OK, but that’s the answer he gives when he doesn’t know the answer. Are we sure he understands what contraception is?

Bully you? No. Pressure you? Yes, of course. Politics is persuasion. And I can honestly say I don’t really care how you vote. I’m not arguing with you. I’m pointing out what a horrible decision you’re making, the flaws in your mindset (honest or otherwise) so that maybe others will make better decisions than you.

If that hurts your feelings, I’ll point out that people have died because Trump was elected. Women have suffered. Children were separated from their families and lost. Our Covid response was abysmal in part because doctors felt the need to incude Trump’s name in their briefing reports. This is more important than your feelings. Democracy is at stake, and that’s not at all an exaggeration. Trump put three Christian Nationalists on the Supreme Court. My grandchildren will be cleaning up the mess Trump and his supports have caused. So, respectfully, get fucked.

It’s not everyone. But it’s not no one, either. It’s hard to separate the liars from the people who don’t know any better.

I think complacency had a lot to do with 2016. So I’m not letting my guard down.

I fully support whatever media outlet wants to boost flawed polls to drive clicks or engagement or whatever bullshit KPIs they use for money. I want Democrats (justifiably) terrified that Trump will win. I want people voting like their lives, their freedoms depend on it, because they do. I want to win the Senate and the House and every Governor’s race because people everywhere showed up to say we’re not going back. I want every attempt at electoral malfeasance to be so obvious that everyone involved is immediately convicted.

And if a bullshit propaganda poll gets the job done, then we can laugh about how biased and wrong Rasmussen was after the election.

And honestly I suspect there is a lot of astroturf trying to make the argument. Far too many people on social media are using the same talking points, eg “I can’t support a genocide enabler.” Which is a valid issue, but it’s disingenuous to think that Trump is going to be better for Palestine. Harris, being a human being with empathy, would certainly want the violence to end. Trump wants the genocide to finish. He’s said that. A Jill Stein protest vote is nothing.

I don’t believe for a second that Trump doesn’t know the situation, but how is that lie better? “Here’s a picture of you endorsing a self-styled Nazi.” Well, I’m out of the loop on that one. “You endorsed him.” Yeah, but they just tell me what to say and do. I don’t ask a lot of questions. “Would you denounce him now?” I’m really not sure what I’m supposed to say here. Let me check with Vlad and see what he wants me to do. I’ll get back to you.

Lol, it would be nice if it were true, but it’s not.

It’s not bullying, it’s simple math. Harris wins or Trump wins. Harris isn’t perfect, but Trump is unacceptable. Voting for neither is a choice, but it’s choice that says you don’t care which one wins. You don’t care if a fascist bigot who wants to abuse his power to control women and line his pockets wins the election. Anyone that’s OK with that is either themselves a fascist bigot who wants Project 2025, or they’re stupid.

So saying you don’t care if Trump wins tells me you might be a fascist bigot, or you might be stupid. If you’re just stupid, that’s fine, vote your conscience. But if you’re a fascist bigot pretending, you might as well admit it to the world and admit you’re supporting Trump.

Either way, it’s not a persuasive argument to make anyone think you have anything of value to say.

At least now they know where to send the data to get it published.

I think you mean “provenance” instead of “providence.”

Moderation is not inherently virtuous, and compromise is not always the best path forward. Have you read Project 2025? As an American, that shit is terrifying, and the idea that we should find a middle ground with Christian nationalists is abhorrent. Trending toward moderation encourages extremism and obstructionism, because you get more leverage on the center from the edges. Look at what is happening in France right now, where they use simple ballots but will have runoff elections until majority candidates are elected. Moderation, cooperation, and compromise on the left led to failure.

Donations can’t be clawed back, but ongoing donations can be stopped. And you’re right that bigger donors exert more influence, and usually get something in return like naming rights for a building or changes to school policies. And that should be transparent, I don’t oppose requiring large donations be made public. My point was just that it’s always give and take. If the school changes the policy the big donor liked, they will shut off the money faucet. If the school does something most alumni don’t like, many of them will stop giving. Recipients of donations always want to keep donors happy, the difference is a matter of scale. How far are they willing to go to keep a donor happy depends on how big the donation is.

It’s weird when someone makes my point for me in the form of a question. I’m not sure how to respond to you, because clearly the answer is guilty in the scenario you’ve described. My point is that you think that’s the scenario that exists, and everyone who doesn’t agree with you is equally guilty.

You’re creating a scenario where the school child is as guilty as the school teacher and the politician and the factory worker and the airplane mechanic and the average citizen, all of them are the same amount of guilty to you because none of them threw off the constraints of their circumstances and took up arms against society itself.

And you’re unwilling to answer a simple, straightforward question because you know the answer reveals your prejudice. What should the punishment be? The school child, the laborer, the politician, and the soldier. All of them deserve death, because genocide is the absolute worst crime, and it should be stopped by any means necessary. That’s how “good” people justify bad things. It’s how Netanyahu is justifying the genocide of Palestinians right now, only he calls them terrorists.

Israel is engaged in a genocide, and they should be stopped. But killing all Israelis is not going to end the violence. Demonizing all the people who aren’t protesting the genocide will not end the violence. Labels and insults and demagogeury will only prolong and extend the suffering.

And if you’re a college professor, you really ought to know better.

The biggest problem opponents are using to block or roll back RCV is transparency and time. Hand counts take longer and may get vastly different results if there are discrepancies. But those concerns are mostly smokescreen from groups that benefit from the status quo. Any hand recount takes time, and if you fully tabulate the entire vote, it’s easy to locate potential problems with the computer count.

My concerns are transparency and honesty, and both stem from the fact that only your first remaining choice counts in each round, and one candidate is eliminated in each round. Because only your first preference counts, the most important selection is your first choice. Everyone’s second choice gets no votes in the first round and will be eliminated, even if they get 100% of the second choice selections.

Several candidates from the same ideological neighborhood split and dilute the vote from those voters for the first round. If everyone doesn’t rally around one specific candidate, all of those candidates could be eliminated in instant runoffs as the lowest vote getter. You have to vote strategically to make sure that the spoiler candidate on your side is eliminated before the spoiler candidate on their side.

Like, let’s say we have five fictional candidates, and arbitrarily assign them Green, Blue, Purple, Red, and Nazi. Blue and Red are the front runners, Green is the spoiler for Blue and Nazi is the spoiler for Red. Purple is a third centrist party

Blue voters assume Green voters will pick Blue or Purple as their second choice, and Red voters assume Nazi voters will pick Red or Purple as their second choice. It’s in both Blue and Red’s interest to see Nazi and Green beat Purple in the first round and then have their opponent’s spoiler beat their spoiler in the second round. This creates a scenario where strong Blue supporters are strategically voting for Nazi as their first choice, even though that would be there last preference.

So let’s say the preferences roughly break down into 6 categories

30 BPG 30 RPN 15 GPB 15 NPR 5 PGB 5 PNR

With a FPTP election, Blue and Red would convince everyone that Green, Nazi, and Purple have no chance of winning, and therefore voters should pick a frontrunner. And they’d be right, because FPTP sucks balls. But the winner would be whichever frontrunner can convince enough voters to pick their third choice.

With RCV, it is better but still not great. This scenario would be deadlocked at the second round, so Red attempts to convince a few Nazis that their candide cannot win and switch their vote from NPR to RNP. Blue tries a different strategy, and takes some of their own voters to switch from BPG to NBP. Both frontrunner candidates are still vying to convince some of the Purple supporters to change their minds. Anyone that picks some combination of GNP risks having their ballot expire, so they have to pick R or B even if they hate both equally.

So there’s still almost no chance that a third party will win, only now it’s more complicated. Plus if there’s a hand recount, a few votes one way or the other can dramatically change the final tally by changing who comes in last. A better name for RCV is Last Past the Post. It’s better, but it’s still not representing the true will of the voters, and it’s not encouraging campaigns to win hearts and minds. It promotes gamesmanship and back-room deals over voter outreach and turnout.

Approval voting is pretty good, someone else mentioned that one. The only problem I have with that is that it encourages negative campaigning. Every campaign would be attacking Purple, and promoting party purity and loyalty as an ideology. Compromise becomes the enemy, because you have to control the ball.

Star Voting is fair. Every vote counts, and every vote is an accurate representation of the voter’s preference. There’s only one instant runoff, so a recount might change who is included, but there’s no reason to be strategic with your votes. Negative campaigning is discouraged, and candidates are rewarded for finding common ground because ratings are not mutually exclusive. And the best advantage, there’s no way for the frontrunners to use demagogeury or political maneuvering to box out new candidates with their clout.

My biggest concern with RCV is that its flaws are dampening enthusiasm for change. People recognize that the current system sucks balls, but if RCV ends up disappointing those who were on the fence about change, they aren’t going to look for new solutions. They are going to retreat to the devil they know.

True.

Oh, you sweet summer child.

The way they are doing it is horrifying.

Sure, but not just generally “charity.” You pick and choose who you donste to, and you donate to charitable organizations that you think do good work. If they started smelting orphans, you’d probably stop writing checks.

I mean, I can also understand the knee jerk reaction, but I cannot imagine that he hasn’t had a new phone with a new number since the moment they knew their data was compromised.