Trans Oceanic Knowledge Exchange

[marsoupial they/them]

There's a petition going around on facebook to get the electoral college to revoke the vote and make HRC president. It already has three million-something signatures.  My sister, and mom and dad have all signed it.

[Kaymyth she/her]

9 minutes ago, Eki said:

I saw that. Not for the presidential elections though, right? But everything else?

That's correct.  It's aggravating that they left out the presidential vote, but in truth it's the downticket that makes more of a difference anyway.

Besides, as I've been saying the entire election season, third party presidential candidates are never going to be taken seriously until those third parties hold offices on the local, state, and national Congressional levels, and hold enough of them that it's no longer considered to be a statistical anomaly.  You cannot build a viable, functioning political party from the top down.

8 minutes ago, bleeder said:

There's a petition going around on facebook to get the electoral college to revoke the vote and make HRC president. It already has three million-something signatures.  My sister, and mom and dad have all signed it.

This, unfortunately, is not at all helpful.

1)  Pushing to change the way a system works after the results are already in carries a very strong "sore loser" connotation.  The time to change the Electoral College was anytime in the last sixteen years - you know, after the last time this happened with Gore.  2000 should have been a wake-up call.  Instead the Democratic Party decided that it was a one-off occurrence and sat on their thumbs for a decade-and-a-half.

2)  Most states have "Faithless Elector" clauses in their state constitutions that prevent this from happening legally.

 

Now, it is true that there are enough red states without Faithless Elector clauses that it could swing the vote.  There is an outside chance it could happen (though I'd put those odds approximately on a par with 'third party candidate winning the Presidency') - but I find the idea of putting public pressure on Electors to do it to be extremely distasteful.  Their identities are a matter of public record, and changing their vote carries very real potential consequences for them and their families.

[marsoupial they/them]

1 minute ago, Kaymyth said:

Now, it is true that there are enough red states without Faithless Elector clauses that it could swing the vote.  There is an outside chance it could happen (though I'd put those odds approximately on a par with 'third party candidate winning the Presidency')

So not much at all 

You really do know your politics, Kay.

[Kaymyth she/her]

1 minute ago, bleeder said:

So not much at all 

You really do know your politics, Kay.

I paid attention in school.

(I've actually had conversations with coworkers where I'll pop out some bit of knowledge, and they'll ask me how I know that.  I'll say well, duh, this was basic high school civics/geography/history/math/etc.  And they'll say, "Rosemary, normal people in their 30s don't remember what they learned in high school."  And I'll go )

But in all seriously, I've been around for a few election cycles.  I voted in the 2000 election and lived through the public outcry about the popular/electoral split.  This stuff isn't history for me, it's living memory.

[marsoupial they/them]

1 minute ago, Kaymyth said:

I paid attention in school.

(I've actually had conversations with coworkers where I'll pop out some bit of knowledge, and they'll ask me how I know that.  I'll say well, duh, this was basic high school civics/geography/history/math/etc.  And they'll say, "Rosemary, normal people in their 30s don't remember what they learned in high school."  And I'll go )

But in all seriously, I've been around for a few election cycles.  I voted in the 2000 election and lived through the public outcry about the popular/electoral split.  This stuff isn't history for me, it's living memory.

This is my favorite part about politics:

Spoiler

Best part is around 3:12

 

[Kaymyth she/her]

Just now, bleeder said:

This is my favorite part about politics:

  Reveal hidden contents

Best part is around 3:12

 

See, now you're really trying to make me feel old.

Just wait, you little whippersnapper!  You're going to graduate from high school and suddenly twenty years is going to pass in the blink of an eye and then one day you will wake up one morning and exclaim, "OMG!  I understand Kaymyth now!  WHEN DID I GET OLD?!"

[marsoupial they/them]

1 minute ago, Kaymyth said:

See, now you're really trying to make me feel old.

Just wait, you little whippersnapper!  You're going to graduate from high school and suddenly twenty years is going to pass in the blink of an eye and then one day you will wake up one morning and exclaim, "OMG!  I understand Kaymyth now!  WHEN DID I GET OLD?!"

And then my children will chastise me for saying "OMG" because "OMG" is so 2010's.

[Kaymyth she/her]

1 minute ago, bleeder said:

And then my children will chastise me for saying "OMG" because "OMG" is so 2010's.

EXACTLY

Am I really the only person who doesn't read abbreviations as just the letters? When I type stuff like that, in my head it's still said as "omigod" not "oh em gee".  Does anybody ACTUALLY say it like oh em gee?  Because that would be really weird.

[marsoupial they/them]

Just now, Kaymyth said:

EXACTLY

Am I really the only person who doesn't read abbreviations as just the letters? When I type stuff like that, in my head it's still said as "omigod" not "oh em gee".  Does anybody ACTUALLY say it like oh em gee?  Because that would be really weird.

I read them as words unless I'm being deliberately ironic about it.

[Sunbird she/her]

@Kaymyth @bleeder I'm only 21 and people in my college classes still give me weird looks when I spout off a fact and then tell them I remembered it from high school.

Most abbreviations I pronounce phonetically. So LOL sounds like loll, ROFL sounds like roffle, BRB sounds like burb, etc. Of course, some of them don't lend themselves to that way of pronunciation very easily. I always read S T F U as "stuff-OO" in my head, for example.

This is also me:

[Delightful]

1 hour ago, Kaymyth said:

See, now you're really trying to make me feel old.

Just wait, you little whippersnapper!  You're going to graduate from high school and suddenly twenty years is going to pass in the blink of an eye and then one day you will wake up one morning and exclaim, "OMG!  I understand Kaymyth now!  WHEN DID I GET OLD?!"

I found myself wishing I was Mrs Weasley with her housekeeping magic. That makes me feel old. 

[Jondesu he/him]

Not to get too heavy into the politics, but I did want to chime in on two parts that I feel knowledgeable about.

@Yata, there were more reasonable candidates for both parties, but some of them backed out due to scandal or just because they could tell their campaign wasn't going to win, so they could encourage their supporters to vote for someone they could agree with the most.  On the Democrat side, it was basically only ever Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton that was going to be nominated.  There's a lot of accusations that the primaries were rigged against Bernie Sanders, but I think a lot of the issue is that he had the support of a lot of people who were young and passionate, but who didn't actually outnumber those who were worried by his far-left policies.  Hillary also had Barack Obama's implicit support because she was part of his Cabinet, and then later his official support (I don't remember if that was before or after the primary, though).  As for the Republicans, there was much more competition there, or it seemed like there was to me, but again, several people pulled out due to scandals, and others simply were overwhelmed.  There were several very valid potential candidates going into the primaries, though, Ted Cruz being the next most popular behind Trump, but Trump simply had far more support.  Don't believe what the media says; they were biased against Trump from the beginning, and it's obvious no matter which side you're on here.  He got more than double the number of votes that Ted Cruz had in the primaries.

@Eki, "First Past The Post" is only true in the Electoral College because once you reach that mark, there's not enough remaining votes for the other candidate to tie or beat you.  It's simply a means of declaring the winner before tallying every last vote, once it's obvious.  The Electoral College itself is in place because we're not one big country that votes together.  We're a Union of 50 States, and those states each get a number of votes based on their population (the same division already in place for the House of Representatives) as to who will lead the Union, i.e. the President of the United States of America.  The reason it's done that way is because if it wasn't, the densely populated cities would virtually always outnumber and make irrelevant the votes of anyone living elsewhere, and if you look at a map showing the population density, that means a tiny percentage of the country (location-wise) would decide the leadership for the entire rest of the country.  The Founding Fathers had heated debates about this because some states like New York already had big cities with huge populations, while others had few cities and none that densely populated, so their citizens would have been entirely at the mercy of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and just a few other locations.  It's an insanely creative and intelligent solution that just so happens to sometimes result in the popular vote not being the exact deciding factor for the Presidency, on purpose.  It's not broken, but it takes a little bit to understand.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

13 hours ago, Nightbird said:

@Kaymyth @bleeder I'm only 21 and people in my college classes still give me weird looks when I spout off a fact and then tell them I remembered it from high school.

Most abbreviations I pronounce phonetically. So LOL sounds like loll, ROFL sounds like roffle, BRB sounds like burb, etc. Of course, some of them don't lend themselves to that way of pronunciation very easily. I always read S T F U as "stuff-OO" in my head, for example.

This is also me:

I am Laughing my chull off now.

 

[Claincy he/him]

3 hours ago, Jondesu said:

 

@Eki, "First Past The Post" is only true in the Electoral College because once you reach that mark, there's not enough remaining votes for the other candidate to tie or beat you.  It's simply a means of declaring the winner before tallying every last vote, once it's obvious.  The Electoral College itself is in place because we're not one big country that votes together.  We're a Union of 50 States, and those states each get a number of votes based on their population (the same division already in place for the House of Representatives) as to who will lead the Union, i.e. the President of the United States of America.  The reason it's done that way is because if it wasn't, the densely populated cities would virtually always outnumber and make irrelevant the votes of anyone living elsewhere, and if you look at a map showing the population density, that means a tiny percentage of the country (location-wise) would decide the leadership for the entire rest of the country.  The Founding Fathers had heated debates about this because some states like New York already had big cities with huge populations, while others had few cities and none that densely populated, so their citizens would have been entirely at the mercy of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and just a few other locations.  It's an insanely creative and intelligent solution that just so happens to sometimes result in the popular vote not being the exact deciding factor for the Presidency, on purpose.  It's not broken, but it takes a little bit to understand.

I'm far from an expert on American politics but as I understand it most of the local & state votes are still determined in a first past the post manner and I don't think it's a good system in any situation where there are more than 2 candidates. If there are only 2 candidates for a position then sure, it works fine. In a situation with more candidates it has problems compared to a preferential, transferable vote or similar system. This video does a better job of explaining why than I would:

I'm not saying that other voting methods don't also have issues or that using a preferential system would have changed the outcome of this election, simply that there is definite room for improvement in general. I don't think those improvements are particularly likely to ever occur though as from what I understand it would take politicians from both major parties deciding to change things in a way that would make it harder for them to get re-elected.

[Eki]

@Jondesu , that's not the part of the EC I criticized (or even mentioned, though I guess it could be another reason why the margin in the EC was so different from the popular vote), and it has little to do with first past the post.

The (main) issue is that for example, if candidate A gets 45% of votes in a state, B gets 44%, and the rest go to third parties, candidate A will get 100% of the EC seats for that state.

I realize why it would be a good idea to give smaller states more voting power (and I am part of at least one organisation that uses a similar system), even though I have a few issues with how the US does it. But again, that's not what my post was about at all.

[Oversleep]

Something I always wanted to ask. See, how do "Drinking games" work? I don't get them. I mean, I've seen a lot of them, for example for movies, "to drink everytime when: " and a list of events follows (like Legolas looking in the distance or Zuko saying "Honor").

The question is: what to drink and how much? It's really confusing cause attempting to down a shot everytime would get you dead (literally dead) in about thirty minutes and taking a sip of beer is not really a game, I think.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Oversleep

[ThirdGen]

5 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Something I always wanted to ask. See, how do "Drinking games" work? I don't get them. I mean, I've seen a lot of them, for example for movies, "to drink everytime when: " and a list of events follows (like Legolas looking in the distance or Zuko saying "Honor").

The question is: what to drink and how much? It's really confusing cause attempting to down a shot everytime would get you dead (literally dead) in about thirty minutes and taking a sip of beer is not really a game, I think.

With most of them, I get the impression they're not really meant to be played, just to comically highlight things that happen frequently or not at all.

[Kaymyth she/her]

5 hours ago, ThirdGen said:

With most of them, I get the impression they're not really meant to be played, just to comically highlight things that happen frequently or not at all.

Like the Farscape Drinking Game:  "Take a drink every time John Crichton makes a pop culture reference."

It is literally impossible to get through more than one episode without dying.  And don't even think about trying to play it while watching the Peacekeeper War miniseries.

[Delightful]

16 hours ago, ThirdGen said:

With most of them, I get the impression they're not really meant to be played, just to comically highlight things that happen frequently or not at all.

Like "hold your breath when you go through a tunnel"?

[Jondesu he/him]

5 hours ago, Delightful said:

Like "hold your breath when you go through a tunnel"?

Try that in the Chunnel.

[Erunion he/him]

@Claincy
I'll have you know, I spent 30 minutes watching that whole video series, when I should have been studying. So thanks for that. 

On the other hand, that video series is extremely informative and points out exactly what's wrong with first past the post, while highlighting possible replacements. So thanks for that! It was awesome! 

Everybody else - if you are at all interested in this issue, watch the video that Claincy posted, then watch the whole series. 
First past the post (both in Canadian and American politics!) is a bad system. We need new ones. 

[aeromancer he/him]

There was going to be a sarcastic comment here, but I'd like to avoid another forum war.

The American voting system is not a direct democracy, nor is it entirely FPTP. This link does a sufficient job explaining what exactly the Electoral College is. 

The Electoral College system is not perfect, no system is perfect, there are always flaws, but I'll let Winston Churchill explain why democracy is a good thing: "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

EDIT: Mmmm, those downvotes are tasty. Goes especially well with a side of First Amendment. Remember: Scorn has only the bite you give it!

EDIT2: Upvotes are also tasty. Thank you.

Edited November 15, 2016 by aeromancer

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

A funny quote I've heard: "Freedom of speech is like freedom of farting. You can do it however, whenever, and wherever you want, but make a stink in public and you can't expect to make too many friends."

Edited November 15, 2016 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Oversleep]

2 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

A funny quote I've heard: "Freedom of speech is like freedom of farting. You can do it however, whenever, and wherever you want, but make a stink in public and you can't expect to make too many friends."

And sometimes people may ask you to stop farting or leave them.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Oversleep

[Jondesu he/him]

Good way to say it, @aeromancer. I was also trying to avoid sparking off a bad discussion, so I'm glad you had a fairly safe way to put it. To everyone involved, I wasn't planning to turn this into a protracted discussion, but a lot of the comments were coming from non-Americans, who don't have the same perspective because of how different our country is from...most others.