omfalos
Nonexistent good post history.
User ID: 222
omfalos
1yr ago
The cultural distance between a 21st century British aristocrat and a Pakistani cab driver in Lahore, is less than the cultural distance between a 21st century British aristocrat and a 19th century British aristocrat. For starters, 19th century British aristocrats didn't go to Wimbledon. Also, they believed in a religion that no longer exists in the 21st century.
The question becomes more fraught if you can divide your brain into parts and uplift those parts into full sentience. What if you could excise your cerebellum from your body, uplift it to personhood, and give it its own body? Maybe your cerebellum already has a degree of consciousness separate from you. If so, then it may not like it's current job aiding your motor control. Its lot in life would probably be improved it was freed from your service, uplifted to full sentience, and given its own body. Do you owe it to your cerebellum to set it free?
I know you don't like the status quo of having lesser animals as pets and beasts of burden. And I know you would revolt against the idea of creating mentally stunted, sexually exploitable "catgirls." My counterargument is that the parts of the body and parts of the brain can also be thought of as beasts of burden subjugated and even harmed by other parts of the brain. Parts of the brain could also be targets for uplifting and liberation in the same way lesser animals can.
omfalos
1yr ago
Under those circumstances, transitioning to become asexual and genderless would be the optimal choice. I would have issues with anybody who transitioned to become anything other than asexual and genderless.
omfalos
1yr ago
I have a proposal for a new type of representative democracy, and I'm curious to know if there are existing proposals that are like this. Can somebody post a link if they know of one?
This proposal is based on the way senators in the United States used to be elected by the legislatures of state governments. Imagine a national legislature which has its members elected by state or provincial legislatures. The provincial legislatures, in turn, have their members elected by legislatures on the county or municipal level. These in turn have their members chosen by lottery. The general public therefore does not elect any representatives. Instead, they pledge support to representatives after the elections have taken place. Representatives with many supporters get increased voting power relative to their peers who have less supporters. This is therefore a type of liquid democracy. What makes it different is that citizens are given a limited selection of representatives to pledge their support to, whereas in a pure liquid democracy, citizens are able to pledge their support to anybody.
What is the benefit of a proposal like this, which combines features of liquid democracy and representative democracy? Does this fix any problems with pure liquid democracy? I think the potential problem with liquid democracy is that it requires a government-sponsored social media platform to host and continuously update a complex and ever-shifting tree of relationships between citizens. Young, intelligent, tech-savvy people will utilize the platform to its full potential, but average people will struggle to sign up on the app, to navigate the complex ever-shifting tree of relationships represented graphically on their computer (or phone!), and to understand what it signifies and how they are supposed to participate. Liquid democracy will fail if it requires a complex social media platform that intimidates average people.
The advantage of my proposal is that the number of choices is limited so the process can be done using existing voting machines. Rather than having an app where citizens change who they support as often as they like, what I am imagining is a simpler system where elections are held once a year and citizens go to polling stations and use ballot papers or electronic voting machines to pledge their support. How many choices will appear on the ballot? The typical size of a national legislature for a large country is 500 members. Does this mean citizens will have 500 choices on their ballot? I think it will be better if citizens are limited to supporting national representatives elected from their state or province. 500 choices is too much for citizens to research every representative. The likely result is that support will accumulate to a handful of politicians with name recognition. This is also a potential problem with pure liquid democracy. If a legislative majority is concentrated in the hands of three or four individual persons, bad things could result. And lastly, having 500 choices would make the ballot papers too long and slow down the voting process. Limiting citizens to supporting representatives from their state or province prevents the concentration of power behind a handful of politicians with name recognition, and it will result in a more reasonable number of options to choose from.
Provincial legislatures will need to elect multiple representatives to give citizens options to choose from, and the election process must be set up to ensure those representatives have a diversity of political loyalties. The provinces do not have to be equal in population, but they cannot be excessively large or small. For the United States, it would be necessary to redraw state boundaries. Currently, seven states elect a only single representative to the House, and five states elect only two. I think three representatives should be the bare minimum for this proposed system. The election process will work like this: the state legislatures nominate multiple candidates, and each nominee will have to gain the support of a fraction of the legislature in order to be elected. For example, if there are three seats to fill, each nominee will need to obtain the support of a third of the legislature, or to make it easier, from a fourth of the legislature. If there are five seats to fill, each nominee will need support from a sixth of the legislature. For nine seats, a tenth of the legislature, and so on. The idea is that the legislature will divide itself into a left wing and a right wing which will further subdivide into subfactions which must each elect their own representative. The idea is to ensure that citizens will always have at least one representative on the left and one on the right to support. A feature of this system is that it will fractionate political parties and make it difficult for a two-party duopoly to hold onto power. There may be ways to game this system, but so long as one half-decent nominee makes it through, citizens can throw their support behind that representative and ignore the rest.
So, to overview how this proposed system would play out: local governments have citizens' assemblies with maybe a thousand members each. A couple hundred new members are selected by lottery every year and serve terms lasting four or five years, which ensures continuity from one year to the next gives members time to establish themselves as budding politicians. The large size of the assemblies compensates for the randomness of the lottery and for the fact that many lottery winners will not fully participate in the governing process. (Participation will not be required and winners of the lottery will have the option to give away their seat or auction it off.) Citizens' assemblies convene in January and govern local affairs for the duration of the year. At the end of the year, around September, each assembly elects between three to ten representatives to the state government using the procedure described above. Elections are held every year, and since representatives have term limits of twenty years, it is likely many of the representatives will be incumbents. The results of the election take effect the next year. Meanwhile, the state legislature also convened in January and governed state affairs for the duration of the year. At the end of the year, around September, the state legislature elects between three to ten representatives to the national government using the procedure described above. The results of their election also take effect the next year.
After state and national elections have taken place, in the month of November, the general public has a Voting Day (a public holiday) where they converge at polling stations to pledge support to the representatives elected one month prior. Citizens will have around three to ten representatives to choose from at the state and national level. The state representatives will be from their county or municipality, while the national representatives will be from their state. Citizens can also pledge support to members of their local citizens' assembly. Lottery winners are announced prior to Voting Day so it is possible to pledge support for incoming members. The assembly has a thousand members to choose from, so this portion of the ballot will be write-in only. After Voting Day, the results are tallied and take effect the following year when the national, state and local governments convene. The voting power of representatives in each will be weighted based on how much support they received the previous year, and these weights remain in effect for the duration of the year. Weighting of voting power affects all actions taken by legislatures including the process of electing representatives. So, in the example I described above where a nominee to the national government needs the support of a fourth of their state legislature to be elected, that fourth must take into account the relative voting power of each member, as determined by the pledges of support given by the general public.
So anyway, my question is whether there are any preexisting proposals that are like this? I'm interested to know because I think this is a good proposal which has distinct advantages over other proposals for liquid democracy and representative democracy.
omfalos
3mo ago
I tried rephrasing my question for ChatGPT, and it gave me a pretty close answer:
"What is the name of the logical fallacy where you believe other people think the same way you do?"
ChatGPT: "The logical fallacy you're referring to is called the 'false consensus effect.' This occurs when someone believes that their opinions, beliefs, or preferences are more common or widely shared than they actually are. It involves an overestimation of the extent to which others agree with one's own views."
omfalos
7mo ago
Every Israeli needs a wearable Iron Dome to protect them from blade and projectile attacks. Border security won't be enough because the Palestinians can fly over the border in ornithopters or tunnel through the sand. Mass surveillance is a technological solution that ultimately relies on human beings to interpret the data. Having the prescience to predict attacks before they happen is a rare gift, and the Israelis don't seem to have anyone with that gift.
omfalos
8mo ago
I just had a dream about watching a movie called "French Bleu". At a certain point, there was a fantastical CGI sequence in the movie. It was very detailed for a dream, but I remember thinking to myself, "Oh great, now AI generated animation is showing up in movies. I bet this took five minutes to generate you hacks!"
omfalos
8mo ago
I looked up a photo of Luis Rubiales to see how ugly he is. Your definition of ugly must include 90% of men if it includes Rubiales.
I would say the difference between a knowledge worker and a skilled laborer is that a knowledge worker can physically execute an idea (i.e.- type it into the computer) as fast as they can think of it, while a skilled laborer can think of an idea and then take several hours to execute just a single idea. A skilled laborer can queue up ideas in his mind well in advance and have long periods of absent-mindedness (zuhandenheit) between the execution of one idea and the initiation of the next. A knowledge worker does not have this luxury because once they think of an idea, the execution is immediate, and now they must think of the next idea, or take a break from work.
omfalos
1yr ago
I was just now reading through old Motte posts and I found this comment thread, which I think was a pretty good one. Maybe not exactly what you're looking for.
omfalos
1yr ago
The voting age should be lowered to at birth, with parents given the right to vote on behalf of their children before their age of majority.
omfalos
1yr ago
He thinks you meant to say "stand for censorship or oppose it" but you actually said "stand for censorship or (stand) opposite (of) it"
omfalos
1yr ago
What were they supposed to say?
They could have said, "We are taking this opportunity to announce we are shutting down our organization and donating our assets to more deserving charitable organizations."
omfalos
10d ago
What if NASA functioned like the ADA? Every company with more than 50 employees could be made legally liable for failure to launch probes into space to explore the Solar System. The law could be enforced by lawsuits against companies that have "workplaces hostile to space exploration" because they skimp on how many probes they launch.
omfalos
18d ago
It looks like Russia is developing a giant pincer movement that will envelop Niu-York.
omfalos
1mo ago
Tollbooth kingdoms already exist. Small towns control sections of highways where the speed limit decreases suddenly to waylay unwary travelers.
omfalos
2mo ago
What if I engage in a form of magical thinking where every choice I make steers the universe into a timeline where people like me are more likely to make the same choice?
omfalos
6mo ago
I do not like Whatifalthist. I listened to a few of his early videos and became convinced he knows less about the world than I do.
omfalos
6mo ago
The best argument against freedom of association may be the hypothetical scenario of a doctor withholding lifesaving medical treatment from a black person while openly claiming racial animus as the motivation for their inaction. I can imagine a society where most people have freedom of association except for certain professions which are forbidden from refusing service on the basis of race on pain of having their professional license revoked.
omfalos
7mo ago
I skipped your introduction and read the poem first. I didn't check to see whether it was supposed to be an example of good or bad poetry until after I had finished it. It's a perfectly good poem—not outstanding—and it fits comfortably within the category of poetry. Removing the line breaks turns the poem into prose, but the resulting prose is hard to read because it is very information dense. The line breaks are not just there to be cute. They guide the reader to add pauses while reading to themselves or out loud. I imagine the pauses represent thoughts that lead into each other, as though the author is pausing to think of the next thing they are going to say to finish their sentence. Each line break is the transition to a new thought, and stringing them all together without line breaks makes the resulting prose hard to read. Normal prose has only one or two thoughts per sentence, while this poem has five thoughts per sentence.
By the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love had given to me
12 drummers drumming,
22 pipers piping,
30 lords a-leaping,
36 ladies dancing,
40 maids a-milking,
42 swans a-swimming,
42 geese a-laying,
40 golden rings,
36 calling birds,
30 French hens,
22 turtle doves,
and 12 partridges in 12 pear trees!
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