• hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I prefer bringing up that in US “democracy” some votes count more than others. When trump won, more people voted for Clinton and for some reason yanks seem to be totally ok with this.

    • Aremel@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      We are not ok with this, but changing the way it works is a herculean task. The people that it currently works for are very invested in keeping it that way.

      • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        But why is nobody even protesting it? Seems kind of a cornerstone of democracy, no? How could anything coming out of this system have any legitimacy?

        • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          The media has done a pretty good job convincing the vast majority of Americans that we are the pinnacle of democracy and any change to that is either fascism or communism. Wanting a better system is intentionally painted as un-American.

          • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            “The media” sounds like a convenient scapegoat. Who gives a fuck about how things are painted? Do you really just go “well, I guess I better waive my right to having my vote count equally, don’t want the neighbours to think I’m un-american” or is that just an excuse for lethargy? I don’t mean to antagonise you but I think you should ask yourself some tough questions once in a while.

            • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Great argument. Now instead of preaching to the choir, which is to say someone who already understands and agrees with you, why don’t you elevate your message to all 400 million of us? You know, really get to the ones who don’t understand they’re being manipulated?

              No? You won’t do that? Don’t you care about our right to vote and this democracy? Maybe you feel like it’s just not your job. I don’t know, sounds like another way to say you’re just too lazy.

              I don’t mean to antagonize you, but you’re the one insinuating that it just takes one person being unhappy about the system to change it. So you should ask yourself the same questions about why you can’t do it yourself. Even if you don’t live in the US, you have about the same resources as I do.

              • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                You took a comment that addressed noone in particular a bit personal and now pretend it was meant to start a revolution on a very niche corner of the internet. Not quite what I consider worth my time.

                • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  I don’t mean to antagonise you but I think you should ask yourself some tough questions once in a while.

                  You wouldn’t consider this addressing me in particular? Looks a little like you’re avoiding a response because you don’t have a good answer.

                  In any case, have fun preaching to people who live in a complex system about changes you don’t really understand. For what it’s worth, entertaining the naive notion of

                  well why don’t you just ask yourself some hard questions and it’ll all be better

                  Isn’t really worth my time either.

                  • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    That sentence upset you to the point you feel the need to insult my intelligence, misrepresent what is written, forget that “you” can mean people in general and ignore any clarification. That’s regrettable as I’m sure you do actually understand what I’m trying to say here but can’t address it over a perceived slight.

      • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Are those voters people with agency or just cattle? You realize your group is a lot bigger than the group that you watch exploiting you, right?

    • conorab@lemmy.conorab.com
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      11 months ago

      Isn’t that true for any representative democracy especially when gerrymandering is allowed? In Aus you can easily have a party win more than 50% of the vote but not get in because the votes were concentrated in vast-majority seats.

      • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It absolutely isn’t. There is no inherent reason why votes can’t be added up and tallied in a straight forward way in a representative democracy.

        • Funkytom467@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s not inherent to representative democracy but let’s be honest most systems we use have flaws like that, including Europe.

          (An exemple in Europe would be choosing only one individual to vote. Which divide voters of two close candidates and lower both of their score.)

          And that’s probably why we feel like most representatives democracy can’t escape some of thoses problems.

          Mathematically though there is some systems that have been proven to not have those same flaws.

          Problem is, of course how hard it is to fix a system that can only be changed by the people that it favors.

          • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            No, that’s not an example of votes not counting equally…? Am I misunderstanding your example?

            You don’t need some mathematical proof to just count all the votes and see which candidate got more votes. It’s how most elections throughout the world work.

            • Funkytom467@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              In Europe, the countries i know of at least, count each vote equally.

              What i meant was that it doesn’t mean it’s a perfect system if your goal is democracy.

              Other factors can totally break the purpose of counting votes equally altogether and end up with a unsatisfying result. And my exemple is as such.

              (I live in France, we have equally counted vote but with this issue, and some other neighboring countries have it too. If you’re interested i can explain more what the issue is…)

              (I guess Australia, for the user you were replying to originally, have it’s own issues too, not that i’m familiar with them.)

              Mathematicians worked on how different suffrage creates different results.

              There are plenty like the majority judgement but one that i particularly like is Condorcet’s method to solve the problem.

    • LemmyRefugee@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It happens in Spain too. Huge difference in the number of votes needed in Barcelona to get a representative, compared to rural provinces.