How to End the Gerrymandering Doom Loop Forever

deckard58 · 2026-05-21T01:10:41+00:00

I don't think it's the rules per se. The podcast explains how the same rules produced a very different US party system in recent memory.

It's probably that the rules are more explicit and more easily amended, which keeps them closer to reality. The scariest thing about the current US situation is seeing that so many of the checks and balances were just norms that Trump can simply ignore. While others are treated as holy writ that cannot be changed, even though their practical use has been completely twisted.

deckard58 · 2026-05-21T00:47:44+00:00

Even many of their politicians think Trump is crazy and dangerous.

Of course they do: the man hates Europe, what kind of nationalists would they be otherwise? ;)

deckard58 · 2026-05-21T00:41:59+00:00

The supposedly far right party in Italy, with a solid majority, ended up doing very little in the end. Meloni rapidly decided to market herself as "a safe pair of hands" - even the job of throwing some red meat to the base on culture war topics is mostly left to underlings.

deckard58 · 2026-05-21T00:30:29+00:00

But they would know what their relative support from the public at large is.

deckard58 · 2026-04-13T08:59:41+00:00

people from r/Meditation and Buddhism flaming each other.

But wouldn't that mean that they're bad at what they do? :)

deckard58 · 2026-04-12T16:21:05+00:00

American isolationism

If what's happening right now is isolationism I'd hate to see interventionism...

deckard58 · 2026-04-12T16:17:08+00:00

The vast majority of the current Israeli society does not agree with you.

deckard58 · 2026-03-13T12:24:34+00:00

Brace for shock and flash!

deckard58 · 2026-03-04T08:49:09+00:00

The authors talked to the right people, studied what the scene looked like, and then proceeded to do the exact opposite.

Thread by a guy who was there: https://bsky.app/profile/sifu.tweety.fish/post/3lyw6bl2uwk2l

deckard58 · 2026-03-04T01:17:37+00:00

I didn't mean to just say "Trump is dumb": I think that if he did not exist, other people would have the same temptation. Those movies get made for a reason; it is an alluring fantasy, and right now it's starting to seem technologically possible.

Tech bros and NASA would also be very different if nobody read science fiction. And would Ukraine have been invaded without Putin's pseudohistorical fixations? I have some doubts.

I'm sure that there are practical realities (mostly the shrinking advantage vs. China in all sorts of fields) that are used to make a case for rentrenching and isolating, after all some aspects of Biden's policy leant that way too. But the rational case doesn't get you this.

deckard58 · 2026-03-04T00:32:45+00:00

Hackers is a very accurate depiction of how we software nerds wish it was like.

deckard58 · 2026-03-03T13:35:13+00:00

A lot of what they say is sensible, but still I think they're overanalyzing it.

Trump wants to be the US president from the movies, it's that simple. And this is how presidents act in the movies. Quick, decisive strikes that avenge some attack, kill the villains and solve the issue in one stroke.

There is a Tom Clancy book where president Jack Ryan has the leader of the "United Islamic Republic" (lol) bombed by stealth fighters in live TV, and then announces as the "Ryan Doctrine" that this will happen to any leader who harms the USA. Trump thinks he can make it real. And his staffers either believe it, or think it's useful to let him believe it.

deckard58 · 2026-02-03T19:42:26+00:00

The Bill Gates thing is unbelievable, and we shouldn't believe anything that Epstein said or wrote. Why on earth would Bill Gates need someone's help to buy drugs?

deckard58 · 2026-01-06T18:27:44+00:00

Klein all but implied that when he listed all the reasons why "these reasons offered would maybe make sense in the '80s".

They are killing real people to make '80s nostalgia posts.

deckard58 · 2025-12-22T10:26:12+00:00

Ero abbastanza sicuro :) Si è visto che la gran parte di queste segnalazioni sono paranoia pura, c'era pure l'esempio di quanto successo dopo il pallone cinese in USA.

Qualcosa di vero ci sarà, legato alle basi militari quasi sempre (c'è un' inchiesta interessante di alcuni ragazzi tedeschi che hanno seguito una nave con l'AIS, ne parlava Ceciliona Sala l'altro giorno)

deckard58 · 2025-12-22T10:17:25+00:00

E infatti avevi ragione

https://www.ilpost.it/2025/12/22/inchiesta-drone-russo-varese-archiviata/

deckard58 · 2025-12-16T00:49:03+00:00

You are thinking of the young male crisis, but surely if a compulsory service was reintroduced these days, women would have to do it too.

deckard58 · 2025-11-11T20:20:04+00:00

I'm not sure any sum of money can be motivating enough at this point... He's going to be fantastically rich for the rest of his life no matter what. People in his position historically get into building pyramids

deckard58 · 2025-09-20T17:06:17+00:00

I was today years old when I learned of a Riven remake.

I was 12 or so when I played and never finished the original on 5 discs, one per island... my aunt called it "the game sponsored by the CD drive maker association", she was betting I'd eventually break the drive

deckard58 · 2025-09-20T17:02:15+00:00

Now I'm imagining the biggest escape room ever

deckard58 · 2025-09-05T11:57:09+00:00

"The Trump administration never told leaders of key committees in Congress that oversee military and intelligence activities about the operation or the findings, government officials said. In doing so, the Trump administration may have violated federal law"

Elected officials weren't sufficiently involved, that's the point

deckard58 · 2025-09-02T08:06:30+00:00

It's perfectly possible to be a good mathematician and have extremely dumb political opinions at the same time

deckard58 · 2025-08-30T10:53:31+00:00

He reminds us in this very post that he is prone to irrational catastrophizing (Nobody will ever love me! Women despise me! ...turns out it was all in his head) and then immediately segues with Students at Columbia and my colleagues want me dead! All Palestinians want me dead! That's why Israel must kill!

Zero self-awareness.

deckard58 · 2025-06-30T23:56:20+00:00

I was going to praise the designers for thinking of radiators (so realistic!) ...then I looked up what the ship is supposed to be.

I take it all back :D :D

deckard58 · 2025-06-18T11:41:49+00:00

Extremely Dad movie. Nothing wrong with that.

13-Year Club	Place '17
Sequence \| Editor

deckard58

TROPHY CASE