plarq
Crazy forever
Ein Volk Ein Vote, or Ein Acre Ein Vote? Your choice buddy.
Be aware that Sarah Palin will win due to the vast land of Alaska.
Be aware that Sarah Palin will win due to the vast land of Alaska.
Ending America's Oldest Affirmitive Action Program
- Thread starter AlpsStranger
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Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
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*sigh*
The Founding Fathers weren't concerned with 2017. They were transitioning from the 1776 design of the federal government (which didn't work) to something that would work in 1787.
Under the initial design of the Articles of Confederation, each state had one vote. That didn't work well, though the number of action items that required unanimity to address probably had more to do with that than anything else. Any solution that was going to take more or less had to protect the states with lesser population (which were strongly advantaged by a one-state-one-vote rule), who weren't going to sign on to Madison's plan because it so obviously titled things relative to the status quo in favor of his state particularly as well as the other relatively higher population states like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York.
Yes, the Electoral College is broken today. The main thing that's surprising about it is that it worked as well as it did during the 20th Century. The concept of one-man-one-vote wasn't really a thing until the 20th Century. It isn't quite enough to say that the Constitution wasn't designed around that concept - if we're being precise about it, the Constitution was explicitly designed with violating that concept in mind.
Given the whining under Obama, I'm wagering Trump's entire term.
If you've played Civ, you know better. It should be fairly obvious that you need people to extract value from the land. Nations fight over land rather than people because of the problem of identity. It doesn't do a nation a lot of good to knock over its neighbor if the people it assimilates are hostile to the regime. You either have to co-opt the people living on the land or replace them with people loyal to the regime if you want to extract anything of value from the land.
The Founding Fathers weren't concerned with 2017. They were transitioning from the 1776 design of the federal government (which didn't work) to something that would work in 1787.
Under the initial design of the Articles of Confederation, each state had one vote. That didn't work well, though the number of action items that required unanimity to address probably had more to do with that than anything else. Any solution that was going to take more or less had to protect the states with lesser population (which were strongly advantaged by a one-state-one-vote rule), who weren't going to sign on to Madison's plan because it so obviously titled things relative to the status quo in favor of his state particularly as well as the other relatively higher population states like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York.
Yes, the Electoral College is broken today. The main thing that's surprising about it is that it worked as well as it did during the 20th Century. The concept of one-man-one-vote wasn't really a thing until the 20th Century. It isn't quite enough to say that the Constitution wasn't designed around that concept - if we're being precise about it, the Constitution was explicitly designed with violating that concept in mind.
Given the whining under Obama, I'm wagering Trump's entire term.
If you've played Civ, you know better. It should be fairly obvious that you need people to extract value from the land. Nations fight over land rather than people because of the problem of identity. It doesn't do a nation a lot of good to knock over its neighbor if the people it assimilates are hostile to the regime. You either have to co-opt the people living on the land or replace them with people loyal to the regime if you want to extract anything of value from the land.
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Take that, Singapore.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
Singapore owes a lot to its geographical position.
AlpsStranger
Jump jump on the tiger!
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Remind me when the whining about Obama stopped... oh that's right, it never did and never will.
Lexicus
Deity
Well, I'd say it was kind of a thing in the 19th century.
Exactly.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Land isn't worth much unless you have the people to work it. Look at Central Africa; some of the most resource-rich land in the world, but because they don't have the people to work it, it's either left untapped, or leased out for a pittance to countries which do.
If you're building your electoral system around "wealth" in a fuzzy, Smithian sense, you'd have to factor not just the size of the territory, but specifically its productiveness and the productiveness of the people living on it. Such a system would be likely to decrease the influence of a state like Montana and increase the influence of a state like California.
Zkribbler
Deity
It is the wealth of a nation that makes a nation strong, not miles and miles of nowhere. Wealth comes from cities, and cities take up just an itty-bit of land.
It you want to abandon the concept that people are the most important thing in a nation, then I suggest that instead of substituting dirt, you substitute wealth. I'd rather be rich than dirt poor.
I have my reservations about relying on volume of land over number of people.
(for would work there instead of about)And I have stated many times before that I find the whining about Obama equally ridiculous. It baffles me how so many people could waste so much time complaining about something they have no power to change. To Republicans in 2008 I would say "Obama won, get over it," and now I say the same thing to Democrats about Trump.
I wouldn't define Singapore as a strong nation. A wealthy nation sure, but not a strong one. I mean, when's the last time Singapore had a significant voice on matters of international importance? What nations out there look to Singapore to lead the way when some global crisis strikes?
It is resources that generate that wealth, and resources come from the land and those who work it. I'm about to let you in on a little secret: It's not the people living in the cities that are working the fields, delving into the mountains, and drilling deep into the ground to extract the resources that make the very existence of those cities possible.
GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
This is entirely because they don't have a lot of people.
Zkribbler
Deity
Congo's plan for success.
I offer up Japan and Singapore--no coal, no iron, no petroleum, no gold, no silver, no gemstone, yet the industry and education of their people make them wealthy.
We're at the point economically and technologically where only a few percent of the population are needed in farming and the extractive industries (mining, oil/gas drilling, fishing, forestry, etc) to support the remaining ~95% of us in advanced economies. So while you're right about this, most economic activity is occurring in cities.
One of the biggest problems hitting small towns and rural areas is that, despite their population decline, there are still more people there than there are jobs available in most such areas, because there's just not much economic need to have there be very many people out there. As of 2010, the US had 71.2% of its population in urban areas of 50,000 or more, 9.5% in small towns of 2500-50000, and 19.3% in very small towns and rural areas. Those last two groups have undoubtedly declined further in the intervening 7 years. Still, 19.3% of the population is an excess of what is needed to farm and extract resources, and there's not a lot of other work.
I'm not a fan of just letting small communities die by withholding support, and I do support government reinvestment in those areas, with large amounts of local input coupled with an explicit "here's what the government is doing for you" message. The government does transfer more to them than it taxes back, but the support is mostly not very visible and it could be made more obvious. Still, even with fairly aggressive support programs, it would be expected that they will continue to decline pretty much no matter what policies are undertaken.
AlpsStranger
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And we're getting closer to the day when, for rude physical tasks like mining and farming, we're just going to cue Flight of the Bumblebees and unleash the drones.
There will be a maintenance and monitoring team of white-collar and high-end blue collar guys doing the work of hundreds and hundreds via AIs and such.
Really, it's a testament to society's dysfunction that automation can (potentially) become such a negative.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
get it?
Ah I didn't get that by "strong nation" you meant "states which project relatively high power vis a vis other states". I'm also not sure why that's important anyway.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Does "Coaster" mean someone who lives on the coast? That would make sense, but at the same time it doesn't make sense.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
All this farming, delving and drilling relies on elaborate technological and infrastructural basis that is only possible because of cities. A complex society with an advanced division of labour is always going to be inter-dependent; there's no John Galt, in a farmers overalls any more than an industrialist's suit.
You could possibly make an argument that, in late capitalism, cities are disproportionately dominated by a service sector that wouldn't survive if things went all war economy, but that's a bit of a reach to defend an electoral system designed in the 1780s.
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