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I’d rather focus on ripping cars out of cities, promoting mixed use zoning areas, removing regulations on food service (which is the reason small American food vendors need food trucks, instead of “street food” like the rest of the world.
The disjointed, car based, child hating society we have is a big problem.
dunno how you mandate people vote. the rest looks like an ambitious but overall laudable start.
Australia already does it
Somehow the IRS knows to come after everyone for taxes - they don’t typically miss people. So maybe something somehow like that?
Additionally, no ID renewal without proof of having voted/a valid exception (e.g. out of country)
A benefit rather than a detriment. Have a benefit offered only to those who have voted in the past election. It could be even paired with the universal basic income, an extra $100 added to your monthly UBI if you are a registered voter who has voted in the most recent election. With universal vote by mail, election day being a holiday, and plenty of early voting days leading up to the election there would be no excuse to not vote.
I’m not sure it would be a good idea, even if it’s a benefit instead of a detriment.
Ignorant or apathetic voters with no stake in or care for politics will just vote to obtain benefits without doing any research beforehand. That leads to them either voting for the first person on the ballot or the name they hear the most. If catering to those voters becomes a campaigning tactic, the system will probably devolve back into a popularity contest.
No employee, owner, shareholder, investor, contractor, etc. can make more than 50 times the amount of the lowest paid employee, contractor, supplier employee, supplier’s supplier employee, etc. (Including all of the foreign slaves).
Tim Cook wants to earn 50M per year? Then all of those Foxconn guys that they need nets to stop from suiciding need to make at least 1M. All of the guys making chips have to make 1M. All of the guys mining coal to produce the electricity have to make 1M.
Income inequality problems would be abated. “Dey took our yobs.” would be less of a problem because you would save money by using local labor due to lower shipping costs. Poverty would eventually be eliminated.
Probably communism with extra steps, but maybe it would be less prone to party dictators.
Why would a two party system implement ranked choice if everyone is stupid enough to keep voting for them? They’re not going to shoot themselves in the foot.
the problem is that we have to vote, one of the two of them is going to get into office, that’s just how it works. Ranked choice would likely involve repealing that as well.
That’s the issue isn’t it
If people aren’t voting is that a protest or apathy? How would you tell?
A vote for third party is a vote for Democracy
Are you trying to fix systemic problems of government structure or pass laws? They are different things.
#1. Truly abolish slavery. #2. Change the legal system from punishment to rehabilitation. #3. Congress gets minimum wage. #4. Minimum wage and unemployment must be a livable wage.
The last one could just be “free education”
There is a case for having some cost otherwise people go to university for absolutely worthless degrees just to do something.
Could? I think it should be.
- internet listed as an essential utility like water, power, and phone services
Yes, that would be included in “Municipalize internet service”.
Oh. Right, lol
Dude I’m voting for you
All the points are nice but the plan does not “make sense” in the sense that it will probably never happen (at least within our lifetimes).
If you arent dying, dont overestimate capitalism’s remaining lifetime
We need a new country with a fresh constitution based on these ideals and what we’ve learned since the last one. Like what the US did to the British in 1776, but again and better
I don’t really see “new countries” being a thing in that way ever again. The USA was new because a “new” piece of land was literally found (well obviously it was already found by other people but you get what I mean).
There is no new land to find today. You can’t just set off and create a new country - all of the land is already taken. You’ll need to work within the confines of the current countries and try your best to improve them gradually.
At least, any other approach would probably be very bloody…
I mean, the US was just a colonial state that broke ties to the british monarchy, and that shit happens all the time, so I think through that method, there’s still a pretty good chance. If you’re talking more about like, the establishment of the US as a state through the genocide of the native peoples, intentional or otherwise, I’d say, sure, yeah, that’s hopefully never gonna happen again, but general independence movements happen all the time.
Don’t worry, World War 3 will leave vast swaths of uninhabited land.
Uninhabitable*
You could pay for a whole bunch of that with a Land Value Tax.
Legalizing Prostitution just creates more Human Trafficking, as a result of allowing human traffickers to operate in the open under the guise of legality. We have decades of evidence that lead to this conclusion. We don’t need to keep trying it.
I’m ill informed on this one. Do you have a source you like?
I was under the impression that if it were made legal, it would make more difficult criminal behavior. Sunshine being a disinfectant and all that. Plus being less dangerous for any given sex worker.
“We find that countries with legalized prostitution have a statistically significantly larger reported incidence of human trafficking inflows. This holds true regardless of the model we use to estimate the equations and the variables we control for in the analysis. Also, the main finding is not dominated by trafficking to a particular region of the world.” SOURCE
This is a study that references many other studies going back decades with data examining differences between 150 countries.
They found a correlation but didn’t factor in any regulation. Correlation does not imply causation.
Many thanks.
Once we end all drug prohibition then the DEA can use its military and intelligence operations to target slavery operations and leave independent service providers alone.
Our minds and bodies fully belong to ourselves individually. We have the right to do with them as we choose.
If a civilization doesn’t want a bunch of drug addicts then don’t give birth to people with that propensity by allowing people that hate life to not reproduce.
The only valid purpose of a civilization is increase the standard of living for all of its members equally. A civilization that uses oppression must be destroyed either from within or without.
Mandatory voting just adds semi-random votes, skewing the proportion of people who are really voting for their own interests, but rather out of vibes due to obligation. Holiday on voting days and repealing of disenfranchisement measures work much better.
It doesn’t “just” do that. It totally reverses the ability for governments to block people from voting. If it’s an obligation then people must be provided a reasonable chance to vote. It makes more people engaged in politics as well instead of “can’t be bothered”
One minor twist: the legislation mandates that one reports to the polling center. The uninformed can select “none of the above” if they are not sure what would be best.
I think it would still encourage meme voting in retaliation for having to show up. “You can force me to do this but you can’t force me to do this in good faith.”
If the worst you can say about this scheme is: “people may vote randomly” I don’t feel that bad. I assume the amount of people that spite vote(!) would be greatly outnumbered by people that actually give a shit (but who may not be able to vote today, due to work obligations)
The reason I think mandatory voting in Australia is nice (tiny fine for not doing it, so turn out is like 85-95% every time) is that because everyone obliged, it keeps voter disenfranchisement politically difficult. When you go to vote on election day, you wait 20 mins, tops, usually less, and you can vote ahead of time via mail or in person. It’s always Saturday for this reason too.
I’d argue it’s this easy partially because everyone HAS to do it, so if politicians start making it hard, people are gonna be pissed very quickly, so no one messes with the well-oiled machine.
And there are no stupid “get out to vote campaigns” wasting valuable headspace where instead we could be talking about actually issues.
Australia’s electoral system is far from perfect (single member local electorates which basically guarantees two stronger parties), but mandatory voting is definitely a feature I do not want to be rid of.
Start with one thing, mate. Most impact and easiest to implement.
Why delude yourself with this bullshit fantasy list? Focus on reality.
While I agree with tackling one problem at a time, there’s no issues with listing all of them. Then, when you tackle one, you get to mark it off.
There’s something great about an easily comprehendible list that everyone can understand.
I focused on reality and all it did was make me start thinking we’re fucked, so I made a list of solutions.
When you propose things, you have to keep some line items you can remove easily during negotiations to show “good faith” 😬
Yeah, in order to have the slightest chance of doing most of these things, America would already have to be a lot better.
Pretty sure this is ranked by biggest impact to smallest
I dont understand why Americans are horny for mandatory voting. Voting is mandatory in Greece, it makes no difference. It is theoretically illegal to not vote but are you going to imprison people for not voting? So it isnt enforced, at all.
No one is voting because it is mandatory. Greece has 60% participation.
I wouldnt want idiots having to vote then voting because some friend said some madeup thing or it was the last thing they seen on ticktok. If people don’t care and refuse to do the most minimum of looking into politics why should they decide my future
I believe Australia has mandatory voting and achieves a ~95% participation of registered voters basically every election, though they do enforce it with either a day in court or a fine.
I do wonder if you fined people, or wasted a day of theirs with court, whether it would have an impact in Greece after a couple of elections?
You can not enforced new social norms like that. People, including voting ones, will revolt. They will call it undemocratic and a cash grab. You are just asking for trouble.
We swing between 93-95% participation
We alao make voting as easy as possible with voting opening 2-4 weeks in advance of election day, election day is always a weekend and as long as you vote before or on election day it’s counted.
Also democracy sausages
I think such a high turn out makes our politicians a bit more honest with less empty promises since they can’t dissuade anyone from voting.
Right. And for people who try to argue that they shouldn’t be forced to choose between people they like like, or whatever, it’s important to understand that it is only mandatory to get your name ticked off the list. You don’t actually have to submit a valid vote. You can choose to just turn in a blank ballot paper, or write “fuck you” or whatever you like. There are no laws against that.
So the ‘mandatory voting’ just makes it mandatory to put in the small amount of effort required to show up; but doesn’t force you to express an opinion. (Of course, I’d say that you should submit a valid vote. But you don’t have to.)
I agree many wouldn’t bother, but I still believe it should be every citizen’s duty to vote. It’s literally the bare minimum political involvement people can have.
Make it tied to your UBI check. Now it’s incentivized so enforcement not needed.
Yea I think I’ll add this to the v4. Incentivize rather than punish. Just give people an extra $100 a month in their UBI for voting.
Why only $100 and not the whole UBI allowance?
Why only $100 and not the whole UBI allowance?
Incentivize rather than punish
Then it’s a punishment of $100 if you don’t vote. UBI as a reward for participating in our democracy would be a great step. A punishment would be a fine or jailtime.
Does your legal system work on imprisonment or nothing at all? Sounds very extreme.
Here it’s a small fine, but it’s also a day off and takes like 20 mins to go do plus you can get a delicious sausage. So it’s a no brainer that people go vote.
Greece is a pretty failed state from what I’ve seen, wouldn’t read too much into what they don’t do.
As for why compulsory voting, it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.
Here it’s a small fine
People will call it a cashgrab, that will mostly affect poor people(since the rich people both vote and also dont care about small fines).
it’s also a day off
Greek elections are always on Sunday and people can be given a day off if their voting location is far away(especially back in the day, when moving your voting location was hard).
Greece is a pretty failed state from what I’ve seen
I have been shitting on Greece for my entire life, but it aint cool when non greeks do it. Yes, Greece is fucked but i wouldnt really call it a failed state. It is a shithole but only greeks get to call it a shithole. It also relatively shitholey, in comparison to western european countries.
It just happens to be the worst “western” country. And yes, it is in the East, but the West/East thing was a Cold War thing and Greece was with the “West”. Nowadays, many “eastern european” countries have reached and surpassed Greece.
In any case, take a look at the wikipedia map, which countries have compulsory voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting
If you exclude Australia, all other countries are shitholes. And i am sure australians will be the first to tell you that Australia is also a shithole and politically fucked.
As for why compulsory voting, it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.
It doesnt. If anything, it might do exactly the opposite. When a greek neonazi party was popular, a lot of “apolitic” greeks supported it not because they supported neonazism but because “fuck the system, at least they will go in and smash some heads”. When clueless people are forced to vote, they might be clueless about what they are voting.
America’s issue is the first past the post, winner takes all system. If the US had a more representative system, that allowed third parties and coalitions(like almost all other democratic countries have), things would have been better.
it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.
thoughts on Selb and Lachat, 2009?:
In particular, the analyses suggest that CV compels a substantial share of uninterested and less knowledgeable voters to the polls. These voters, in turn, cast votes that are clearly less consistent with their own political preferences than those of the more informed and motivated voluntary voters. Claims that CV promotes equal representation of political interests are therefore questionable.
