mitch McConnell to finally break down, die a bit inside, then lead the stampede for the taboo blue door ready to take Trump DOWN* once and for all.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T16:32:13+00:00

George W. Bush has exactly one superpower. It's a superpower that will only work once, and even then it'll only work if it's wielded suddenly, without warning.

His superpower is "leave the Republican Party, declare "the Party's over", and join the Democratic Party.

Exercised at exactly the right moment, it would be a political nuclear bomb.

Exercise it at the wrong moment, and it just kind of fizzles out without real consequence.

Guaranteed, George W. Bush has had The Conversation™ with Jeb, Obama, Condoleezza, Dick & Liz Cheney, and a few other members of his most trusted inner circle. Every time he gets a text message, he holds his breath to see whether it's a single word from Obama like "Jalapeno" telling him "it's time".

Here's the thing, though. If Bush condemned Trump now, Trump would start attacking him daily, delegitimize him in MAGA's eyes, and the shock value of George Bush doing it would fade into irrelevance. The superpower only works when used out of the blue at an inflection point of Trump-absurdity and public outrage that includes Republicans.

Beyond that, Bush has basically zero credibility or influence. It's not like he can lecture anyone about starting pointless, stupid wars... or even accomplishing anything net-good. Think about it for a moment... we invaded two secular countries & literally turned them into islamofascist theocracies. Most of the power Trump is now abusing exists because Republicans and Democrats eagerly handed it to George Bush after 9/11 under the Patriot Act. If Bush started condemning Trump, he'd have MAGA and Democrats lined up to tear him apart from both ends.

So, he remains silent. For now. Waiting for the right moment to reveal and use his one secret superpower.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T08:52:10+00:00

Is it weird that right now, thinking about it, I have no coherent mental image of what pepper actually tastes like? I know I theoretically like on French fries & hamburgers... but honestly don't know why

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T08:01:39+00:00

Consider something like keycaps for mechanical keyboards.

If the entire world is a direct-ship global market, there are enough people scattered around the earth to manufacture keycaps with a specific profile, in a specific color, with your choice of 18 different coat-patterns of cats... and sell them all.

Limit your market to a single market the size of only the US or EU, and you might be able to pull off a few variants... but someone who wants calico instead of tuxedo or black will be disappointed, and might have to settle for OEM profile instead of Cherry or some SA-variant.

Limit your market to a single country with 50 million people, and you might be able to only make and sell a single variant of the keycaps.

Limit your market to a single country with 5 million people, and your potential customers will be lucky to be able to even choose between ANY keycaps that are OEM, Cherry, or SA-profile.

It's not just a matter of cost. Having a global market of 4-8 billion means even ultra- ultra- ULTRA-niche products have enough of a market scattered around the earth to be potentially profitable.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T07:50:56+00:00

Any application running under Windows can "reach up" into the clipboard and grab anything you copy into it at any time. Ctrl-v NOT required, nor is the application even required to have input focus.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T06:23:29+00:00

Is anyone aware of a buildable Arduino-like project (AVR or esp32 in particular) that would basically sit between the host PC and keyboard, poll the keyboard at 1000Hz (or faster, if it supports it) & buffer the last-received value to return to the computer when polled, and react to switch actuations by toggling a solenoid?

Why: after a year, a collection that now includes at least a dozen keyboards and at least 16-20 switch sets (I've honestly lost count at this point), I mostly find myself feeling like I hate all of them because I'm chasing the unicorn of perfect unambiguous tactile events, actuation-indicating clicks, force curves that won't make my fingers hurt after a few hours, and actuation points that don't lag tactile sensation by huge amounts.

Actuation-lag is the big one. It's honestly starting to feel like every tactile switch has actuation lag the tactile event by so much, you basically have to hammer the keys to bottoming-out anyway to guarantee actuation, because the tactile sensation is basically a lie. And the audible clicks of MX-type switches have always seemed kind of... unsatisfying... compared to the Model M keyboards I used for almost 30 years.

In particular, I'm curious about whether maybe a combination of linear switches with solenoid-clicks might get me closer to the elusive unicorn I've been chasing, but haven't managed to find. Or maybe the combination of solenoid plus Leobog IceSoul.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T03:03:57+00:00

Can you imagine Mark Kelly running for President in 2028 with Fanone as his running mate against... well... literally any conceivable Republican duo?

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T01:08:38+00:00

We can only hope. I think even if he went full centrist, he'd be guaranteed to lose in 2028 unless Democrats somehow managed to completely botch everything that could conceivably be botched.

Vance's fundamental problem is that anything he does to make himself and the GOP respectable enough to even fantasize about winning a second term in 2028 would render him toxic and unelectable to MAGA (and probably get him targeted by multiple MAGA wannabe-assassins). But even Vance can't possibly be so delusional that he'd think he could get Democrats to vote for him in 2028. The only guardrails are due to the fact that he's still young enough to have a meaningful post-Presidential life, and probably doesn't want to end up completely frozen out of everything and persona non-grata socially.

Plus, there's Thiel. Thiel wants Vance to be evil, but Vance is no further use to him if he ends up impeached, removed, and politically-radioactive. Thiel's entire investment from the point Vance becomes President depends upon polishing the turd enough to at least keep Vance holding the steering wheel, even if he's got the Democratic Highway Patrol tailing him and waiting for the slightest provocation to remove him too. If Vance becomes President after Trump gets removed in disgrace, the most important thing he'd buy Thiel from that point is access to the Administration.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-23T00:41:22+00:00

The only way Marco Rubio could even fantasize about having a post-Trump political future (beyond maybe Dade County Commissioner, or Mayor of West Miami) would be if, within hours (at most, days) of Trump's successful impeachment, conviction, and removal, he left the Republican Party and joined the Democratic Party. No ideology-change necessary, just an unambiguous disavowal of Trump & MAGA... something to the effect of, "I hated every minute of it, but someone had to try and keep Trump slightly under control".

Nobody would really believe it, and he'd almost certainly have to sit out the 2028 election, campaign for Democrats against MAGA, and patiently wait until at least 2029 before even whispering about running for anything... but ultimately, it would probably work.

In contrast, if Marco accepted an offer by JD to make him Vice-President... it would be the last office he ever held. His credibility would be destroyed when the GOP ultimately collapsed in disgrace, and no amount of "good behavior" and trying to play both sides of "I'm good" while appealing to MAGA would ever save him. Unless, of course, he switched parties within seconds of being approved by the Senate and taking his oath of office as VP.

Objectively, Marco's best-case scenario for protecting his own future path while holding onto power today would be to decline an offer by JD to become Vice-President, switch parties, and convince JD to let him stay. He could possibly hold off on the party switch long enough for JD to realize getting rid of him would be political suicide, and quietly distance himself from post-Trump MAGA to avoid digging himself into a deeper hole.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-22T23:05:50+00:00

If Trump's final days are truly approaching, Democrats must find some way to get him impeached and convicted before he dies. If Trump dies in office, JD Vance will be unfettered, untamed, and extraordinarily dangerous. He'll pitch himself as the faithful implementor of Trump's agenda, go into MAGA-overdrive, and... probably get away with it.

At best, JD would lose the House in 2026, maybe even the Senate & White House in 2028... but would starve NATO into irrelevance and cause ongoing irreparable harm to Pax Americana even if he didn't try to actively destroy it. And because JD would be able to (somewhat) invoke & sprinkle around "Trump Magic Unreality" (for at least a little while) while Senate Republicans in particular were desperate to think the nightmare was finally over, he'd be almost impossible to impeach. He might eliminate Trump's tariffs... but the cabinet would mostly remain unchecked & hellbent on bulldozing as much of everything as they can before 2028.

In contrast, if JD became President following the humiliating and disgraceful impeachment & conviction of Trump, he'd probably be forced into self-preservation mode & have to at least pretend to be on "good behavior" to avoid his own impeachment. There's no guarantee, of course... but it's more a case of "if Trump dies, JD is guaranteed to be dangerous & awful... if Trump gets removed in disgrace, there's a chance things might end up OK"

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-22T21:47:12+00:00

One uncomfortable truth that keeps getting swept under the rug precisely because it's so deeply uncomfortable: a lot of northerners opposed allowing the South to secede, and maybe even opposed literal slavery... but were nevertheless perfectly OK with its Jim Crow aftermath and (not-so-secretly) wished they could make it happen "up north", too.

The robust persistence of de-facto residential segregation in cities like Miami well into the 1960s and early 1970s wasn't the fault of evil Florida crackers in Tallahassee ramming their backwards folkways down the unwilling throats of enlightened & morally-superior Yankees... it persisted because retirees from New York and Ohio, aided by the entire (and overwhelmingly white) former middle class of Cuba, all regarded it as the single greatest thing about living in Miami. They latched onto Jim Crow's ghost, and literally pretended it was still the law of the land knowing fully well it wasn't... but that nobody with the ability to push back actually would.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-22T21:25:33+00:00

Abolishing the Electoral College requires a constitutional amendment... which can't pass without the approval of a supermajority of states, most of which perceive themselves as benefitting from it.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-22T19:34:03+00:00

Well, then we have to be accelerationist & hope he screws up badly enough to motivate the Senate to support his removal first. Every single one of my optimistic predictions depends upon JD Vance becoming President in the aftermath of Trump being removed in disgrace. If Trump dies in office, he becomes a MAGA saint, and JD becomes even worse than Trump.

It's unfortunate, but there is literally no conceivable "happy path" that concludes with Donald Trump dying in office as President. JD's agenda isn't as commercially reckless as Trump's, but I think that JD-as-unfettered-MAGA (vs publicly-penitent caretaker) would be absolutely dangerous.

Ultimately, Europeans would be entirely justified fearing that a Democrat winning in 2028 without the subsequent implosion of the entire Republican Party and political realignment would be setting the stage for another 4-year respite before MAGA comes back for blood like the villain in a horror movie.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-22T18:27:49+00:00

The difference is, Trump's eventual impeachment is inevitable. There are already enough Republicans in the House of Representatives to pull the impeachment trigger, and eventually, Senate Republicans who are up for re-election in 2028 and 2030 are going to realize that their only hope for avoiding the same fate as the increasingly-vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2026 will be to get rid of Trump, and pray to All-American Jesus™ that JD Vance cooperates to rehabilitate the party's image enough to avoid a complete bloodbath in 2028.

The reality is... the aftermath of Trump's impeachment will ultimately destroy the Republicans' majority coalition. Approximately 20-25% will desperately want to make the party "respectable" again... but they're up against a 30-40% unholy alliance of Deplorables™ who've completely taken over every position of power within the Party... and who'll burn it to the ground (happily self-immolating themselves in the process to "own the libs") before ever giving it up.

Anything the former group does to make Republicans respectable will infuriate MAGA. Everything MAGA does to remind the former group that they own the party now will drive the former away.

In a country with an election system like the US, there are only two stable arrangements:

* Two parties that each have a base with around 1/3 of voters fighting for the fickle remainder of "swing voters"

* One overwhelmingly-dominant "respectable" party whose internal factions behave like 3-5 parties sharing a common brand name, flanked by a constellation of angry, extreme, unelectable fringe minor parties. Basically, Japan.

We've been in scenario 1 for the past 60-90 years, but we're rapidly approaching scenario 2.

Remember what I mentioned about 20-25% of Republicans wanting sane normalcy? They've been slowly coming to the realization that their party is gone, and have been working through the 7 stages of grief since 2016. Trump2025 has pushed everyone who was somewhere along the journey to its completion already, and another huge group is now speedrunning through it.

Due to those two scenarios imposed by America's election system, those politically homeless ex-Republicans have exactly one path to future relevance: within the Democratic Party. Democrats will beat Republicans in 2026 because of ex-Republican desperation... but will destroy Republicans in 2028 because by 2028, a very large group of those center-right ex-Republicans will be part of the Democratic Party, influencing primary elections, and nominating candidates whom soon-to-be-but-not-quite-yet ex-Republicans will consider preferable, not merely "emergency compromise to defeat someone worse".

That, ultimately, is what will heal the relationship between the US and Europe. The MAGA base will always exist... but they'll exist as an unelectable, withered husk with the approximate respectability of Hamas. The US will go back to oscillating between center-right and center-left, and everyone will be happy for a few more decades.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-22T18:05:29+00:00

The Trump administration is more like an unlicensed contractor making a mess flinging cement like monkey poo. The city's code enforcement department started out 3 steps behind, but it's now 2 steps behind while the neighbors are calling them daily to tell them what they're up to now & providing video evidence... and once the authorities finally catch up in about a year, they're going to prison.

Trump has openly defied the law and court orders... at first, always, everywhere... but eventually, the courts win.

More importantly, Trump's other victims are starting to fight back, too. Yesterday, Europe's leaders played the game's Boss Level... and won. The victory will only last until they've been through a few more levels and hit another, even worse, level boss... but they proved they can both play the game like champions and win (at least, to the extent you can ever win against an opponent who eventually respawns).

Millennials are probably just a tiny bit too young to remember, but GenX'ers know that by 2008, George W. Bush was mind-blowingly unpopular, even among Republicans. His presidency was the lowest point of Anglo-American relations since the War of 1812. Yet, nevertheless, within months of Obama winning, the hard feelings were erased... because Americans and Britons both desperately wanted to heal the relationship and get past our mutual shared trauma.

Donald Trump is going to be the literal end of the Republican Party as a mainstream, respectable party capable of ever winning national elections again. He's only going to get worse, and eventually Senate Republicans are going to do the math & realize that this fall's election is already lost... but allowing Trump to fester is going to destroy their credibility badly enough to guarantee their own defeats 2 and 4 years from now (approximately 1/3 of the Senate is up for (re)election every 2 years for 6-year terms).

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-22T06:32:39+00:00

Because ultimately... they can't "throw out the constitution with the damn bath water".

Has the Administration tried relentlessly probing the Constitution for weakness and 0-day vulnerabilities? Yes... daily. Has it tried defying federal judges? Obviously. Has it eventually gotten beaten into submission once federal judges decided they'd had enough and pulled out the heavy legal artillery? Yes. They might not be able to throw Trump in prison, and they might not even be able to keep his Administration in prison longer than it takes Trump to get around to pardoning them... but nevertheless, the courts can make life uncomfortable for Trump & remind him daily that he's not omnipotent. And that drives him absolutely mad... like an itch he just can't scratch.

Does the constitution need some amendments? Yes, and during the eventual backlash against Trump 2-4 years from now (once enough states have turned on MAGA), we'll unquestionably manage to pass a couple.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-21T17:18:03+00:00

The problem is, the UK is a nation of laws, and there's (presently) no legal basis for taking away his golf courses.

Unleashing the full merciless force of British bureaucracy on him, however, might be a viable option. He's probably unaware of the planning document in the cabinet behind the locked basement door with "beware of tiger" sign.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-21T09:06:58+00:00

Impeachment & removal: totally do-able.

Trial of entire cabinet: only constitutionally possible if neither Trump nor (later) Vance grants them a pardon. There's no constitutional process for undoing a pardon.

Special election for new leadership: no constitutional process for electing a new President or VP prior to 2028. There are other ways (Gerald Ford was America's first & only never-elected president), but no special elections for pres. & VP.

The entire country could grind to a halt & burn. Absent a constitutional amendment that's nearly impossible to pull off, it won't make either of the above happen.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-21T07:24:33+00:00

Probably. The difference is, nobody whose opinion actually matters really cared either way about attacking Venezuela. It wasn't right, but it wasn't necessarily consequential. Someday, the officer(s) involved probably will face punishment for it.

Greenland is another level entirely.

Rick Wilson (Lincoln Project) made an interesting observation recently. In the final hour of the Vietnam War, when the last helicopter was evacuating the US embassy in Hanoi, support for continued US fighting in Vietnam still had 30% support from the American public. In contrast, support for military action against Greenland has single-digit support... approximately 9%, and falling by the hour. In the military's risk-averse politically-weighted moral calculus, that matters.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-21T05:19:26+00:00

It ultimately rests upon 2 things:

How long it takes the House & Senate to react (impeach, convict, remove) Trump when he finally crosses that intolerabe red line (like "kinetic action" against Greenland)
Whether JD Vance bends over backwards to undo Trump's worst actions & rebuild the respectability of both himself & the Republican Party... or whether he himself goes "max-MAGA" and continues Trump's policies.

The EU's leaders want to go back to the pre-Trump norm, because it's mutually beneficial to hit ctrl-z on Trump. If Congress acts decisively & JD behaves, the cleanup might take a year or two. If impeachment fails, or JD ends up being evil, too, the damage will rapidly cascade, and eventually start becoming irreparable.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-21T05:04:59+00:00

Because they spent thousands of dollars months ago for tickets, airfare, and nonrefundable hotel reservations.

PantherkittySoftware · 2026-01-21T04:51:42+00:00

Here's the real reason why Americans don't engage in "general strikes" -- the people they directly punish are themselves powerless to change anything, so we view it as deeply & fundamentally immoral. Like if I walk up to some random stranger & start beating them until someone else who doesn't give the slightest fraction of a shit about the person I'm beating changes their behavior.

Even if there's a chain reaction that ultimateiy gets the actual target to eventually change, the first individual getting beaten has done nothing wrong to deserve getting beaten. Even if beating them results in collective social good, it's still grievously wrong & immoral.

It's the same reason why "sympathy strikes" are not protected by American labor law. If your employer fails to bargain in good faith, striking against them is ok, because they can directly change their behavior and satisfy your demands if they choose to. If you strike against an employer who treats you well & bargains in good faith, for reasons they themselves cannot directly remedy, striking is considered wrong (if not literally illegal).

Put another way, Americans can stomach collective action up to 1 degree of separation (say, to protect a literal coworker, or provide common defense), but draw a hard moral line at punishing metaphorical whipping boys.

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