chargingmarmot
Joined 10 years ago
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244
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45
Member since
Sep 10
Recent submissions
Comment · 2 years ago
Comment · 3 years ago
The issue with the Sherman Act is that it is broad and sweeping and leaves discretion up to the government.
So the answer to your question is: monopolization is illegal according to the the Sherman Act, and the power to regulate markets is well within the (extremely broad) scope of existing laws (including the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act).
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
Comment · 3 years ago
I shouldn't have said "eliminate". I'll defer to:
https://electionscience.org/library/the-spoiler-effect/
or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...
I don't really have a strong preference for IRV (over, say, approval or score voting), but it does seem to be widely accepted as an improvement over first-past-the-post and also an option that has a realistic chance of adoption (due to slotting into existing electoral schemes without giant overhauls).
Comment · 3 years ago
If you look at the policies these parties are actually backing, they're all about democratic reform:
* campaign finance reform
* voting reform
* legislative transparency
"Civility" would be a consequence of structural reforms; not a good-intentions effort.
Comment · 3 years ago
I don't disagree with you about the problems related to wealth distribution. (I just watched the documentary "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" about 2 days ago and so I'm feeling primed there.)
I do think you're being excessively cynical about electoral reform.
Ultimately, we live in a democracy, and voters have power. The parties putting forward these reforms are advocating for things like democracy vouchers:
https://democracypolicy.network/agenda/open-country/open-gov...
which is a very anti-oligarchic/anti-plutocratic measure.
Reforms like instant runoff voting make third parties more viable by eliminating spoiler effects. In our present system, if you run as (or vote for) (say) a socialist candidate, you end up helping the right-wing by preferentially stealing votes from the moderate left-wing candidate. In this scenario, it's not rational for you to participate in politics because you end up hurting your own interests. Electoral reform can eliminate the perverse incentives here. In this scenario you can imagine the socialist candidate would say, "Hi, I'm the socialist, I care about issue X; and make your option 2 the green party candidate because of issue Y; or your option 3 the democrat because of issue Z". There are incentives for politicians to act civilly (since transferable votes mean they no longer strictly compete) and to offer better options to voters.
See: "Electoral rules discourage problem-solving and reward conflict" in https://www.americanprogress.org/article/its-time-to-talk-ab...
Comment · 3 years ago
Electoral reform is actually one of the biggest issues that the party seems to back. (For exactly the reason you mention.)
Comment · 3 years ago
Today I learned: Electoral reforms are one of the goals for the Forward Party and the Common Sense party. If you're a voter in California, you can help them with this by changing the party affiliation on your voter registration to the Common Sense Party to help them get recognition (they need 72,000 members).
Comment · 3 years ago
I would really like to see some form of electoral reform passed that would reduce spoiler effects, make third party movements more viable, and change the incentives for politicians in elections (e.g. instant runoff voting as endorsed by https://fairvote.org/ or https://cfer.org/ ; or proportional representation ).
I'm disappointed that two bills for ranked-choice voting have passed the legislature in California only to be vetoed by the governor (Schwarzenegger in 2007, Newsom in 2019): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_California
I hope eventually some of these reforms will get more widely adopted.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/its-time-to-talk-ab...
Comment · 3 years ago
I think you're oversimplifying animal behavior. Some thoughts:
There's a famous study involving capuchin monkeys that shows they have a sense of fairness.
I think many animal species are more sensitive to the suffering of other animals than you're giving them credit for: think of the way mother cats or bears act when they hear their offspring crying. Or the way mother dogs discipline their puppies about nursing.
Think of how donkeys are used commercially to guard sheep and the social instincts of the donkey (again it's linked to maternal behavior).
I think many birds are intelligent enough to want to pursue and punish potential threats.
We don't generally apply the concept of nature vs. nurture to animal behaviors but we really should.
Comment · 3 years ago
An August 2022 Gallup poll showed that US approval of labor unions was at its highest point since 1965 (71%, up from 48% in ~2010; comparable to levels of 70-75% in the 1940s-60s). [1]
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...
Comment · 3 years ago
Cool. Did you buy the $10,000 feature that will let you summon your Tesla from across the country sometime in 2018?
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/autonomous-driving/time...
Comment · 3 years ago
I agree with the sentiment about media sensationalism but I don't think "space junk" is an issue we should be so quick to dismiss.
Just because the problem hasn't gotten too bad yet doesn't mean it isn't real (especially because the problem involves a positive-feedback "domino effect" and junk might be infeasible to clean up).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
With regard to Starlink: I was a little bit concerned because of the large number of satellites they're putting up, but as far as I understand, Starlink isn't actually a big risk right now as far as space junk goes because the satellites orbit at low altitudes (340 miles) and are expected to naturally de-orbit relatively quickly due to atmospheric drag. (The decision to put them at low altitudes had to do with network latency.) If Elon were to say tomorrow, "hey we're moving Starlink out to 500 miles" I would hope some kind of regulation would be able to prevent that.
Comment · 3 years ago
The bill is opposed by the Hindu American Foundation. They give their rationale for opposing the bill in:
https://www.hinduamerican.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/HAF...
They state:
"We share the admirable goals of protecting civil rights and eliminating all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including based on caste. As such, the question is not whether we deal with allegations of caste discrimination, but how. If and when caste discrimination allegations emerge, they should be adjudicated under the existing protected class of ancestry, just as the state of California did in California Department of Fair Employment Housing v. Cisco Systems, Inc."
They state in https://www.hinduamerican.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Cas...
"All of these measures can be traced back to allegations being made by a for-profit, activist entity called Equality Labs which stands to profit from its caste competency training services."
---
I'm inclined to agree with them that caste discrimination is probably already illegal on the basis of ancestry.
(Unfortunately laws themselves don't eliminate prejudice.)
Overall, I'm happy they're actively involved. The hands-off attitude in the US is terrible.