Good looking out, I need to kick them another donation. My wife and I got the member cards which are amazing a few months back. I should browse the rest of their store.
I personally experienced breathing nitrogen until loss of consciousness under controlled and supervised conditions for training purposes with the RCAF. I was in a room with seven other people who were all doing the same thing as well as instructors who were in here with us for safety.
The point of the exercise was to sit in a room with a mask on, recognize the symptoms of hypoxia when we experienced them and throw a lever that would resume normal air breathing once we had enough. We were given tablets with simple games to play to simulate having our minds occupied on accomplishing some tasks. We knew they were going to switch or air supplies with pure nitrogen at some point to cause hypoxia but we didn’t know when it was going to happen. The room was also a hypobaric chamber but it didn’t stimulate a high enough altitude to induce hypoxia by itself, it was only there to simulate the environmental signs of decompression ( fogging of the air, percieved drop in pressure, cooling sensation, etc)
We sat there for a few minutes accomplishing the tasks on the tablets (basically paying candy crush) with nothing special going on. Then I noticed that we all started breathing deeper and harder. When I looked around people were also red in the face but strangely did not feel any discomfort from it and some people were even still playing on their tablets without noticing. Some of them threw their personal lever immediately because the point of the exercise was to recognize the signs of hypoxia. But others including my competitive ass wanted to see how far I could take it and if I could outlast others so we kept going.
My breathing naturally got deeper and harder but strangely I wasn’t feeling like I was suffocating. I started feeling pins and needles in my extremities. Concentrating on the tasks in the tablet became increasingly difficult and slower. A few moments later I got tunnel vision and my hearing started to sound muffled. These two effects progressively got worse until I could almost not see or hear anything anymore at which point I finally threw the lever just before passing out due to a phenomenon called oxygen paradox where when oxygen supply is resumed the hypoxia symptoms briefly get worse before going away. I didn’t even notice passing out. I woke up a few moments later and from my perspective it seemed that time had skipped forward a minute. Had I not thrown the lever and there were no instructors to do it for me I would have died a few moments later.
All of this took less than 5 minutes and I never experienced anything worse than mild discomfort throughout. I don’t know how they managed to make it last 25 minutes other than maybe the brain stem running on fumes and keeping the heart beating but there is no consciousness at that point. If I ever had to pick a way to be executed this would be it, provided that it is done correctly.
Sounds like they didn’t remove the CO2, just gave him a mask that forced him to breathe nitrogen. Like a standard medical respirator, so he spent half an hour rebreathing his CO2 and whatever oxygen slipped in around the mask.
I know that CO2 is what the body uses to push the sensation of “needing” air. So I wonder if that would have changed his CO2 content from what it would be in just nitrogen…
You did that in a safe situation where nobody was trying to kill you. I don't suffer when holding my breath underwater, but the moment someone holds me down I am going to panic.
The body is weird when it comes to breathing. It doesn’t measure one of the critical gasses. 3 things particularly send the body into a breathing panic.
Rising CO2 (via blood acidity)
Water in the airways.
Resistance to inflating the lungs.
Water boarding is particularly evil, since it creates just enough of the last 2 to trigger a full blown drowning reaction, but is light enough to not actually be dangerous. This lets the questioner hold the victim in that zone, without permanent physical harm (but massive psychological harm).
Nitrogen hypoxia doesn’t set off any of those triggers. This makes it particularly dangerous to some workers. They don’t realise anything is wrong until they pass out.
Also, to clarify. I am massively against the death penalty. It’s both cruel, and not particularly effective as a deterrent. It’s also no cheaper, in practice, than life imprisonment. However, if it is going to be used, it should be as humane as possible. Nitrogen hypoxia is about as humane as it can get.
They cannot do it humanely with a method that requires the person to breath normally to work. If they can hold their breath it will always be inhumane because they will still be struggling and have the same impending doom and physical reaction as waterboarding.
It does not matter if the chemical properties are different when the person has a working brain and doesn't want to die. Or if it is being implemented by incompetent people who couldn't even kill him with lethal injection in 2022.
It only truly works if you can isolate the room completely. That’s quite hard to do with a nuke involved. You’ll definitely know when they are dead!
Unfortunately, I believe any use of nuclear weapons is prohibited by treaties. Might I suggest a giant acme hammer or anvil? Instant meat paste, assuming they aren’t a cartoon character in disguise.
I kinda want to be able to donate my organs, so maybe they could just make a bomb-helmet with shaped charges that would paste my head and leave the rest of my body intact for harvesting. 🤯
I’m actually curious whether nitrogen hypoxia would leave the organs viable. However, it’s not a point that should be pushed. Let’s not give the rich any more reasons to want to keep the death penalty.
Your method could be a bit messy. I’d imagine even the doctors involved in the organ harvesting would be squeamish when confronted by the results. Ironically, nitrogen hypoxia would be my preferred way to go.
I will not choose a method because all options require a trained an licensed medical professional to implement humanely, and nobody who qualifies will participate because they have ethics that prohibit causing harm to be licensed medical professionals. That includes putting someone to death against their will.
Picking a method is agreeing with the assumption that we have to put people to death.
The thing is, all of the humane ways to kill someone require the person to be a willing participant in the process. Nitrogen works when the person is relaxed and breathing normally for example.
So you’d rather have someone die in agony, rather than make a decision?
I’m asking that if an evil must happen, should it be a different, lesser evil, or a normalised greater evil? The whether the evil should happen at all is a separate debate.
As I said, I agree with you on the latter. The death penalty shouldn’t be a thing. I’m asking about the situation until you (as a society) actually get that far.
Smith clearly died in agony from this method. Lethal injection was also promoted as painless, which it would be in theory and was not in practice for the same fundamental issue that the whole death penalty process involves incompetent people fucking up because competent people won't take part in it.
I can't pick a method when it is guaranteed to be horrible because of the context of the death penalty.
I will gladly pick a method or two for people who want to be euthanized and participate willingly. Those same methods will always be torture to someone who does not want to die as long as incompetent people are running the show.
All options do not require a medical professional to administer. It does not take someone with a doctor’s knowledge or skill to make an airproof chamber. It won’t take a doctor to set up a system to add air to the chamber. You don’t need to be a doctor to rig a way to flood the chamber with another gas and remove the oxygen. Non-doctors can wheel him in, strapped to a bed. Then the regular pre-PhD’s can operate the system. Now the scientists and engineers to design this death trap may have doctorates, but they don’t need medical licenses. Design it well enough and a chimp or small child can operate the chamber controls. You will need a medical professional to declare death, though.
Hard to design a system that can be operated by a chimp when the people actually designing and implementing the process are clearly incompetent.
If they don't have a medical professional monitoring the person's oxygen levels to ensure he is dying as fast as it is supposed to work, how will they know if their made up bullshit about it being humane when forced upon someone is accurate?
Imagine if they were putting a free diver or other person who has practiced holding their breath for extended periods of time, how would they know if it was even working without monitoring them?
The states that execute people have lied about every prior method being 'humane' and non of them ever were in practice on someone who did not want to die. The electric chair supposedly killed the person instantly, but that was a lie. Lethal injection was supposed to be putting someone to sleep and described in the same way as nitrogen, but that was clearly a lie in practice because the people that do it are incompetent.
Quoting an article about safe use of nitrogen, it is odorless, tasteless, and colorless. At extreme low levels of oxygen, nitrogen can cause unconsciousness and death in seconds and without warning.
I’m not talking about the chimps who executed this guy designing the system, I’m talking about qualified scientists designing it. The beauty is, you don’t need a medical doctor to monitor oxygen levels if you rapidly remove the oxygen and add nitrogen. Send in slightly chilled nitrogen and the air will rise above it. Relief valve up top spits out the oxygen. Homeboy is unconsciousness before he realizes why the air just got cold.
The freediver will hold his breath confidently for four minutes, exhale, suck in pure nitrogen, and be out in a breath or two.
I agree that the state does lie and incompetently kills people, but we can design a system that does it well. I just don’t agree they should ever use it.
Well you said you didn’t want to pick an execution method because they all needed medical doctors, so I proposed a situation that doesn’t require one except to declare death. But good point, we’ll only pick up this discussion after you break in and rip the mask off the next execution victim.
I reject your premise. Alabama’s government could have just said “we can’t get the drugs for lethal injection, so we’re not doing the death penalty any more.” Instead they said “we’re going through hell and high water to kill this guy.” Fuck them. The death penalty is morally wrong because it puts every member of a democratic society in the position of being a killer.
A person who is doing it voluntarily for suicide would not be struggling against impending doom and would be breathing normally. The context here is execution against someone's will.
That’s a conscious choice people are capable of making in that scenario.
I guess the person being put to death should have just made a decision to die then. That's what you are saying right, that they suffered because they didn't choose to just roll over and die?
if you’re a prisoner on death row, it’s not exactly like you have zero advanced notice of whats going to happen.
Given that bureaucracy exists, i think it might be prudent to say that you might even have ALL of the advanced notice one could possibly want in that scenario.
It is not fair to liken this to being held underwater. When forced to hold your breathyour lungs fill with CO2 which will cause pain, an urge to breathe and a primal urge to panic because your body has evolved the ability to sense this excess of CO2 to force you to breathe. But when breathing pure nitrogen your body doesn’t have an evolved way to detect it besides minor symptoms that you may or may not notice until you pass out.
Yes, the very idea that you will die can be emotionally distressing but this will be common to all methods of execution.
The point of the exercise was to sit in a room with a mask on, recognize the symptoms of hypoxia when we experienced them and throw a lever that would resume normal air breathing once we had enough.
Witness Reverend Jeff Hood told reporters he saw a man ‘struggling for their life’ for 22 minutes as Smith became the first US death row inmate executed by nitrogen asphyxia
Which says to me that from the time they brought him in and strapped him down until he died lasted about 22 minutes and the murderer struggled physically against the restraints the entire time.
This quote farther down suggests from the time they started administering the gas until he died only took a couple of minutes:
But, witnesses said Smith appeared conscious for several minutes, shaking and writhing on the gurney.
Several could be 25, and he could have been shaking from pain and agony, but it seems more likely he was holding his breath and shaking out of fear while trying to fight and get free.
Keep in mind that the first quote is from his anti-death penalty spiritual advisor and this entire article is brought to us by a magazine with an "end the death penalty campaign".
I'm generally anti-death penalty myself, but nitrogen asphyxiation seems way better than electrocution, lethal injection, or hanging. They could probably do it better by using some kind of general anesthesia to render him unconscious and then flood the room with pure nitrogen, or even just get rid if the death penalty all together. Unfortunately this is the world we live in and so fae this is the least bad option we've seen.
I do have some reservations about the idea of a compassionate execution method. It’s kinda like tasers. Yes, they are a huge improvement on the alternative, but that also means they get used a lot more frequently.
Wait, the same people who have said for years that Covid is not that bad are now suddenly using it as an excuse to get out of their legal responsibilities? It’s almost like conservatives operate in bad faith.
FWIW there was also a juror sent home feeling unwell and possibly exposed to Covid. If it had just been Alina, the judge may have insisted that one of her associates continue the defense.
If it looks like they’ve accomplished anything to you, picture that scene in ‘world war z’ where the pile of zombies shambles up and over the wall in Israel. From the other side you just see the first few zombies toppling over and it looks impressive but behind that wall there is a pile of brainless zombies trying to get in. They aren’t working together, just throwing enough bodies in the right direction so it appears to be willful and with intent from the outside.
Modern conservatives are the exact same thing, shambling brainless concubines of fascism and willful ignorance.
But there’s a shit ton of rich people in NYC. So it’s easy for them to “donate” in both primaries and ensure that no matter what happens in the general, it’ll be a choice between two assholes.
Yes, but he was already the Brooklyn Borough President. He had a built in base of support that was larger than others’. This is basically Brooklyn’s fault.
He didn’t even live there, he lived in NJ. Reporters went to his “home” in BK and asked “where are all your clothes?” and “if you’re vegan, why is there meat in the fridge?” It was clearly his son’s place.
Fruit Stripe gum had the unfortunate distinction of being the most delicious thing you've ever put in your mouth, a total whirlwind of flavor... for five seconds. Then it's just sugar, then shortly after that, it's just nothing. It's like something Willy Wonka would have wished for on a monkey's paw.
Can you imagine her outrage of anyone said that about any group she is part of? Women. American. Divorced. Military. You name it. “Kill all of them”, “How can you say that, that’s inhumane and you should be locked up in a mental hospital”, but when it’s Palestinians it’s fine I guess.
The advice in that article is primo out of touch and humorous. They give statistics that people’s savings and assets are down X amount, and the first advice is save for an emergency. Running out of savings?! Just save more, five head.
I love that the guy who penned that gold was one of the world’s richest people, and not that long ago called for increasing unemployment, so that the worker learns his place again.
I am reminded of that quote along the lines of “it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.” I did everything right, and had a more than adequate emergency fund.
But then my house vaporized that emergency fund… and only then did COVID happen and I lost my job twice. So that’s roughly three “holy shit thank god we saved for a rainy day” events in three years.
I’m sure I will be in “just save money” mode some day in the future. Lots of shit left to clean up right now though.
and only then did COVID happen and I lost my job twice. So that’s roughly three “holy shit thank god we saved for a rainy day” events in three years.
You just explained the last three years of my life. I have no savings left. Period. If anything happens to the car, or either one of us loses our jobs, we're done. That's it.
Well, you aren’t “done”. Life continues.
Even when the state conspires against you having shelter from weather when you’re homeless. Life still goes on.
Until it doesnt.
yeah, I'm seeing discretionary spending right there that could be accruing interest instead. and judging by your profile pic I think you know what I'm suggesting.
Here’s another where a woman with sensitivities to various chemical smells chose to die because she couldn’t find an apartment that was affordable and didn’t reek of noxious chemicals
The people who are worried about this aren’t worried about people who genuinely want to die committing suicide. It was always nearly impossible to stop them anyway, and there’s no way to change that. What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available. We’re worried about mentally ill people being told “do the right thing, don’t be a burden” when they want to live. We’re worried about suicide becoming the answer to problems that are caused by social and legislative conditions. We’re worried about becoming the kind of society where, rather than help one another, it’s expected that anyone who needs help just off themselves.
This is all coming from someone who tried twice and will be eternally grateful that I managed to fuck it up both times.
Your comment brings up the most relevant point against MAID and it’s clear we can be a better society than one which pushes people over the edge, or let’s them fall despite their pleas.
I too am glad that you managed to fuck it up and that you’re here with us.
This is what the anti-suicide crowd fucking told you would happen if you legitimized or legalized suicide, and now that it’s happening, you’re once again refusing to connect it with supporting bad policies with no thought or consideration for the consequences.
But you’re not the one who’s gonna suffer so why should you give a shit, amirite? 🤷
I love it when you are so hopped up on the smell of your own shit that you give away you’re just being a skeevy fuck by trying to make the discussion all about your opponent’s emotions and not about the topic at hand.
You didn’t consider at all what I said isn’t only directed at you, but who cares as long as you get to win something?
What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available.
Like here, where you are steadfastly defending assisted suicide and not acknowledging anywhere this is what opponents told you would happen. And you argue you want it both ways afterward and you don’t get that you can’t have it both ways; humanity is too immature and tyrannical for that, so if you want to save the impoverished people being targeted for suicide, you have to ban ALL legally assisted suicide outright. There is no middle ground with depraved fucks in western governments.
But you don’t care about the topic, you just want to win an argument on the internet. Well, here’s your trophy 🏆 But the policy is still bad and you’re still wrong for defending it.
I’m all for a painless way out for people who genuinely have no hope, who are going to die a painful death or live an existence of torture where there is zero medical, technological, or social solution to ease their lives.
But it’s crazy to me that so many people are against the death penalty because of the risk of a mistake, but they’re perfectly okay with assisted suicide that has zero oversight. You’d have thought they’d absolutely see this coming since they know how little the 1% cares about them.
I got close to trying several times. I suffer from anxiety and depression, I’m obsessive but I love life. I just wish I could solve my mental issues. Offing yourself is not a solution. It’s like I have a math question in front of me and I rip up the paper and toss it in a can.
So… Where is the catalog of approved haircuts for students to pick from? Fucking fascist ideas being masked in bullshit like avoiding fake “distractions” in classrooms.
I’m sure we could get creative here. Like, you could go with the Friar Tuck look with the top part shaved and that would be fine. I guess it depends on what they consider “geometrical”
They give a bit more context in this video. (from 2017)
By the way, I got that link from an article in The Guardian, and I can’t find anything in either of those two articles that really adds on top of what was known in 2017. It could just be hard for a layperson to understand, and so was oversimplified?
TLDW is that researchers have known for decades that this tablet showed the Babylonians knew the Pythagorean Theorem for 1000 years before Pythagoras was born. So, that part isn’t new.
They seem to be saying that what’s new is that they understand each line of this tablet describes a different right triangle, and that due to the Babylonians counting in base 60, they can describe many more right triangles for a unit length than we can in base 10.
They feel like this can have many uses in things like surveying, computing, and in understanding trigonometry.
My take is that this was a very interesting discovery, but that they probably felt pressure to figure out a way to describe it as useful in the modern world. But we’ve known about the useful parts of this discovery for forever. Our clocks are all base 60. And our computers are binary, not base 10, just to start with.
We overvalue trying to make every advance in knowledge immediately useful. Knowledge can be good for its own sake.
We’ve evolved with 14 knuckles on each hand… and a brain that struggles to keep 7 elements at once in operating memory. You can also count up to 1023 with just 10 fingers (in binary). It’s not a lack of fingers problem.
The problem is our brains have a limited operating memory. People can (unless disabled) easily track 1 o 2 items at once, even 3, 4, 5… and start losing track somewhere around 6 or 7; 8 is considered exceptional.
That’s why kids don’t generally use their fingers to count 2+2, but start using them for “harder” operations like 4+4.
Base 10 is already past our brain’s limits… but we’re kind of fine with it because we can use our fingers (think of it as evolving at a time before formal education when most people were illiterate).
Base 60 is also past our brain’s limits, but it’s easily divisible into easy to track 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 pieces (aka $lcm(1…6)$), which makes it highly useful. The Babylonians still used to write it down as base 6×10, and it was common to count on knuckles and fingers as 12×5.
The uneducated populace picked up the easiest part of the two: 5+5.
if we naturally leant towards base 12
If we had 12 fingers, we could’ve as easily ended up using base 12, only thing different would be 1/3 would equal exactly 0.4, while 1/5 would equal 0.24972497… oh well, we’d manage.
If our brains could track 12 items at once however, then we could benefit from base $lcm(1…12)$ or 27720. That… is hard to imagine, because we can’t track 11 items at once; otherwise 27720 would jump out as “obviously” divisible by 11, 9, or 7.
Wasn’t it the Sumerians that did use base 60 and just went to counting knuckles and joints to get to the base 60 system … never fully understood it when I read about it either
Sumerians and Babylonians used the same cuneiform writing system with a base of 6×10, but it seems like they also used to count to 60 as 12×5… and what we’re left with, is the simplified 5+5=10.
I don’t know what’s it’s like where you are, but there are definitely also a lot of young homeless people where I live. I don’t just mean house-less, I mean living in tents or worse.
It really sucks that so many people are suffering, and there isn’t even a good reason for it.
You can work your arse off day in, day out, only to get hit by someone driving drunk. Then, you get stuck on insufficient disability payments, even through you had no fault in what happened to you. Even if you manage get a decent court payout in a good country, you’re still probably looking at a lot of expenses accessibility-wise (ESPECIALLY if you live somewhere like the US.) A lot of that stuff isn’t cheap. Plus, you would have to try to make that payment last for the rest of your life. Food, bills, rent, clothing, and more would all still be costs you would have.
It sucks that so many people push back against any kind of support for these individuals. It really makes you wonder what they would do if they woke up with the shoe on the other foot.
Honestly, maybe this is an effective strategy. Rather than continue to try to convince them to care about others, we just have to convince them that they are in danger themselves. Republicans discovered that fear motivates boomers better than avocado motivates millennials, so it’s time to start using the tools we have available to drive the point home.
And then we can finally get our hands on all that sweet avocado and toast…
It’d be nice to go beyond and have some sort of ranked voting while we’re at it. Essentially being forced to pick between two parties or risk having your vote being wasted sucks.
Ranked choice still doesn’t solve the winner-takes-all situation that is the presidential election. Instead it should be appointed by a group of competent people, who in turn are voted in by something like ranked choice or whatever.
The original intent from the Constitution was that the winner was president and the second place was vice president. Since the vice president also is the tie breaking vote in the Senate, that doesn’t sit very well with the president. So they changed it to the running mate system.
The group your talking about would essentially be the cabinet? Right? They get approved by Congress. So indirect approval by the people.
The cabinet doesn’t appoint the president, so no. More like Congress members members get voted in by ranked choice, and they vote on someone to represent the country in international affairs.
Given ballot options of Socialists, Democrats, and Republicans, I’d rank them 1, 2, and 3, respectively. However, when expressing my feelings about the election: I love the Socialists, dislike the Republicans, and prefer the Democrats slightly over the Republicans.
This nuanced opinion isn’t captured on a ranked ballot.
With a score ballot, like STAR voting, I’d give the Socialists 5 stars, the Democrats 1 star, and the Republicans 0 stars. This method not only captures my preferences but also the depth of my feelings for each party. This is then reflected in both the final score and the automatic runoff step of tabulation.
Reminds me of the Blackadder episode where Baldrick won by 16,000 votes, even though there was only one voter:
H: One voter, 16,472 votes — a slight anomaly…?
E: Not really, Mr. Hanna. You see, Baldrick may look like a monkey who’s been put in a suit and then strategically shaved, but he is a brillant politician. The number of votes I cast is simply a reflection of how firmly I believe in his policies.
I don’t know how the american system works, but voting for small parties should not considered a wasted vote. It helps the party even if they don’t get elected
Because in first past the post voting, whomever gets the score first, wins. Combine that with mostly voting against a specific party, and you’re railroading people into a de facto two-party system when people vote for the “best bet against _____”.
First past the post incentiveses two party systems, which is why people are desperate for ranked ballot, or something that can allow other parties to exist.
Part of that is due to the feeling that one’s vote doesn’t matter. IMO having the president be elected by popular vote would bring a lot more people to the polls.
But even if a party gets, say, 5% of the vote and gets funding, that level of vote splitting can influence who gets a seat now. That might be fine and dandy when the short term doesn’t matter too much, but right now, the stakes are very high in the US, since the right straight up wants to dismantle democracy, kill trans people, and completely ban abortions.
Those are high stakes just to likely get some more funding for a third party (much less win even a single seat).
IMO any political pressure that could go towards pushing third parties should first to towards electoral reform. Only then can third parties be voted for without putting a lot of people at risk.
RCV is a rebrand of the voting method IRV, which was used by many cities in the early 20th century. Due to inconsistent results, it was repealed. So, unfortunately, conservatives have a leg to stand on when they attack RCV.
For clarity: their specific attacks take things to the extreme and often have some racist underpinnings, but there is a kernel of truth to attacking specifically on the method itself.
That is why I support something like STAR voting, it doesn’t suffer from many of RCV’s issues
I wish your ballot measure luck however, because at the end of the day it still is, mildly better than FPTP
I wish for something like STAR as well, but much like voting now it’s all about the lesser of two evils between current voting and anything besides the current voting method haha
Well the thing about that is, RCV has been repealed in 6 states and counting for producing poor results. And it’s also given right wing groups like the heritage foundation a foothold to attack it. I’m actually seeing negative RCV sentiment on the ground when I talk to people about STAR so their message is spreading. When I explain STAR and how it fixes several of RCVs issues they come around to it, so it may in fact be better to push that instead of tag along with RCV if it’s going to end up being a waste of political capital
I don’t see it being on the radar of the major parties at the moment. RCV is in the spotlight so far. But that can change very soon because in Eugene, Oregon this week they are finishing up getting STAR on the ballot for their elections, then they’re also pushing for it to appear on the state ballot in May. The effort is led by non-partisan groups like the equal vote coalition.
So far my conversations with both sides of the aisle have been fruitful, and I hope that is how it continues
RCV will do nothing to break the duopoly in America. RCV will basically allow you to vote for the Democrats or Republicans without bubbling their name on your ballot.
Contrary to what is stated, RCV falls apart as soon as more than 2 parties become viable. It suffers from the spoiler effect.
RCV, like plurality voting, only reflects your preference for one candidate at a time. In fact, it’s relatively accurate to say that RCV is just plurality with (literally) extra steps (rounds).
One of the better ballot changes we can make is to move to something like STAR voting, which can capture the nuance of magnitude of preference for ALL candidates at once.
However, even still, changing voting method alone is not enough. Proportional representation and expanding the number of elected officials are two powerful ways to introduce new ideas and break up power structures.
And, of course, campaign finance reform such as democracy vouchers
As I imagine it it would be: Republicans HATE Democrats. Democrats HATE Republicans. If all Democrats rank the R candidate dead last and Republicans do the same for the D one, their votes pretty much nullify each other, and whatever third party that got less First-choice votes but also way less Last-choice votes has a better chance at winning. Isn’t that how it should work?
Mostly. Yes, RCV tends to elect compromise candidates, ones who may not be anyone’s first choice, but that most people can live with. I think Joe Biden is a good example of this. Everyone was rah-rah for some else during the primaries: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee… but Joe Biden has broad tepid appeal.
Unpopular opinion: ranked choice voting will do little to solve the USA’s democracy issues.
For starters, there are plenty of countries that do use FPTP and still have plenty of third parties in their parliaments (Canada, UK, Taiwan, Australia off the top of my head). So FPTP does not inherently preclude third parties - rather, the USA simply doesn’t have any culture of multilateralism. I’d say this is mostly a byproduct of various cultural phenomena - the wealth gap, corporate media ownership, private campaign financing, win-or-lose mindset, etc.
But the greater issue is that RCV doesn’t really ensure proportionality. As long as you have a single winner from each district, there will be distortions between the proportion of parties for whom people vote and the ultimate parliamentary body. For example, even if you implemented RCV across the entire USA today, I’m pretty sure most legislative bodies would still be entirely dominated by a single party because of gerrymandering and single-member districts.
So if you want to fix the USA’s core issue, what you really need is a more proportional system - either have fewer, larger districts with multiple representatives from each one, or adopt something like MMP which is what Germany has (where you also cast a party vote to declare your preference for which party you most want represented in parliament and distribute proportionally along this tally across all voters). Not only does this make the final representation more fair, but it also does a much better job of making all votes matter, instead of only the lucky few in swing states or the rare competitive Congressional race.
But RCV on its own won’t do much. It is still a small improvement, and if you have the opportunity to adopt it, I say go for it. But at best, I think it would take decades, or maybe even generations, before it starts to improve things.
Also, while I know this doesn’t pertain quite so much to Presidential elections as the electoral college is used for, the USA is also fairly unique in that it has a directly elected head of government with much more power than other countries that also have a directly elected head of state. This is also a part of the problem - the executive branch is supposed to be the weakest of the 3 Federal branches - but it’s a discussion for another time.
Same as I wrote on the other sibling comment. I think these countries all have terrible electoral systems. But the point is, they’re still ahead of the USA in terms of the fact that they will still have an awareness and understanding of third parties, whereas >90% of Americans are just programmed to believe there are only 2 options.
As a thought experiment, ask yourself what would happen if you could wave a magic wand and make every city, state and national legislative election use RCV over FPTP. Do you really think anything would change? I’m pretty sure 95% of the results would be exactly the same. Like I said above, RCV may make things better 20+ years from now, but there’s also a very good chance that so few people actually use their second options that it nothing ends up changing at all. This is why I think multi-member districts or MMP are better solutions.
But the point is, they’re still ahead of the USA in terms of the fact that they will still have an awareness and understanding of third parties, whereas >90% of Americans are just programmed to believe there are only 2 options.
Are you forgetting Ross Perot almost won? There is constant talk of Trump starting a third party, libertarian and green parties get a fair amount of attention, and not to mention the fact that the two major parties actually consist of many smaller factions in a coalition. There’s a reason primaries happen, and often congressmen vote against the majority of their party and votes are split on other lines than party lines. Most people are smarter than is popular to say on the internet, they just understand voting the lesser of two evil is their best option right now from a certain perspective. I prefer to vote third party to increase the viability of third parties in later elections.
While also true in Australia, we have preferential voting as well and whilst smaller parties dont have the numbers or votes to become the ruling parties you can vote 1 for a smaller party and 2 for a major party so the smaller party gets a funding boost for future campaigns.
And also if enough people vote for a smaller party them a larger party may have to team up with a smaller party to get the majority numbers to hold government.
Then the smaller party may have a bit of clout to get some of their values and opinions into parlimertary debate or passing bills meaning we get a wider variety of input than the major party line and its members falling into line to vote with their peers blindly.
Look at third parties and their success in the UK and Canada.
The last general election in the UK was 2019. Conservatives got 43.6% of the vote but 56.2% of the seats. Labor got 32.1% of the votes and 31.1% of the seats.
The biggest national third party, the Liberal Democrats, got 11.6% of the vote but a mere 1.7% of the seats.
In comparison, look at regional third parties. The Scottish National Party got 3.9% of the vote and a whopping 7.4% of the seats. Irish regional parties like Sinn Feinn and the Democratic Unionist Party got a combined 2.3% of the seats with a combined 1.4% of the seats.
Previous elections have been quite similar. In 2015, the far right UKIP won only a single seat after getting a whopping 12.6% of the vote.
Canada is quite similar. The Bloc Quebecois consistently gets more votes than the national New Democratic Party, despite having gotten less than half as many votes.
Understood, all of these countries have terrible electoral systems, that was not my point. My point is that Americans only have a culture of voting for one of two parties, so switching to ranked choice voting will likely change nothing at all, because Americans already practically never even consider alternate options. Hell, I doubt even 10% of them could even name a third party, so why would they consider voting for them all of a sudden just because of the switch to RCV? They’re constantly blasted with the same message that you have one of two options, so chances are that they’ll just pick one and ignore the rest, just like they do now.
Parties work a bit differently in the US vs e.g. Israel.
In Israel, party insiders choose their politicians. If you want different candidates than an existing party is offering, you have to make your own new party with your own new list.
By contrast, in the US, parties run primary elections where voters pick the candidates. The specifics depend on the state, but in most states the election is held for registered members of that party.
Americans aren’t idiots. Most know third party candidates don’t do well in plurality elections. So smart progressives, alt-right etc. politicians don’t run as a third party candidate against mainstream Democrats and Republicans. Instead, they primary an incumbent Democrat or Republican, like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, or join the primary when the incumbent retired like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Somewhere like Israel, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Joe Manchin would be in two very different parties. In the US, they’re in the same party.
In places where RCV is passed, you absolutely see more candidates running and getting decent percentages of the vote. Because that isn’t a terrible strategy any more. Someone like AOC might have run as a Progressive or something rather than primarying the Democrat.
I contest your usage of Canada as an example. While it’s certainly not as polarized as the US, the effects of FPTP are still prominent. There’s a ton of vote splitting at the federal and provincial levels. Eg, conservatives rule Ontario despite the majority of people voting for one of the two left-er leaning parties, since the two parties basically split the left vote down the middle, while conservatives only have one party.
I do completely agree that propositional voting is waaaaay better than ranked choice, though. Personally, I will take almost anything over FPTP, but some form of PR is vastly superior, as you noted.
But at least with ranked choice, people can start to vote for another party without it feeling like a penalty. As a Canadian, I basically have to vote strategic. I don’t get to vote for my favourite party because of FPTP. Ranked choice would at least remove that issue.
I think the two party system of the US is basically where FPTP systems are all at risk to end up, especially since voting strategically gradually results in that. But the US GOP is so crazy that it’s almost a necessity for any progressive to vote strategically, whereas at least in Canada, things aren’t quite as bad, which makes it easier for people to take the risk of voting for who they really want to.
Fish accumulate toxins and heavy metals as you move up the food chain. This is well-known.
Even though swordfish swim in waters that have perfectly safe mercury concentrations, eating swordfish everyday is inadvisable because of their high mercury contents.
But he does think that non-tritium contaminates missed by the ALPS system could build up over time near the shore.
“Nearshore in Japan could be affected in the long term because of accumulation of non-tritium forms of radioactivity,” he says. That could ultimately hurt fisheries in the area.
Ah yes, because the only danger of nuclear meltdown industrial wastewater is tritium.
One big concern is that the ALPS system is imperfect: it supposedly removes other radioactive contaminants to within legal limits, but those legal limits ARE higher than that of seawater. The ALPS has also been custom-designed for this project: it is a bespoke system that hasn’t been tested in production.
Plus, this is coming from the same private entity that mismanaged the Fukushima plant enough to cause the disaster… How much faith do you have in them to not fuck up again? Tepco’s optimizing for their bottom line, not for what’s best for society.
Everything is imperfect. The ocean contains 4.5 billion tons of uranium and that only contributes a small fraction of the natural radioactivity of the ocean. This is not a public health concern and insisting on some stupid demand for perfection when the water you’re exhausting is less radioactive than the water you’re putting it into is fucking idiocy
US psyops trying to gaslight the content of the article. There are trace elements of other contaminants… Of unknown concentration, and we have to take TEPCO’s word that it’s “like, totally safe man, just like our nuclear reactors”
I recommend reading the article again. They got anything but the tritium out of the water. Which is comparable easy to accomplish, and also important. The remaining tritium is as harmless as radioactive things can get in the first place.
A radiation scientist here reminded people of those radium-based glow-in-the-dark wrist watches, and compared the radiation caused by this wastewater release to adding about 70 to 80 of those watches to the pacific ocean.
Apart from the “why do you need it” question, the beach is specifically a place people often leave items that can’t be taken in the water unattended. Sure, legislators can write laws about how a gun must not be left unattended and gun nuts can swear up and down about how they would never do that, but they will. No matter how much you think “there’s a lot of people around” or “I’ll just be in and out” or “I’ll watch my stuff from the water”, thefts happen, and now a mundane occurrence has turned a supposedly (not really) “safe” and “legal” gun into one of those dangerous “illegal” guns they can’t be held responsible for.
We were perfectly happy with our gun laws, and they worked, and now fringe nutcases and a politically captured courts are telling us we can’t implement common sense restrictions because the nuts have a panic attack if they’re not constantly armed.
the nuts have a panic attack if they’re not constantly armed.
That’s the real issue, here. These guys are absolutely fucking terrified 100% of the time. They pack heat in order to feel like something besides a helpless babyman.
I have never even once felt like I couldn’t possibly pick up a head of lettuce and some yogurt from the supermarket without some moral support from a gun. It’s just fucking bizarre.
There are a large number of people who carry, they’re not who you think they are and they’re not afraid or paranoid. Just like you put on your seatbelt and have a smoke detector and fire extinguisher in your home…they carry and think nothing of it.
The amount of white privilege shit shows how much propaganda you lot drink.
Ouch. Guess I touched a nerve. Look, carry if it makes you feel better, but statistically, you’re in more danger from your own guns than you are from anyone else. The same cannot be said for seat-belts, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers.
Damn Lemmy doesn’t alert on posts replies properly. So replying late to this one.
That is completely false. You’re more likely to never use the firearm than be in danger of it. That myth was created by the anti-gun groups using suicides as their stats.
Same in the UK, we had a couple of school shootings and then collectively decided children’s safety isn’t worth trading for the freedom to own guns and that was that. There was very little pushback from any side of the asile.
You also have safety nets, which helps with your crime level. There is a lot more we here in the states could do to curb our violence overall that doesn’t require new gun laws, but a loud majority are idiots who just call everything that involves safety nets and reforming criminals socialism/communism.
How many times have you used your gun to resolve a situation that couldn’t have been solved without one? I legitimately don’t understand the mindset. What situation are people like you “preparing” for? Cause it honestly just seems like you’re afraid.
You and the rest of the anti-gun tools here think that only white people carry. You live in bubbles with no outside experience of what other races have to deal with on a daily basis. It’s actually quite hilarious how disconnected from reality a lot of you are.
There are a large number of people who carry, they’re not who you think they are and they’re not afraid or paranoid.
The fact that they do “carry” unequivocally shows that they are indeed afraid and paranoid, no matter how many times they say “not afraid, bro” out loud. Believe their actions, not their lying words.
My dad said the same thing. He carried a 357 on him. A man, he wasn’t scared… Well, that’s what he said, but in the end he was a racist baby that was afraid a poc was going to car jack him in his fucking chevy equinox. I don’t need a gun to defend myself, it’s getting there though with cult45, that’s a scary bunch of halfwits.
I’m not sure which is worse, someone who intentionally straps a deadly weapon to themselves in full view to be paraded around in public as a show of machismo, or someone who does so thoughtlessly as one would buckle a seatbelt.
Why do you assume they are absolutely fucking terrified vs thinking better safe than sorry?
Because they are too afraid to go to a grocery store without a gun. That means they’re really, really bad at risk assessment. And that makes them dangers to themselves and others.
I know the risk of a violent encounter is low, but I carry because it’s the only reliable way to not be at a disadvantage in a fight.
Do you? Do you actually know that? Because your odds of being a shooting victim are way, way higher as a handgun owner than as a grocery shopper. You’re more likely to be hit by lightning than to be in a violent confrontation at the supermarket, and yet you don’t go around in a rubber suit to be “better safe than sorry.”
Having a plan to avoid being assaulted isn’t the same as living in terror.
And yet you’re not wearing a rubber suit. Your risk aversion needs calibration if the gun that objectively makes you less safe makes you feel more safe.
Protip - if some group seems totally ridiculous, there’s a good chance you don’t understand something important.
Or they could be members of the Westboro Baptist Church, and they are totally ridiculous.
For the record, I don’t think all gun owners are ridiculous - certainly not to the level of the WBC. I don’t even think people who feel the need to pack heat while going out for milk are ridiculous. But they’re definitely scared, and bad at assessing risks.
Protip - if some group seems totally ridiculous, there’s a good chance you don’t understand something important.
Yeah seriously what a ridiculous attempt at the “both sides” defense. Has this guy never heard of scientology, flat earthers, 911 truthers, and all the other various cults and such? There is very much such a thing as morons in large groups.
The other day I was at the grocery store and someone shouldered me and my cart out of the way when I was comparing cantaloupes. He looked at me funny like he was gonna start some shit so I blew him away. Motherfuckers not going to take me out without a fight. #alphamale#iamverybadass
Guns can absolutely be safe, and if they’re bringing it to the beach, it’s probably safe to assume it’s legal.
However, why the fuck anyone needs a gun at a beach is beyond me (or a grocery store, or library, or any number of other ridiculous places to bring a gun). America really needs to get their priorities straight, because it’s not really funny anymore, it’s scary.
Guns, by definition, are not safe. They’re literally made to kill people. You can take all the precautions in the world to mitigate the risks, of course, but the safest gun is the one that nobody can touch.
They’re made to kill, what they kill is up to the person holding it. They aren’t something people should be toting around at the beach, you take them hunting, or to a range.
The hunters I know who carry a pistol do so do put down the animal in the case that the first shot didn’t do it but I don’t think it’s that common especially now that it’s virtually impossible to get a permit for pistol in my country
I don’t know if they can really be safe at the beach though. You go in the water with your gun, or you leave it under your towel and hope a kid doesn’t find it?
we can’t implement common sense restrictions because the nuts have a panic attack if they’re not constantly armed.
Do you honestly think that panic attacks by gun carriers is the blocker to reasonable gun laws? The number of people that carry firearms regularly is not statistically significant, let alone those with panic attacks.
I carry a concealed firearm because I think it’s important for at risk groups to be able to defend themselves. I don’t panic when I don’t carry, but I recognize that I’m less prepared to defend myself from assault.
It’s important to understand those you disagree with.
I can’t think of any at-risk group that has meaningful influence on gun legislation, but many of the groups propping up the Republican party have been convinced they are in mortal danger.
Though, frankly, I do find someone who thinks restrictions to carrying a gun at a beach in peaceful and multicultural Hawaii aren’t reasonable to be a bit of a nut regardless of whatever risks you have in your personal life.
His song literally celebrates violence and the kind of mob mentality that leads to tremendous injustice. Oh, and his music video was filmed on the site of a lynching while it threatens black protesters today. Community? Really?
These people are stupid. If you want a gun you will get a gun regardless of law, the same way it’s been forever. Laws are just a false sense of security in America.
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