Category Archives: Politics

Where Were You When…?

November 8, 20202020, Politics, Space!admin

“Where were you when…?”

There are events that so significant, so momentous, that they sear themselves into the psyche. I say ‘sear’, because these moments are often negative events, such as the Challenger explosion, or 9/11, but these events can also be positive, such as the first person on the moon[0], or the one that happened yesterday morning, the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election being called for Joe Biden & Kamala Harris[1].

For us, this was a momentous and significant occasion. We had been on tenterhooks for days[2], perhaps for years, ever since the unexpected upset of Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump in 2016. The presidency of Donald Trump was an exhausting one, with endless breaking of norms, rampant illegality, and cruelty.

We had an endlessly raging sense that this was not normal, and it was difficult to focus on other things, when there could be a new evil or stupid thing being done each day or week, that could potentially harm thousands or millions of people. Earlier in the week, it had become clear that barring a catastrophe, Biden would win the election, so my tension level had gone down significantly (especially when it became obvious that Fox News and the Bush/Rubio wing of the Republican party would not support such an illegal seizure of power as Trump was contemplating).

But it still felt odd, and somehow wrong, to focus on other projects until this was well and done. The actual calling of this election for Biden was an important step on this road to normalcy, and perhaps also an indication that we could take our eye off the ball and relax for just a second…[3][4]

For us, this happened when we were out in the wilderness, in one of our favourite spots, when S’s watch buzzed, and showed us the following message:

…indicating that the newpaper(s) of record were now willing to put their credibility behind the fact that Biden was going to win this election.

We expressed our happiness a little bit, and then immediately wanted to check which state it was that had made the difference, and it turns out that it had indeed been Pennsylvania, as had been suspected all along[5]:

With Pennsylvania called for Biden, the election is over.

While looking at this map, we encountered some other people coming the opposite way on the trail, and perhaps cathartically, or just to have some human connection to share this experience, I made hand motions and cheered, to which they replied that they had also just heard.

Admittedly, people who drive to an art gallery in the wilderness so that they can go walking on a trail will tend towards certain demographics, but it is telling that within minutes, we all knew this most significant bit of news, suggesting how much everyone around the world was on tenterhooks.

Here’s hoping that we remember this moment as a turning point. Keep pushing my friends, this is not over yet.

[0] (It feels like there’s a whole book to be written about why all of my positive examples (and many of my negative ones) have to do with space flight/exploration/travel…probably having something to do with space travel representing all of humanity working together to solve a problem…a super-poignant one for me was the landing of ‘Curiosity’, I remember exactly where I was, and how verklempt I was that this little robot[6] had gone so far (560 million km, to land so exactly (within 2.4km), and they cared so much about it that they had altered the orbit of the Odyssey orbiter (not done trivially) so that they could check on Curiosity immediately after landing…There are also probably comments about how the advent of television makes these moments possible, such that all of humanity can experience something in real time, and so viscerally through the visual medium.)

[1] It will remain to be seen whether this moment is as changing of the course of history/presaging a new era as the other ones mentioned. For the sake of the planet, we hope so.

[2] The election was officially held on the Tuesday, and it was finally called on the Saturday morning.

[3] (The link is people dancing on and around a car to the tune ‘All I want for Christmas is you’, along with commentary that contrary to when this song is normally heard (endlessly in retail areas in the month(s) leading up to Christmas), it was actually pleasurable, and led to people being verklempt, because of the incredible catharsis and sense of relief: “this was the first time i heard this song in 2020 and it was absolutely the best possible occasion
🎁”

[4] Remember, there are two senate runoff elections happening in Georgia that will decide things like how much healthcare Americans get for decades to come, and there is still the ‘lame duck’ session where Trump will have some power to cause damage. There will likely be an unimaginable amount of money flowing into that election, and the most incredible GOTV campaign that you can imagine, both of which you can help with.

[5] fivethirtyeight.com had given a 36.6% chance that Pennsylvania would be the tipping point in this election, but that was the chance of Pennsylvania being the one state that was closest to the edge, once all the votes were counted, which has not been determined yet. But being the state that pushed the ‘called count’ over is probably good enough for Gritty fans.

[6] A tiny capsule, flying through the immense void of space, carrying so many of humanity’s hopes and dreams with it, and trying so hard to do its job as best it can…

The End of the Beginning…

November 7, 20202020, Politicsadmin

Winston Churchill said after the Second Battle of El Alamein[1] that “…this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

This morning, the first minor outlets started calling the U.S. Presidental Election for Joe Biden. I remember seeing the first indication that Biden had actually taken the lead in Pennsylvania just after 9:30am:

The long-anticipated lead for Biden in Pennsylvania finally happens:

This had been predicted by many observers, and we had been seeing the slow march in this direction for days, as the mail-in votes in Pennsylvania were being counted:

The day before, when Biden was still catching up:

But it’s one thing to know almost for certain that something is coming, and another thing entirely to see it actually happen.

If there’s one thing that I feel that we’ve learned during these last 9 months of pandemic isolation, it’s that there is a significant difference between understanding something intellectually, and the full-on emotional experience.

People were saying that this election might not be decided until late this week, and that it might be a nail-biter…[2]

…similar to ‘life will not go back to normal until there is a vaccine, and that will not happen until late 2021 at the earliest’…a nail-biter that one is living through is very different than one that one is merely discussing in theory. I would posit that people around the world lost a significant amount of sleep (and not just those counting ballots) from the stress over the starkly divided U.S., perched on a ‘knife’s edge‘.

But it now looks like we have a way forward. The current numbers are juust over the biggest barrier, and the overall trend is good. Barring some catastrophe[3], Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States, and as he alluded to in his ‘not-quote-a-victory-speech-speech’: “We believe when the count is finished we’ll be the winner“, that it is time for the country (really, the world), to come together to heal.

“What brings us together…is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart.”

We need to keep up the pressure, so that our politicians implement what they said they would do, and we need to watch for shenanigans around every corner (and do everything we can to win both Senate seats in Georgia), but there is light at the end of the tunnel…and if we play our cards right, we[4] could end up with a president that can bring together a consensus on programs that rival the New Deal in scope and progress.

Stay safe and keep pushing…

[1] The Second Battle of Alamein (and indeed the entire African campaign and WWII) are fascinating in their own right, but are far too large and out of scope to address here.

[2] To be precise, fivethirtyeight.com predicted that:

“…it wouldn’t take that big of a polling error in Trump’s favor to make the election interesting. Importantly, interesting isn’t the same thing as a likely Trump win; instead, the probable result of a 2016-style polling error would be a Biden victory but one that took some time to resolve and which could imperil Democrats’ chances of taking over the Senate. On the flip side, it wouldn’t take much of a polling error in Biden’s favor to turn 2020 into a historic landslide against Trump.”

While many were undoubtedly hoping for the latter, undoubtedly record Republican turnout meant that we ended up with the former.

[3] #knockonwood

[4] I wonder if this is how empires happen…that those in the hinterlands are so affected by the decisions made, or the culture projected, that they start to identify with the leaders, rooting for them as they root for themselves…

Japan 2012 in Pictures: November 3, Out and About near Shinjuku

January 30, 2018Photos, Politics, Travel, Words!admin

When we last saw our intrepid heroes, they had just finished looking at various maps in Yoyogi, near Shinjuku. Today, we follow them as they explore small parts of that neighbourhood.

(Note: I found the sljfaq.org ‘multiradical’ character finder super-helpful, especially as I seem to have lost my ability to draw kanji.)

First, we see their favourite little store of the day. It seemed to be a textbook store, but it also had a wide selection of little stationary:

This was an amazing little textbook store, with all kinds of stationary.

There were various ‘No Smoking’ signs. This one seemed to be expressing itself in a somewhat counterproductive way. Near as I can tell, it says “Walk journey/carry out consume/smoke smoke prohibition stop/halt[1]…Shibuya ward Smoking Rules” (Note that ‘Ru-Ru’ in Katakana transliterates to ‘Rules’.):

This picture is somewhat unconvincing about the uncoolness of smoking.

We saw a number of these little signs embedded in the paving stones. This one seems to say ‘electricity‘:

We saw this little sign on the ground. Near as we can tell, it says 'electricity'. — We saw this little sign on the ground. Near as we can tell, it says ‘electricity’.

This one seems to say ‘weak electricity‘, perhaps suggesting that you should not dig here?[2]:

Another strange sign embedded in the ground. "Weak Electricity" and an arrow. — Another strange sign embedded in the ground. “Weak Electricity” and an arrow.

I liked the contrasting shapes of these buildings in the distance.

The warning sign on the arm seems to say:

Large black characters: “Enter mouth“, or “Entrance”
(Note that the smaller red characters were difficult to read, this is my best guess):
Smaller red characters:
“Pa/Ba- beam/girderRe SeNSa- ??Middle!!”
“Hand Wo(of)?Re?To Fu(Bu/Pu/Wa)Ga?Ri ???Come out”

Perhaps something about a bar sensor, and cars may come out? (Or perhaps the standard warning, that the bar may move seemingly of its own accord, and bonk you unexpectedly?)

When we were there, there seemed to be some sort of election going on. Here is a selection of various campaign posters:

The one on the top seems to be a person called ‘NaGaTsuMa‘, with “The Democratic Party of Japan“, which apparently has had an interesting recent history.

Oddly, it mentions in the top right corner his birth year (1960) and month.

In the center of the poster, just to the left of his face: “Me, the fight I continue“, or “I continue the fight/I keep fighting.”
In red, it says: “one round/month/perfection in any event, day true second birth”

Interestingly, his name is in Hiragana, not the more formal Kanji, I’m assuming so it’s easier to read. At the time of the election, he would have been 52, I’m not sure if that would make him young or old for running for office (as to why he would include his birth month on the poster). Also note the prominent but understated wedding ring.

The next poster down is ‘Hideko Murakami’ (not to be confused with Murakami), who apparently had her face cut/vandalized out of her political poster. It’s difficult to tell what her party was, but the text at the top of her poster says: “East Capital Metropolis/all/everything (Tokyo) deliberation party deliberation leader / Metropolis/all/everything deliberation leader politics/government investigate/mediate/harmonize leader senior”

Suggesting she’s the senior leader, or a negotiator/mediator? (I can’t find anything on her in Google, to suggest why she would be a target of such specific vandalism.)

The other two signs seem relatively normal. Tamayo Marakawa seems reasonably famous.

The green sign has ‘DaKaRa oneself people/subjects party/faction“, or perhaps “So what if one’s self makes their own party”, perhaps referring to the party that had split off from the Liberal Democratic Party, and was currently in power.

There seemed to be an election going on. This is a selection of campaign posters.

“What do you want?” A very bold statement, especially with the English being given equal treatment with the Japanese language. Direct translation: “MiNNaGa Laughing Face DeIRaReRu (of could to be) NiShiTaI (to do)”

The statement in black reads: “Me, I Act”

The person seems to by Fumiaki Matsumoto. Note that the person making the poster helpfully spelled out his first name ‘FuMiAKi’, probably to help people vote.

An advertisement for a place to live. Can't tell if it's a rental or purchase. — An advertisement for a place to live. Can’t tell if it’s a rental or purchase.

Stay tuned for next time, when our intrepid heroes visit the mythical Department Store ‘Tokyu Hands’!

[1]In some ways, these repeated similar words remind me of the words around the ‘Utwig Planetary Engineering Tool’, or Ab’s commentary about the ancient weapon[3]. Also similar to many sci-fi novels’ ‘translations’ of alien languages, putting multiple words to represent one alien word, to show that their concepts are grouped differently than they are in English.

[2]Google seems to agree, for what it’s worth.

[3]It’s written in dozens of different languages, but they all translate to ‘Boom’.

Japan in Pictures 2012: November 3, More Map Reading While Exploring Near Shinjuku by Day

January 27, 2018Languages!, Photos, Politics, Traveladmin

When we last saw our intrepid travelers, they had just finished decoding part of a map inside Shinjuku station. They decided it was time to go out and explore the neighbourhood[1].

As they ventured onto the back streets, away from the bustle of the station, one of the first things they noticed was maps that looked like this:

The first neighbourhood map we documented.

As you can see, this is a map showing where various commercial establishments are in the neighbourhood. (The specific neighbourhood seems to be between Minami Shinjuku and Yoyogi Stations.)

The green label on the top looks like it reads “ShiBuYa (ward in Tokyo) YoYoGi (neighbourhood in Shibuya ward) T-38-3 RD7″.

The large green label on the left reads: “MaChi Wo Mi ShiKu!!” or “Town/Neighbourhood (of) Beauty District”.

This would make sense, given the prominent advertisement for ‘Hair & Make & Photo Studio”. There seem to be a number of restaurants, such as the ‘YaKiToRi ToMaRiBa’ (or Yakitoi Haunt)

There are a number of things I can’t decipher, such as: “FuaMiRi- Ma-To”, and “(TeNTeN)”, which might be a cool bar with a difficult-to-search name, or perhaps an eyebrow salon.

“TeRuRuMoBaIRu”, possibly a mobile phone store, but also turned up this in a google search.

There’s also “SaNKuSa YoYoGi …” “Sankusa Yoyogi bundle opening store” But ‘Sankusa’ is in Katakana, meaning it’s a loan word from somewhere, Yoyogi is the neighbourhood, and the last three words seem to be describing it as some sort of store. If we were there, it would probably be easy to find out. 🙂

The last one is in the lower right corner: “DaNSu SuTaJhiO M&S Company”, which sounds like a Dance Studio! 🙂

The previous map and the next map were beside one another on the street, suggesting that they referred to the same or similar neighbourhoods. At the time, we had figured that these maps were some sort of neighbourhood directory, but I had thought that the one above was commercial, and the one below was residential.

At the top, in blue on white, it seems to say “INTa-NeTo”, beside a ‘DoKoNeTo’ ad, suggesting it’s an internet company ad. Beside it is a pointer to a QR code, which I will ignore, because QR codes are silly.

Looking at some random establishments, we see:

– “INSaITo”
– “MaGuNa” (The smaller characters are difficult to read, perhaps SuChiIToANa-?)
– “Yoyogi ZeMiNa-Ru”, “Yoyogi Seminars”? beside:
– “Yoyogi A-To GiyaRaRi-” Which seems to be ‘Yoyogi Art Gallery”
– Beside what looks like a large building titled “BaRo-Ru Yoyogi MaNShiyoN” or “(something) Mansion Yoyogi”, which has such establishments as:
– “AHAHA LAND”
– “TeNMa”
– “HeA-SuTaNO” (Perhaps ‘Suntan’ or spa?)
– …

And many others I can’t make out. How many can you find/translate?

This next map seemed somewhat the worse for wear:

This neighbourhood map seemed a little worse for wear.

I can’t make out too many words in this one, perhaps a ‘KuRi-Su’, there’s a JR station on the right side of the map, ‘SaSaNiTaWa-‘, and many others I can decipher even less about.

What can you figure out? I feel like this has helped me with a lot of Katakana practice (and Yoyogi-recognition practice), but I still have a long way to go. It’s also interesting to see how many different neighbourhoods that we had heard of were so accessible to each other, often just by walking at random.

Stay tuned for next time, when our intrepid travelers, now that they’re oriented themselves, start actually experiencing the city!

[1]Some of their explorations from that first day, related to the design of the city and various objects, were captured earlier in ‘Thoughts on Design in Japan‘.

News That Fact Checks

February 9, 2017Internet Culture, Politicsadmin

So, a friend of mine posted this video by Keith Olbermann:

“How the Media Needs to Respond to Trump Now | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ”

The video itself is interesting for a number of reasons, but I want to talk about their reaction to it.

They mentioned that they would greatly prefer to have their news fact-checked. I replied that this was already happening, just on comedy shows, that Jon Stewart started it[0], but now Trevor Noah, Rachel Maddow, Samantha Bee, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert do.

(Note that this is already starting to seep into ‘real news channels’ with Rachel Maddow and similar.)

But this got me thinking. Why is it that comedy shows can do this and ‘news’ cannot? Why did this start in comedy shows?

One could argue that the stock in trade of comedy is juxtaposition. Juxtaposition of people saying one thing and doing another, or even saying one thing and then saying the exact opposite lends itself very naturally to comedy based on political commentary.

Perhaps because comedy is built on using blunt verbal implements[1] to provoke an audience reaction, provoking audience reactions being their stock in trade. ‘News’ is not about provoking reactions, at least not as their primary goal[2].

Perhaps this blunt type of juxtaposition needed to be started on or as a comedy show, as news shows are used to being much more polite[3].

Perhaps, as Keith Olbermann suggests, the repeal of the ‘Fairness Doctrine‘ is related to all of this, where news organizations are still behaving as if the outside world is still trying to be fair, and that they can cover ‘both’ sides of an issue without checking too hard whether one of them is propaganda.

Perhaps it has to do with fact checking, perhaps it has to do with the proliferation of news coverage of politicians allowing greater opportunities for juxtaposition, perhaps it has to do with news organizations being afraid to offend their advertisers vs. comedy shows being afraid of not offending enough and thereby not getting enough attention…

Perhaps, just as only Nixon could go to China, perhaps only news comedy could start the juxtaposition fact checking.

[0]Some people say that this was started with SNL’s ‘Weekend Update‘ in 1985. I would argue that there are definite influences, but Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’ took itself far more seriously, closer to how news shows take themselves seriously. An example from the Chevy Chase Show in 1993, 6 years before Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show (and 3 years before the Daily Show existed at all):

[1]Many comedians starting out will say offensive things to get attention (or for worse reasons). I’m talking about less verbally offensive methods of getting attention.

[2]I’m not sure what the primary motivation of news is. Perhaps to inform, perhaps to legitimize an otherwise illegitimate TV network, perhaps to sell advertising. I’d say on their best days, their primary motivation is to inform.

[3]#tonepolicing

The Largest Protest in U.S. History

January 23, 2017Photos, Politicsadmin

Women's March, Toronto Nathan Phillips Square, estimated turnout 60,000. — Women’s March, Toronto Nathan Phillips Square, estimated turnout 60,000.

Yesterday was the largest protest in U.S. history. The 2017’s Women’s March was an assembly of people gathering to tell those freshly elected[1] that they would be held to account, to be “proactive about women’s rights”, to be “a stand on social justice and human rights issues ranging from race, ethnicity, gender, religion, immigration and healthcare”.

Estimates are still fluctuating (best estimates are currently 4.7 million), but it is clear that the protest was the largest in U.S. history, and aside from pilgrimages, the second largest peaceful gathering in human history.

Love Trumps Hate. Women's March 2017, estimated at 60,000 in Toronto. — Love Trumps Hate. Women’s March 2017, estimated at 60,000 in Toronto.

Even from half a block away, as I was approaching the march, it was difficult to not cry in reaction. All these people uniting for this cause. “You are not alone.” And all of them so invested. There were so many signs, almost all of them handmade. There were entire families, old people, children, babies.

A heartbreaking sign drawn by a child, Women's March 2017 estimated at 60,000 in Toronto. — A heartbreaking sign drawn by a child, Women’s March 2017 estimated at 60,000 in Toronto.

Some of the signs were heartbreaking. Above you can see a sign drawn by a child perhaps of four showing that children understand what we are doing, and that what is being done is wrong.

Below, we see one of the signs which talked about intersectionality[2]. A common complaint about feminist movements is that those impacted most are women of colour and various other ‘more disadvantaged groups’, while women’s movements tend to focus on white women. This specific sign below is talking about the (very) large number of missing and killed aboriginal women:

"Am I next?" Women's March 2017, estimated at 60,000 in Toronto. — “Am I next?” Women’s March 2017, estimated at 60,000 in Toronto.

The only real police presence (aside from blocking traffic so that the march could progress) was in front of the U.S. Consulate:

The negative space between the March and the U.S. Consulate, Women's March 2017 estimated at 60,000 in Toronto. — The negative space between the March and the U.S. Consulate, Women’s March 2017 estimated at 60,000 in Toronto.

The Horsies! above made their own comment on the situation:

Commentary from the Horsies! on the situation, Woman's March 2017, estimated at 60,000 in Toronto. — Commentary from the Horsies! on the situation, Woman’s March 2017, estimated at 60,000 in Toronto.

I like to make up stories about people that I see. My story here is that this older gentleman grew up in Eastern Europe, saw things there happen first-hand, and so has a very personal reaction to current events.

Commentary from a man who has likely seen much, Women's March 2017, 60,000 estimated in Toronto. — Commentary from a man who has likely seen much, Women’s March 2017, 60,000 estimated in Toronto.

At Queen & University, I stopped to talk to J, who was counting the number of people in the march as they went by. (He’d estimated about 20,000 up to that point, later estimates were around 60,000.)

Continuing on to Nathan Philips Square (the first photo in this post), out front we ran into three young gentlemen in immaculate suits[3]. They seemed confused, so we decided this would be a useful teachable moment. We asked them if they wanted to know what this was about, they explained that they didn’t know about what was going on. ‘What was the march about?’ ‘What were their specific policy proposals?’ (They assumed it was about reproductive rights.) Interestingly, this was difficult to articulate, perhaps because that was the wrong question.[4] I tried anyway, talking about the normalization of violence against women, reproductive rights, healthcare, climate change, but feeling like I was losing them, turned back to the teachable moment that I thought would be most effective in getting them to pay attention[5]: “The main reason protests like this happen is…” “Awareness?” “Yes. The point of the hundreds of thousands of people marching in D.C. and elsewhere is to get men in suits to pay attention and change things.” (I pointed out wordlessly that they were wearing suits, and they showed they understood. We left them thinking about it.)

Their questions were good, in a way. It highlighted for me how little I had really expressed these ideas myself, assuming their correctness, not having had to explain them to people who did not agree.

One of the few signs which contained specific policy proposals:

Some specific policy proposals, Women's March 2017, estimated 60,000 in Toronto, — Some specific policy proposals, Women’s March 2017, estimated 60,000 in Toronto,

– Electoral Reform
– Reconciliation and Restitution
– Prison Abolition[6]
– Guaranteed Income

I’ll leave you with this inspiring photo of two powerful women:

Powerful women at work, Women's March 2017, estimated 60,000 in Toronto. — Powerful women at work, Women’s March 2017, estimated 60,000 in Toronto.

Note: There were a number of photos that I did not include because they included faces.

[1]The use of ‘elected’ is problematic, but outside the scope of this post.

[2]I’m not going to try to mansplain intersectionality more than I have here. There are far better places to learn about it than from me.

[3]From their lanyards, it looks like they were at the Ontario provincials for ‘DECA‘, “an international association of high school and college students and teachers of marketing, management and entrepreneurship in business, finance, hospitality, and marketing sales and service.”

[4]Really, we want a consultative democracy, with proper rule of law. We’re never going to get things right the first time, but talking to each other about it and actually listening will help a lot. I also think that science-based decision making is best, but proper consultation is a good step in that direction.

[5]Yes, I’m aware that the discourse has moved beyond ‘men in suits have to be convinced to make the changes, no one else can’, but if it helps a few more people think about being allies, I figured it was worth it.

[6]There is a lot of literature on this topic. Put simply, prisons are an act of violence inflicted on the people by the state. Different people have different opinions on how necessary and/or helpful this is.

Electoral Reform in Canada: What are the Options?

December 5, 2016Organizing Systems, Politicsadmin

Last time, we talked about some of the things we might want in an electoral/voting system:

Having a say:
– Each vote should have the highest probability possible of changing the representation of the House of Commons

Quick:
– The public should know the results within hours of the polls closing.

Fair:
– Political parties should not be significantly inconvenienced by the electoral system for not having money.
– Any barriers to entry should be reasonable (number of candidates to be a registered party, number of votes to get deposits back, percentage of popular vote to qualify to get seats, etc…)
– The system should not unduly give power to very small groups (49/49/2 split, the 49 and 2 have equal power).
– The system should be ‘simple enough’ for people to understand. Currently, people vote for one person, one party with the same vote. A similar system being successfully used elsewhere in the world is a reasonable way to determine ‘simple enough’.

Representative:
– There are a number of ways to be representative:
– Geographically
– Representation of party by population
– Minority groups
– Diversity of opinions

Resistant to cheating:
– Secret ballot to reduce intimidation and coercion as factors
– Reasonable voter ID laws to increase voter turnout while keeping the risk of personation low.
– Distributed counting makes the current system quite resistant to cheating. One would have to mess with the voting tally computers in real-time to change this. The fact that there is an anonymous paper record of every vote cast in the ballot boxes is also an important check on this system.

As the Canadian government has (very likely) decided that whatever the parliamentary committee has decided will go to a referendum, I’m going to add one more criterion:

– Able to pass a Canadian referendum

For many people, the choice of voting system is not clear, as you can see by this table.

For options, I’ll start with the options considered by the New Zealand Commission on the Electoral System[1]:
– First-past-the-post
– Single transferable vote
– Supplementary Member
– Alternative Vote
– Mixed member proportional.

First-past-the-post:

This is the current system in Canada. The country is divided up into ridings (currently 338) of approximately equal population (generally geographically larger ridings have less population per riding.

Advantages:
– Simple
– What we’re currently doing

Disadvantages:
– Vote splitting by riding (candidates can win a riding with less than 30% of the vote)
– Vote splitting across the country (a party can win a majority government with less than 40% of the popular vote)

Single transferable vote:

Single Transferable Vote (STV) is used for elections in Ireland, Malta, much of Australia, and various other parts of the English-speaking world.

Basically, the country or region is divided into single-[2] or multi-member ridings. In each of these ridings, voters rank the candidates on their ballots. Each candidate who receives more votes than the number required to be elected is elected, and all of their ‘extra’ votes are passed on to other candidates proportionally. If there are no candidates who have the number of votes required to be elected, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed as above. Example here.

Advantages:
– More proportional representation than First-past-the-post
– ‘wasted votes’ guaranteed to be less than (1/(# of seats per riding)*100%), or for example <33% for a riding with three possible elected candidates Disadvantages: - You have to have all of the votes in one place to count them - Ridings must have many candidates per riding to reduce the number of 'wasted votes' Supplementary Member or ‘Parallel Voting’:

Technically, Supplementary Member Voting or Parallel Voting is defined as combining any two (or more) voting systems in parallel. Most often, it is used to combine some proportionality with a First-past-the-post system. Voters would vote twice, once for their local riding, and once for a proportional slate of candidates. These votes would be separate, leading to the results being more proportional, but not fully proportional.

Advantages:
– More proportional than First-past-the-post

Disadvantages:
– Not really that proportional
– More complicated than First-past-the-post

Alternative Vote or ‘Instant-runoff voting’:

Instant-runoff voting is used in various elections in Australia, India, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, and various local elections around the world, as well as by some political parties.

Similar to Single Transferable Voting, voters rank candidates in order on their ballot. If one candidate has a majority of the votes, that candidate is elected. If no candidates have a majority of the votes, candidates are eliminated and their votes are redistributed according the the voters’ preferences until one candidate receives a majority of the vote

Advantages:
– More votes count than in First-past-the-post, as no candidate can win without the plurality of the votes in a riding.
– ‘Vote splitting’ is much less of an issue, as parties or candidates who would normally ‘split’ votes would tend to be likely to be the second choice of those voters.

Disadvantages:
– You have to have all of the votes in one place to count them
– Up to half of the votes in each riding can be ‘wasted’

Mixed Member Proportional Voting or ‘Additional Member System Voting’:

Mixed Member Proportional Voting is used in Germany and various sub regions of the United Kingdom. It was the subject of the failed Ontario referendum of 2007. In most implementations, voters have two votes. One vote for a local candidate, and one vote for a party. Local candidates are elected using a First-past-the-post system. There are an additional number of representatives elected to bring the results in line with the popular vote. These additional representatives are generally based on party lists, but some proposals have them selected on a more regional basis, to allow better regional representation.

Advantages:
– In most cases, as proportional as electoral systems get
– Includes a strong local representation element
– Should be easy to describe to the public

Disadvantages:
– Already failed one referendum in Canada
– Party list seats are susceptible to collusion

Thanks for reading! Next time, we’ll go more in depth, and start to figure out which of these we might prefer. Stay tuned!

[1]New Zealand being a Westminister System country which had recent (1992,1993) referenda on changing its voting system from First-past-the-post.

[2]If there is only one seat per riding, STV is the same as ‘Instant Runoff Voting‘.

Lesser-Known Parts of the First Amendment

November 21, 2016Politicsadmin

There have been a number of political scandals and events this week. Particularly:

– Donald Trump settling the Trump University fraud case for $25M
– The ‘Stay to Play’ scandal
– The non-blind ‘blind trust’

I would invite you to read about those, care about them, and act on them.

In the meantime, I wanted to talk about the ‘other scandal’, the one which is distracting everyone from the real issues above.

My understanding of what happened is that Mike Pence went to see ‘Hamilton’ in New York. It was an interesting choice, especaially given the diverse cast and his political stance on related issues.

At the end of the show, as you probably know by now, a member of the cast made a statement to the Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence.[1]

People are arguing about whether that was the time and place for a statement[2]. Those in favour will likely cite the First Amendment. However, they would likely reference the part which says ‘Congress shall make no law […] abridging the freedom of speech’. And this statement would certainly fall under that. But under this clause, they could have made the statement to anyone.

There is another clause:

“Congress shall make no law […] abridging […] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This is what was happening. The people had assembled. There were clear grievances. They were petitioning the one of the most powerful members of the government to be.

This is what the Bill of Rights really means.

This is Democracy.

[1]Mike Pence’s later reaction.

[2]Democracy is messy. People are going to say things that other people are not going to want to hear, at times that they’re not going to want to hear them. They waited until the play was done, then took their opportunity to speak directly to the person who might actually have some power to change things

Global Warming is No Longer A Joke

October 14, 2016Economics, Politicsadmin

“The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old.”

By now, many of you will have read the obituary for the 25-million-year-old Great Barrier Reef.

From the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery, to soil erosion, to peak oil, to deforestation, human systems are good at squandering natural resources and bad at understanding how long it takes for them to replenish.

Today, it seems that we can add the Great Barrier Reef to that list. As the obituary poignantly puts it:

”
The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old.
…
The reef was born on the eastern coast of the continent of Australia during the Miocene epoch. Its first 24.99 million years were seemingly happy ones, marked by overall growth. It was formed by corals, which are tiny anemone-like animals that secrete shell to form colonies of millions of individuals. Its complex, sheltered structure came to comprise the most important habitat in the ocean. As sea levels rose and fell through the ages, the reef built itself into a vast labyrinth of shallow-water reefs and atolls extending 140 miles off the Australian coast and ending in an outer wall that plunged half a mile into the abyss. With such extraordinary diversity of life and landscape, it provided some of the most thrilling marine adventures on earth to humans who visited.
…
No one knows if a serious effort could have saved the reef, but it is clear that no such effort was made. On the contrary, attempts to call attention to the reef’s plight were thwarted by the government of Australia itself, which in 2016, shortly after approving the largest coal mine in its history, successfully pressured the United Nations to remove a chapter about the reef from a report on the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. Australia’s Department of the Environment explained the move by saying, “experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on tourism.” In other words, if you tell people the reef is dying, they might stop coming.
”

This last paragraph is perhaps the most damning. That we selected (and continue to select) leadership that actively works to put our collective heads in the sand, and that we fail to take them to task for it.

But maybe, like the cod stocks, we can stabilize the situation, (perhaps also at 1% of the original), and then start to reverse the damage. This article suggests that the Australian government is starting to pay attention, still far less than is actually required, but perhaps a start.

So, what are you doing to make a difference here? How are you influencing decisions that actually make a difference here? Who are you publicly calling out for making short-sighted long-term damaging decisions?

The Great Barrier Reef is dying. Bumblebees are dying.

It is time for us to actually do something about it.

It is time for you to actually do something about it.

Electoral Reform in Canada: Introduction

October 7, 2016Analysis, Organizing Systems, Politicsadmin

During the last Canadian federal election, two of the three major parties made electoral reform* part of their platform.

The goal was to find a better system for electing members of parliament than the current ‘first past the post’ system. Under the current system, a candidate can win a seat with (28.6%) of the votes in that riding[1], and a party can win a majority of the seats in the country (54%) with a bare plurality (39.5%) of the popular vote.

This tends to lead to voter disillusionment, as many voters (rightly) believe that their vote has no chance of influencing an election. The ‘Per Vote Subsidy‘ was one attempt to rectify this, by counting votes to fund political parties, so voters could feel that no matter where they were voting, their vote was doing something.

So, we want to change this system. What do we want out of a voting system?

At its most fundamental, the goal of a voting system is to provide a system for a peaceful transition of power. The way voting systems do this is by making people feel like they have a say in that transition of power.

At the same time, you want the system to be quick, fair, and resistant to cheating (as there are millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars at stake).

(I’m also assuming that we will continue to have a representative democracy, and the number of representatives will remain approximately the same. I’m also assuming that there will be political parties in whatever new system we come up with.)

So: having a say, quick, fair, representative, and resistant to cheating.