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8 votes
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US Electoral College affirms Joe Biden’s victory
25 votes -
FSB team of chemical weapon experts implicated in Alexey Navalny Novichok poisoning
13 votes -
What issues or aspects of life are largely one's personal responsibility to deal with?
Asked mainly because Conservatives say that's one of the things they believe in It often seems to be wrong or misused ("if everyone just used masks and stayed home the pandemic would have ended...
Asked mainly because
Conservatives say that's one of the things they believe in
It often seems to be wrong or misused ("if everyone just used masks and stayed home the pandemic would have ended long ago") ("not using masks during a pandemic has consequences for other people and thus doesn't belong in personal freedom")
A definition for stuff that fits the question could be this:
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The credit or blame for consistently failing or succeding at it is largely on you
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While you can ask for advice to get better, you have to do it yourself
So the main examples that come to my mind are largely (well) personal:
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Being motivated and committed to work towards what you want
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Being hygienic
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Being good at socializing and figuring out what's your relationship with other people gonna be
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(although obviously, given socializing depends on other people, this is very dependent on them doing the same and accepting/recognizing you or your choices and so is more accurate on progressive or apolitical social environments)
Which is good but doesn't explain it being used as a political belief.
17 votes -
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Norway may stop British and EU vessels fishing in its waters from January 1st – talks held up by London's protracted Brexit standoff with Brussels
8 votes -
Supreme Court rejects Texas lawsuit seeking to subvert election
21 votes -
US Supreme Court rejects Donald Trump ally’s push to overturn Joe Biden win in Pennsylvania
23 votes -
Dianne Feinstein’s missteps raise a painful age question among US Senate Democrats
15 votes -
Fed up with Capitalism, Marxism gains popularity among youth in China
12 votes -
"They demolished my house for this?" In Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, families were forced out for a huge Foxconn factory, but three years later, it still hasn’t been built
22 votes -
Amid a crackdown on ‘separatism’, how do French Muslims feel?
6 votes -
'Armed protesters' target Michigan official's home
14 votes -
With growing tensions in the Arctic region, the Faroe Islands are now receiving more attention from superpowers
3 votes -
A conversation with the police - Uncomfortable conversations with a Black man Ep. 9
5 votes -
The Danish climate minister closing down the oil industry – Dan Jørgensen has agreed the world's most ambitious climate goal with a promise to cut 70% of emissions by 2030
8 votes -
The morality of canceling student debt
17 votes -
Most conservatives don't understand purpose of journalism, says founder of website on media bias
18 votes -
Donald Trump heads for Georgia but claims of fraud may damage Senate Republicans
10 votes -
China has accused Danish politicians of violating 'the basic norms governing international relations' in a dispute over Hong Kong opposition activist Ted Hui
6 votes -
How Joe Biden can ensure federal agencies fight climate change
4 votes -
An anti-gay Hungarian politician has resigned after being caught by the police fleeing a 25-man orgy through a window
27 votes -
New York 22nd district race up in air as county finds fifty-five uncounted ballots
12 votes -
Reversal of Presidential pardon analyzed
8 votes -
Rubber ducks have become a symbol of Thailand’s pro-democracy protests in Bangkok after demonstrators used them as shields against police water cannon and teargas
12 votes -
Endnote 2: White Fascism
3 votes -
What Facebook fed the baby boomers. Many Americans’ feeds are nightmares. I know because I spent weeks living inside two of them.
18 votes -
US Rep. Ocasio-Cortez raises $200K after battling NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in hit video game Among Us
17 votes -
The scammer who wanted to save his country
9 votes -
Who was Ross Perot, and what if he won in 1992?
11 votes -
Opposition MPs in Denmark have urged the government to dig up millions of mink that were buried in mass graves amid Covid-19 fears
4 votes -
European Parliament votes for right to repair
19 votes -
How do we avoid future authoritarians? Winning back the working class is key.
16 votes -
US President Donald Trump pardons Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about Russia contact
22 votes -
How a $17 billion bailout fund intended for Boeing ended up in very different hands
4 votes -
Scottish Parliament unanimously passes a bill to provide menstrual products for free across the country
30 votes -
Could "fuzzing" voting, election, and judicial process improve decisionmaking and democratic outcomes?
Voting is determinative, especially where the constituency is precisely known, as with a legislature, executive council, panel of judges, gerrymandered electoral district, defined organisational...
Voting is determinative, especially where the constituency is precisely known, as with a legislature, executive council, panel of judges, gerrymandered electoral district, defined organisational membership. If you know, with high precision, who is voting, then you can determine or influence how they vote, or what the outcome will be. Which lends a certain amount of predictability (often considered as good), but also of a tyranny of the majority. This is especially true where long-standing majorities can be assured: legislatures, boards of directors, courts, ethnic or cultural majorities.
The result is a very high-stakes game in establishing majorities, influencing critical constituencies, packing courts, and gaming parliamentary and organisational procedures. But is this the best method --- both in terms of representational eqquity and of decision and goverrnance quality?
Hands down the most fascinating article I've read over the past decade is Michael Schulson's "How to choose? When your reasons are worse than useless, sometimes the most rational choice is a random stab in the dark", in Aeon. The essay, drawing heavily on Peter Stone, The Luck of the Draw: The Role of Lotteries in Decision Making (2011), which I've not read, mostly concerns decisions under uncertainty and of the risk of bad decisions. It seems to me that it also applies to periods of extreme political partisanship and division. An unlikely but possible circumstance, I'm sure....
Under many political systems, control is binary and discrete. A party with a majority in a legislature or judiciary, or control of the executive, has absolute control, barring procedural exceptions. Moreover, what results is a politics of veto power, where the bloc defining a controlling share of votes effectively controls the entire organisation. It may not be able to get its way, but it can determine which of two pluralities can reach a majority. Often in favour of its own considerations, overtly or covertly --- this is an obvious engine of corruption.
(This is why "political flexibility" often translates to more effective power than a hardline orthodoxy.)
One inspiration is a suggestion for US Supreme Court reform: greatly expand the court, hear more cases, but randomly assign a subset of judges to each case.[1] A litigant cannot know what specific magistrates will hear a case, and even a highly-packed court could produce minority-majority panels.
Where voting can be fuzzed, the majority's power is made less absolute, more uncertain, and considerations which presume that such a majority cannot be assured, one hopes, would lead to a more inclusive decisionmaking process. Some specific mechanisms;
- All members vote, but a subset of votes are considered at random. The larger the subset, the more reliably the true majority wins.
- A subset of members votes. As in the court example above.
- An executive role (presidency, leader, chairmanship) is rotated over time.
- For ranged decisions (quantitative, rather than yes/no), a value is selected randomly based on weighted support.
Concensus/majority decisionmaking tends to locked and unrepresentitive states. Fuzzing might better unlock these and increase representation.
Notes
- A selection of articles on Supreme Court reforms and expansion, from an earlier G+ post: https://web.archive.org/web/20190117114110/https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/9btDjFcNhg1 Also, notably, court restructuring or resizing has been practiced: "Republicans Oppose Court Packing (Except When They Support It)".
- Jonathan Turley at WashPo, suggesting 19 justices:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fate-of-health-care-shouldnt-come-down-to-9-justices-try-19/2012/06/22/gJQAv0gpvV_story.html - Robert W. Merry at The National Interest, agreeing:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/court-packing-revisited-7123 - Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-scotus-20180629-story.html - Jacob Hale Russell, at Time, suggests 27 justices:
http://time.com/5338689/supreme-court-packing/ - And Glen Harlan Reynolds, at USA Today ups the ante to 59 justices:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/07/02/make-supreme-court-lots-bigger-59-justices-more-like-america-column/749326002/ - Dylan Matthews at Vox, pointing at several other suggestions:
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/2/17513520/court-packing-explained-fdr-roosevelt-new-deal-democrats-supreme-court - From the left, Todd N. Tucker at Jacobin:
https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/supreme-court-packing-fdr-justices-appointments - Scott Lemieux at The New Republic:
https://newrepublic.com/article/148358/democrats-prepare-pack-supreme-court - Ian Millhiser at Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/02/fdr_court_packing_plan_obama_and_roosevelt_s_supreme_court_standoffs.html - Zach Carter at Huffington Post:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hey-democrats-pack-the-court_us_5b33f7a8e4b0b5e692f3f3d4 - A pseudonymous piece by "@kept_simple" at The Outline:
https://theoutline.com/post/5126/pack-the-court-judicial-appointment-scalia-is-in-hell - And a dissenting opinion from
Justice ThomasJosh Blackman at National Review:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/supreme-court-nominee-court-packing-not-feasible/ - As well as some alarm klaxon sounding from The Daily Caller:
https://dailycaller.com/2018/06/28/democrats-pack-supreme-court/
- Jonathan Turley at WashPo, suggesting 19 justices:
14 votes -
BBC 100 Women 2020 – A profile of Sanna Marin, who leads Finland's all-female coalition government
7 votes -
Debunking an election fraud claim using open data and Dolt
9 votes -
The Trump administration is clearing the way for the start of President-elect Joe Biden's transition, despite Donald Trump vowing to keep up election fight
30 votes -
Why Republican voters say there’s ‘no way in hell’ US President Donald Trump lost
23 votes -
I lived through a stupid coup. America is having one now
19 votes -
Guatemala protesters torch Congress as simmering anger boils over
9 votes -
US President Donald Trump tries to drum out GOP election officials who won’t play his games
9 votes -
The real Hunter Biden story everyone is missing
6 votes -
Boris Johnson announces ten-point green plan, including investments in nuclear and wind, and new combustion vehicle ban from 2030
30 votes -
Donald Trump's election power play: Persuade Republican legislators to do what US voters did not
12 votes -
Why mainstream progressives have a strong incentive to 'sanewash' hard leftist positions
21 votes -
Denmark's Minister of Agriculture has resigned over an illegal government order to cull the country's farmed mink – Mette Frederiksen also faced opposition calls to resign
7 votes -
Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal: Forging a new America
16 votes -
Why do political ads love to feature girls instead of women? Defiant young girls have become a political symbol in a country that fears grown women.
15 votes