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GeekNights Thursday - Hurricane Sandy

edited November 2012 in GeekNights

Tonight on GeekNights, back online from hurricane Sandy, we bring our relatively comfortable hurricane Sandy experience. We would have returned on Tuesday, but Scott is unable to bike in slightly cold weather. In the news, Rym finally gets Scott to talk a little politics as he officially endorses Barack Obama for the US Presidency. You should also check out Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog. NBC has some difficulty with the Creative Commons, Scott made a nice time lapse of the hurricane,

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  • I disagree with Rym's characterization of Jill Stein as crazy, because I agree with a lot of her platform, but as I said in the other thread, third parties have their own issues in our systems
  • Of the big four, Stein is our best bet.
  • RymRym
    edited November 2012
    Of the big four, Stein is our best bet.
    The thing is, there are only actually a big 2. The Green Party congressional candidates received 0.27% of the vote (total, across all candidates) for the House and 0.78% of the vote for Senate positions. In 2005, the Green Party had a grand total of 305,000 members across ALL states.

    The Libertarians are more than twice as popular, with a whopping 1.14% of the vote in 2010.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • I am aware of this. I didn't mean bet in terms of winning, I meant bet as in terms of quality.
  • RymRym
    edited November 2012
    I am aware of this. I didn't mean bet in terms of winning, I meant bet as in terms of quality.
    But it makes them completely moot. The Green Party won't accept corporate donations. There is no chance at all that in the next several decades that party can be a factor in national politics whatsoever.

    There are plenty of people I would fully back if their positions alone were what mattered, but it's a waste in every sense of the word to actually put my own resources behind them on the national stage. The best case is no harm done, the worst is another Al Gore election.

    Voting for Jill Stein is pretty-much voting for Mitt Romney if you live in a contested state. It's a symbolic gesture at most in a non-swing state, but would be disastrous if enough people did it in one.

    So, no matter how great a third party national candidate's positions are, it would be crazy to actually vote for one under the current rules of the game. There's no revolution coming, so that won't change it. There's certainly no real electoral reform coming: the people who write the rules also play the game.

    I call myself a radical techo-progressivist, but I'm also a pragmatist. Blunting the current ultra-conservative revival in this country is probably the most important political goal of the next eight years. Fail at that, and not only will the third parties continue to be nonviable, but we'll have to contend with actively regressive policies that will hamstring the next decade or more of social progress.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • edited November 2012
    Of the big four, Stein is our best bet.
    If you're going to vote third party as a symbolic gesture (knowing that they cannot win), why not just vote for whichever is best rather than limiting yourself to the "big four"?
    Voting for Jill Stein is pretty-much voting for Mitt Romney if you live in a contested state.
    That's not really true; it's essentially equivalent to not voting, though.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • Of the big four, Stein is our best bet.
    If you're going to vote third party as a symbolic gesture (knowing that they cannot win), why not just vote for whichever is best rather than limiting yourself to the "big four"?

    I was trying to not get in a fight with Gomidog, that's why.
  • That's not so easy to do; I wouldn't worry about it.
  • That's not really true; it's essentially equivalent to not voting, though.
    As they currently stand, elections in the US are effectively zero-sum. Anything but a vote for Senator Organa is a vote for Palpatine.
  • That's not really true; it's essentially equivalent to not voting, though.
    As they currently stand, elections in the US are effectively zero-sum. Anything but a vote for Senator Organa is a vote for Palpatine.
    Palpatine supporters could equivalently say that anything but a vote for Senator Palpatine is a vote for Senator Organa.

    Failing to vote for one of the candidates that actually has a shot, whether through voting third party or not at all, falls halfway between the two options. Claiming that this is equivalent to voting one way or another is misleading.
  • Of the big four, Slayer is our best bet.
  • edited November 2012
    As they currently stand, elections in the US are effectively zero-sum.
    In the sense you're talking about, all elections are zero-sum games. As long as the number of available positions is fixed, the net gain over all candidates is the same regardless of the outcome. In that sense, not voting, or voting third-party, is equivalent to half a vote for Obama, and half a vote for Romney.

    Of course, if you think in broader terms and consider gains other than attaining public office, then it is not really a zero-sum game. For example, it should be clear enough that (sane) third-party candidates do not run on any real hope of actually becoming president; rather, they do it for the other political benefits they stand to gain from running for the office.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited November 2012
    Palpatine supporters could equivalently say that anything but a vote for Senator Palpatine is a vote for Senator Organa.
    Yes, that's what zero-sum means. In the US, there are no consolation prizes.

    Therefore, given that only two candidates that have a realistic chance of winning, if you fail to vote for the one you would rather have elected (either by abstaining or voting third-party), that is one less vote the "bad guy" has to get to win.

    Rendering the election effectively zero-sum.

    Edit:
    Didn't see you posted before me. You are correct in that the game-theoretical analysis only applies to winning the election. There are other tangible benefits to getting exposure on a national stage. Not all elections are necessarily zero-sum however: proportional representation enables multiple people to win.
    Post edited by Starfox on
  • edited November 2012
    Voting third-party instead of Obama means Romney needs one less vote, while voting for Romney means Romney needs two less votes - hence they are not equivalent, and that's the point I've been making the entire time.

    Also, PR systems are still zero-sum.
    Not all elections are necessarily zero-sum however: proportional representation enables multiple people to win.
    Multiple people can win, but the total number of seats remains the same. The total winnings are the same if 3 parties get 10 seats each or if 2 parties get 15 seats each.

    Granted, one might argue that the utility of 15 seats is not 1.5x the utility of 10 seats, but you could equivalently argue that the value of a seat is different for different candidates.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • Ah, you're right. I guess I was discounting the possibility that you would vote for the candidate you want to lose the most.
  • We just had our city council elections and I voted green party. They ended up the second biggest party at 22.3% after our version of the republican party at 26.9% and in front of our version of the democrats at 16.8%. Then we have the left wing party at 10.1% and our version of the tea party at 9.4%, then a handfull of smaller parties including the communists at 1.3% and pirates at 0.7%.

    This is what happens when you have proportional voting.
  • Why do you default to Nader 2000 as evidence of the impact of a third party candidacy and ignore Perot in 1992?
  • Why do you default to Nader 2000 as evidence of the impact of a third party candidacy and ignore Perot in 1992?
    Why do I ignore any single piece of complimentary evidence among a sea?

    Perot was a different case. His popular opinions were effectively co-opted by both parties, and he was by almost all expert accounts a spoiler for both Bush and Clinton equally. It was a very different, but still interesting, situation.
  • Why do you default to Nader 2000 as evidence of the impact of a third party candidacy and ignore Perot in 1992?
    Why do I ignore any single piece of complimentary evidence among a sea?

    Perot was a different case. His popular opinions were effectively co-opted by both parties, and he was by almost all expert accounts a spoiler for both Bush and Clinton equally. It was a very different, but still interesting, situation.
    That's pretty much the best a third party can realistically hope for. Become a single-issue third party and get lots of support for your popular single issue. Then one or both parties will see that your issue is popular and that they will lose some spoiler votes to you. Thus, they will have to modify their platform to include your issue to get their votes back.

    As Rym said Ross Perot was most successful at this, but other parties are not unsuccessful. Republicans have pretty much absorbed the Constitution Party and Democrats have taken up the environmental issues of the Green Party.
  • I was trying to not get in a fight with Gomidog, that's why.
    About what? All I said was that Jill Stein is not that crazy.
    That's not so easy to do; I wouldn't worry about it.
    Hey, I don't think I'm any more fight-y than most of the people on this forum. Isn't it a place to debate? I'm not mean.
  • Emily fights people? I mean, besides Muppet?
  • She does it in secret.
  • She does it in secret.
    She pees in their coffee?
  • She does it in secret.
    She pees in their coffee?
    http://www.go-girl.com/
  • She does it in secret.
    Ninja rabbits, attack!
  • Ninja rabbits, attack!
    I think they're Samurai Rabbits.

  • I didn't even know who Jill Stein was until that quiz told me I was like 95% in line with her views.
  • I didn't even know who Jill Stein was until that quiz told me I was like 95% in line with her views.
    Yeah, me too. My reaction: "Okay, well, that's nice. Go Jill!" I still didn't vote for her, for reasons similar to what Rym described.
  • Not postponing the NY marathon is complete stupidity.
  • Or carefully calculated entertainment.
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