omfalos
Nonexistent good post history.
User ID: 222
omfalos
9mo ago
I've had dreams about trying to look up information on a smartphone. It's frustrating because I can't look up anything in a dream that I don't already know.
omfalos
1mo ago
It shouldn’t just be first-world, it should be rich.
And North Korea should be South Korea.
omfalos
1mo ago
Tollbooth kingdoms already exist. Small towns control sections of highways where the speed limit decreases suddenly to waylay unwary travelers.
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
1yr ago
"Put on the VR headset. Get in the gamer pod. And don't come out ever again."
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.
The Democratic Party would lose popularity if they ordered NASA to cut ties with SpaceX. It is possible to take money from the government without being beholden to the government if your companies are beloved by voters. I think SpaceX and Tesla are beloved enough that the government is stuck with them regardless of what Elon Musk says or does.
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
5mo ago
The 1956 Battle of Algiers is another promising example of a successful counterinsurgency. The situation in Israel and Palestine today is eerily similar.
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.
omfalos
1yr ago
I endorse this proposal. Some people express concern that it may benefit the Left instead of the Right. Others are chiming in to offer alternatives more carefully contrived to achieve a desired outcome. To these concerns I would say, that this proposal is the best for the following reasons:
The idea that the government should represent the interests of children makes intuitive sense and will appeal broadly to the public. Every law should start with a broad sales pitch, and follow it up with addendums that compromise on the initial idea. The fact that children will not actually be voting is the compromise, and it should be sold to the public as a necessary compromise to achieve a desired ideal. By contrast, a proposal to give more voting power to rich people is a harder sell, because the ideal it strives for is less intuitive and won't appeal to most people. The Left would sniff it out immediately.
The fact that many here believe this proposal will benefit the Left is a good thing, because it means the proposal can be sold to the Left. I cannot say what the actual effects will be. I would say it is coinflip that could backfire or succeed. The Right is in desperate straights as we know, and should therefore seek out these kinds of coinflips. Call it a wager with Moloch, if you will.
I don't think the direct impact will be that great. It's true that people with the most children are poor, and it's equally true that poor people don't vote. The votes of a lot of children won't matter because their parents won't bother to cast them. The main selling point of this proposal for the Right is the symbolic impact, rather than its direct impact. The law is sort of two-faced. To the general public and to the Left, the law can be sold as the apotheosis of egalitarianism, the final form of equal suffrage. But it's not really equal suffrage, because the children can't actually vote, and their parents are getting extra votes. It's essentially a sly way to foist upon the Left a system of unequal suffrage in which heteronormative family values are symbolically endorsed by the government as deserving a greater voice in government than the voices of the various childless constituencies.
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.
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
1yr ago
When you say the ability to change sex, to me that implies the ability change a person's brain from a male brain to a female brain. Any technology that can do that can do a lot more as well. Male brain and female brain are two options among millions, and those other options are likely to be better. The fact that babies are being grown in artificial wombs, to me that means gender and sexuality are obsolete and should just be discarded.
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
19d ago
I buy raw milk and make it into kefir. The fermentation process reduces my exposure to pathogens a little bit, but really I just don't care whether I get exposed. My immune system is very healthy.
omfalos
7mo ago
A purely technological ecosystem sounds cool. It's a shame there won't be any conscious beings to experience it.
omfalos
9mo ago
I was going to see the movie in theaters, but after hearing Richard Hanania denounce the film as feminist propaganda, I watched the camrip instead. I regret watching the camrip. I would have enjoyed seeing it in theaters much better. It is not feminist propaganda to the extent Hanania makes it out to be. The filmmakers leave their movie open to interpretation and don't force any specific interpretation on the audience.
omfalos
11mo ago
I figured that is where you where asking for, but you where not asking very clearly. Here is an example of an American founding father speaking on the subject of race and ethnicity.
https://reimaginingmigration.org/benjamin-franklin-and-german-immigrants-in-colonial-america/
omfalos
1yr ago
Im no parent, but I think everything you can possibly do will have to be done before they turn 13 and their peer group turns into their whole world.
That is good advice.
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.
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