Heard a version of this where it was the centrist liberal parties who were afraid of totally disappearing who moved for PR, made sense given that those tended to be below the social democrats and christian democrats, could see why the british lib dems were the ones who wanted it there.

Many political scientists argue that PR was adopted by parties on the right as a strategy to survive amid suffrage expansion, democratization and the rise of workers' parties. According to Stein Rokkan in a seminal 1970 study, parties on the right opted to adopt PR as a way to survive as competitive parties in situations when the parties on the right were not united enough to exist under majoritarian systems.[153] This argument was formalized and supported by Carles Boix in a 1999 study.[154] Amel Ahmed notes that prior to the adoption of PR, many electoral systems were based on majority or plurality rule, and that these systems risked eradicating parties on the right in areas where the working class was large in numbers. He therefore argues that parties on the right adopted PR as a way to ensure that they would survive as potent political forces amid suffrage expansion.[155] A 2021 study linked the adoption of PR to incumbent fears of revolutionary threats.

Huh.

thecosar: I think that 2016 is just when things got much worse, not when the problem started. There was already increasing deadlock for decades. Look at how the rules around passing a budget kept getting changed, and then eventually we stopped being able to regularly pass one at all. A major thing is that you still have coalition building in First Past the post 2 party systems. It's just that the process is mostly inside the parties/in the primaries.

Oh it's not that the deadlock avoidance failed in 2016, it's the containment of those far-right forces failed in 2016. Deadlock level remains the same but the US managed to pass some unprecedented economic policies while the germans deindustrialize.

Deadlock still happens in the US system but despite more collegiality over there the US system has been able to handle the 2008 gfc and the covid crash in ways that compared to the europeans are very responsive. There are other reasons for that but the US manages to keep things going.

Honestly, I *don't* want to mix things with proportional representation. I see proportional representation as an excellent way of increasing the importance of dealings between politicians and reducing the incentive effects of the voters. But in my ideal world I'll need to negotiate with people who do like proportional representation, and this system is a compromise I could get behind. Plus you can plug and play any three different electoral systems for different compromises.

First past the post is a bad, undemocratic electoral system. First past the post privileges large parties by making small ones unviable, and distorts the composition of parliaments by wasting votes. It can be gerrymandered in a way proportional representation cannot be. It produces highly unrepresentative outcomes. It is a bad electoral system! All good voting systems are to some degree inclined to more proportional results.

I've never heard the accusation that PR "increases the importance of dealings between politicians," but look. I don't know how else to put this. That is a stupid objection. Just absolutely boneheaded. You haven't thought about this at all, I reckon.

People hate on "politicians" as a generic class, but it's like hating on lawyers as a generic class. You need politicians. You want politicians. You want people whose specialized job it is to read legislation, fight about what should go in it, represent your interests, and come to balanced compromises about those interests. People percieve politics as messy, venal, and corrupt, and it can be all those things, but guess what? The alternative to career politicians is part-time citizens who don't know what the fuck they're doing, have no expertise in the legislative process, and therefore are at the mercy of lobbyists who can walk them like a dog because they're naive and inexperienced.

There's this especially (but not exclusively) American pathology that is a suspicion of government that works too well. This peculiar notion that if only we sabotage government a little bit it will keep tyranny in check and make politicians more honest... somehow. But filling government with random yahoos doesn't get you a noble collegium of Tocquevillian citizen-lawmakers, it gets you a pack of Marjorie Taylor Greens and Lauren Boberts. You know--morons. Americans will support all these ballot initiatives that fuck up government on purpose, like term-limiting legislators and keeping their salaries low so only rich people can afford to go into politics (and even then are only willing to do it as a stepping stone to other gigs), and vote for people who promise to make government work even worse by cutting the budget and lowering taxes, and then have the absolute gall to whine about how badly the government works. My fellow Americans, you did that on purpose.

(And there's this weird paradox where Americans all loathe Congress. Who keeps voting these creeps in? Well. You do. Congresscritters are generally pretty highly approved of by their own constituents. The stereotype of lazy, stupid, venal politicians always seems to apply to the other guys.)

And you will also note that since the abolition of things that used to facilitate deals between politicians in the U.S. congress--since the abolition of earmarks and chummy socials between congressmen and the post--generally, since the post-Gingrich upheaval in the House--it has gotten harder to pass even necessary, basic legislation, because it is harder to make the basic compromises necessary to keep government functioning. Having three separate legislatures that each can claim a different sort of democratic mandate isn't a recipe for good legislation, it's a recipe for paralysis and constitutional crisis.

Am learning exciting things from the Matt Levine podcast, like how to earn several hundred thousand dollars of tax-free income by buying stuff with a credit card, immediately reselling it and collecting those reward points. Quitting my day job to become a #hustlegrind entrepreneur

Even Modi’s former economic aides find the recent growth rates of 8% announced by the government “mystifying.” Major discrepancies in the way GDP is being calculated make the data hugely problematic. One of Modi’s former chief economists holds that if correctly measured, India’s economy would actually be found to be decelerating.

Meanwhile, foreign direct investment is plunging. FDI levels are now the lowest in nearly two decades. Even local investors are shying away from opening their wallets. Private capital expenditure remains low. Private sector investment has in fact been falling as a proportion of GDP since 2012 and the economy is now largely driven by huge government investment.

The consumer goods market continues to be sluggish, with people cutting down on staples—emblematic of economic stress. Private consumption growth is the slowest in 20 years, setting aside the pandemic low. Tractor sales, a proxy for the economic health of villages (where 70% of Indians live), have fallen steeply. Banks are battling the worst deposit crunch in two decades as household savings are at a 47-year low while household debt levels are at a record high. Not exactly the signs of a booming economy. In the last financial year, India’s goods exports fell 3% and its crude imports, 14%.

Unemployment is also endemic. The share of young people with secondary or higher education among unemployed youth has almost doubled in 20 years; a third of graduates are unemployed. Jobless Indian youth now pursue opportunities in conflict zones in Israel and Ukraine, and try to smuggle themselves into the West. Indians are currently the third-largest group of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., their numbers having surged faster than those from any other country.

Despite all of Modi’s drumbeating on boosting India’s manufacturing sector with his much-trumpeted “Make in India” campaign, manufacturing’s share of the GDP has fallen.Far from increasing manufacturing jobs, India is losing them in millions. The ranks of farmworkers, meanwhile, have risen by 60 million in the past four years. Agriculture now actually employs a greater share of workers than it did five years ago, a reversal that points to deindustrialization.

There are also concerns about data manipulation. Before the last parliamentary election in 2019, the government buried its own employment data before the election as it showed the unemployment rate to be at a 45-year-high, leading to resignations of members of the National Statistical Commission. A key five-yearly consumer survey result was withheld that year because of “data quality issues.” When it was finally released this February, it showed poverty and inequality has fallen, and consumer spending had tripled in a decade. That contradicts the government’s own findings and data found elsewhere.

Ethnically cleansed out of San Fransisco by the rent being too damn high, amirite????

“What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore). Balaji then revealed his shocking ideas for a tech-governed city where citizens loyal to tech companies would form a new political tribe clad in gray t-shirts. “And if you see another Gray on the street … you do the nod,” he said, during a four-hour talk on the Moment of Zen podcast. “You’re a fellow Gray.” The Grays’ shirts would feature “Bitcoin or Elon or other kinds of logos … Y Combinator is a good one for the city of San Francisco in particular.” Grays would also receive special ID cards providing access to exclusive, Gray-controlled sectors of the city. In addition, the Grays would make an alliance with the police department, funding weekly “policeman’s banquets” to win them over. “Grays should embrace the police, okay? All-in on the police,” said Srinivasan. “What does that mean? That’s, as I said, banquets. That means every policeman’s son, daughter, wife, cousin, you know, sibling, whatever, should get a job at a tech company in security.” In exchange for extra food and jobs, cops would pledge loyalty to the Grays. Srinivasan recommends asking officers a series of questions to ascertain their political leanings. For example: “Did you want to take the sign off of Elon’s building?”

Gotta dig around in the garage to find my Mussolini particle detector

I would argue that the US FPTP system did handle it until 2016, those people were incorporated into the republican party which they were not able to dominate.

Cordon Sanitaires may be a problem but they do seem inevitable, as long as liberal democracy lasts.

Honestly, I *don't* want to mix things with proportional representation. I see proportional representation as an excellent way of increasing the importance of dealings between politicians and reducing the incentive effects of the voters. But in my ideal world I'll need to negotiate with people who do like proportional representation, and this system is a compromise I could get behind. Plus you can plug and play any three different electoral systems for different compromises.

First past the post is a bad, undemocratic electoral system. First past the post privileges large parties by making small ones unviable, and distorts the composition of parliaments by wasting votes. It can be gerrymandered in a way proportional representation cannot be. It produces highly unrepresentative outcomes. It is a bad electoral system! All good voting systems are to some degree inclined to more proportional results.

I've never heard the accusation that PR "increases the importance of dealings between politicians," but look. I don't know how else to put this. That is a stupid objection. Just absolutely boneheaded. You haven't thought about this at all, I reckon.

People hate on "politicians" as a generic class, but it's like hating on lawyers as a generic class. You need politicians. You want politicians. You want people whose specialized job it is to read legislation, fight about what should go in it, represent your interests, and come to balanced compromises about those interests. People percieve politics as messy, venal, and corrupt, and it can be all those things, but guess what? The alternative to career politicians is part-time citizens who don't know what the fuck they're doing, have no expertise in the legislative process, and therefore are at the mercy of lobbyists who can walk them like a dog because they're naive and inexperienced.

There's this especially (but not exclusively) American pathology that is a suspicion of government that works too well. This peculiar notion that if only we sabotage government a little bit it will keep tyranny in check and make politicians more honest... somehow. But filling government with random yahoos doesn't get you a noble collegium of Tocquevillian citizen-lawmakers, it gets you a pack of Marjorie Taylor Greens and Lauren Boberts. You know--morons. Americans will support all these ballot initiatives that fuck up government on purpose, like term-limiting legislators and keeping their salaries low so only rich people can afford to go into politics (and even then are only willing to do it as a stepping stone to other gigs), and vote for people who promise to make government work even worse by cutting the budget and lowering taxes, and then have the absolute gall to whine about how badly the government works. My fellow Americans, you did that on purpose.

(And there's this weird paradox where Americans all loathe Congress. Who keeps voting these creeps in? Well. You do. Congresscritters are generally pretty highly approved of by their own constituents. The stereotype of lazy, stupid, venal politicians always seems to apply to the other guys.)

And you will also note that since the abolition of things that used to facilitate deals between politicians in the U.S. congress--since the abolition of earmarks and chummy socials between congressmen and the post--generally, since the post-Gingrich upheaval in the House--it has gotten harder to pass even necessary, basic legislation, because it is harder to make the basic compromises necessary to keep government functioning. Having three separate legislatures that each can claim a different sort of democratic mandate isn't a recipe for good legislation, it's a recipe for paralysis and constitutional crisis.

Problem with PR multiparty systems to me is deadlock, after you exclude the parties beyond the cordon sanitaire forming a coalition can be very difficult and prone to blow up at the slightest difficulty.

Honestly, I *don't* want to mix things with proportional representation. I see proportional representation as an excellent way of increasing the importance of dealings between politicians and reducing the incentive effects of the voters. But in my ideal world I'll need to negotiate with people who do like proportional representation, and this system is a compromise I could get behind. Plus you can plug and play any three different electoral systems for different compromises.

First past the post is a bad, undemocratic electoral system. First past the post privileges large parties by making small ones unviable, and distorts the composition of parliaments by wasting votes. It can be gerrymandered in a way proportional representation cannot be. It produces highly unrepresentative outcomes. It is a bad electoral system! All good voting systems are to some degree inclined to more proportional results.

I've never heard the accusation that PR "increases the importance of dealings between politicians," but look. I don't know how else to put this. That is a stupid objection. Just absolutely boneheaded. You haven't thought about this at all, I reckon.

People hate on "politicians" as a generic class, but it's like hating on lawyers as a generic class. You need politicians. You want politicians. You want people whose specialized job it is to read legislation, fight about what should go in it, represent your interests, and come to balanced compromises about those interests. People percieve politics as messy, venal, and corrupt, and it can be all those things, but guess what? The alternative to career politicians is part-time citizens who don't know what the fuck they're doing, have no expertise in the legislative process, and therefore are at the mercy of lobbyists who can walk them like a dog because they're naive and inexperienced.

There's this especially (but not exclusively) American pathology that is a suspicion of government that works too well. This peculiar notion that if only we sabotage government a little bit it will keep tyranny in check and make politicians more honest... somehow. But filling government with random yahoos doesn't get you a noble collegium of Tocquevillian citizen-lawmakers, it gets you a pack of Marjorie Taylor Greens and Lauren Boberts. You know--morons. Americans will support all these ballot initiatives that fuck up government on purpose, like term-limiting legislators and keeping their salaries low so only rich people can afford to go into politics (and even then are only willing to do it as a stepping stone to other gigs), and vote for people who promise to make government work even worse by cutting the budget and lowering taxes, and then have the absolute gall to whine about how badly the government works. My fellow Americans, you did that on purpose.

(And there's this weird paradox where Americans all loathe Congress. Who keeps voting these creeps in? Well. You do. Congresscritters are generally pretty highly approved of by their own constituents. The stereotype of lazy, stupid, venal politicians always seems to apply to the other guys.)

And you will also note that since the abolition of things that used to facilitate deals between politicians in the U.S. congress--since the abolition of earmarks and chummy socials between congressmen and the post--generally, since the post-Gingrich upheaval in the House--it has gotten harder to pass even necessary, basic legislation, because it is harder to make the basic compromises necessary to keep government functioning. Having three separate legislatures that each can claim a different sort of democratic mandate isn't a recipe for good legislation, it's a recipe for paralysis and constitutional crisis.

x

Seeing some of the random statements from the houthis and graffiti in Gaza about the protests spread across social media and for some reason phrase that comes to mind is "Hamas never published an op/ed calling me an ungrateful little bitch"

“What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore). Balaji then revealed his shocking ideas for a tech-governed city where citizens loyal to tech companies would form a new political tribe clad in gray t-shirts. “And if you see another Gray on the street … you do the nod,” he said, during a four-hour talk on the Moment of Zen podcast. “You’re a fellow Gray.” The Grays’ shirts would feature “Bitcoin or Elon or other kinds of logos … Y Combinator is a good one for the city of San Francisco in particular.” Grays would also receive special ID cards providing access to exclusive, Gray-controlled sectors of the city. In addition, the Grays would make an alliance with the police department, funding weekly “policeman’s banquets” to win them over. “Grays should embrace the police, okay? All-in on the police,” said Srinivasan. “What does that mean? That’s, as I said, banquets. That means every policeman’s son, daughter, wife, cousin, you know, sibling, whatever, should get a job at a tech company in security.” In exchange for extra food and jobs, cops would pledge loyalty to the Grays. Srinivasan recommends asking officers a series of questions to ascertain their political leanings. For example: “Did you want to take the sign off of Elon’s building?”

OK to any students attending one of the Palestinian solidarity protests, I want to you look at the protestor to your right, and look to the protestor on your left. One of those two people is Kirsten Sinema, they will go on to join an NGO that campaigns for cutting social security to balance the budget, I want you to remember this. Especially if you think any Squad members are "suborning" the protest for clout but also in general.

Imagining the person who's job it is as the Iranian hijab protests to kick out the monarchists and MEK

ChatGPT write for me the essay "The Gaza War did not take place" in the style of Jean Baudrillard

Believe that the Communists are required to join forces with the bourgeoisie Colombia students in the popular front against the Biden regime.

dostoyevsky-official: protesters at columbia are practicing iron self-discipline, which includes only having the press talk to a group media representative. in response some journalists are saying how it's an attack on freedom of the press

Yeah I saw that, maybe they have been reading If We Burn