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Why Socrates hated democracy:
... to get him to see the flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship.
If you were heading out on a journey by sea, asks Socrates,
who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel?
Just anyone or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring?
The latter of course, says Adeimantus, so why then, responds Socrates,
do we keep thinking that any old person should be fit to judge who should be a ruler of a country? ...
An election debate between two candidates, one who was like a doctor and the other who was like a sweet shop owner. The sweet shop owner would say of his rival: Look, this person here has worked many evils on you. He hurts you, gives you bitter potions and tells you not to eat and drink whatever you like. He’ll never serve you feasts of many and varied pleasant things like I will. Socrates asks us to consider the audience response: Do you think the doctor would be able to reply effectively? The true answer – ‘I cause you trouble, and go against your desires in order to help you’ would cause an uproar among the voters, don’t you think? - Argumentum ad populum / Appeal to the masses / democratic fallacy: Fallacious argument of affirming that something is real or better because the majority thinks so
- Democracy is the preferred system because it gives the political power to those who control the mass media, while allowing them to remain behind the scenes and evade responsibility for the way in which they use said power. In all societies, the majority of people are too distracted, intoxicated, too stressed out, & preoccupied to deeply research and understand the alternatives presented to them at the polling booth. So they rely upon the road signs, the news anchors, the advertisements, the TV stars, the talking heads, etc. to decide on which candidate they will select. Consider "Get out the vote" campaigns which seek to convert non-voters into voters, without regards to how well they actually understand the topics. Consider why the candidate that spends the most almost always wins the election. This is why they want universal suffrage; They want every man, woman, and child to vote. Every geriatric, every highschool dropout, every NEET, every drug addict, every football hooligan, every illiterate troglodyte, every schizophrenic outpatient to all vote, because it means more power to the entities that control the talking heads of the mass media, the TV boxes, the newspapers, & the propaganda machines.
- Concentration of media ownership (including print, digital, video, radio, local TV, video games, record labels, etc)
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Why America cannot win WW3
(article)
- Which concludes: " That's my assessment, as a proud non-expert, of America's global strategic situation on the edge of a great power war. The GAE has no friends that matter in a fight. Its own population is sick in mind and body, and have been deliberately sickened so as to make them easier to control. It has no social capital to call upon. Its economy is faltering. Its leadership is sclerotic, corrupt, illegitimate, and despised. Its expensive military is unlikely to be able to maintain itself (indeed, from what I've read, this is already a problem), it has squandered resources on expensive white elephants of little military value against a peer competitor, and its training standards are in the gutter thanks to the same ideological madness that's ruined everything else in the decaying compost pile of Western society. "
- "PredictIt.org": A website where you can gamble on the outcomes of US elections
- Study: Testosterone levels in young American males are decreasing with each generation
- Testosterone Administration Induces A Red Shift in Weakly Affiliated Democrats (and improved mood)
- Cultural Marxism explained in one diagram
- Spoiler effect: The electoral versions of "Divide and conquer" / "together we stand divided we fall"
- Comparison of electoral systems
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Ranked choice voting:
- Instant runoff voting
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Single transferable vote
- Single Transferable Vote explained (video) using the Hare flavour for simplicity
- STV flavours: Hare vs Droop explanation (video) regarding how the final candidate in a multiwinner election is determined (Hare favours smaller parties at the expense of accurate representation, while Droop favours accurate representation)
- Another explanatory video using a single winner election
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States that were significantly overcounted:
- Delaware
- Hawaii
- Massachusetts +1 House Seat
- Minnesota
- New York
- Ohio
- Rhode Island +1 House Seat
- Utah
- Colorado +1 House Seat
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States that were significantly undercounted:
- Arkansas
- Florida -2 House Seats
- Illinois
- Mississippi
- Tennessee
- Texas -1 House Seat