Yeah, I thought you would notice that.

I sure did.

Obama caught again :P

Just enjoying the perks of his new job... :P

Actually I guess it's not new anymore, but it feels like it.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:Harper in India

Why exactly is he there? (Can't be arsed about to find out. =P )

Well, for a few things. Nothing in particular. But they are signing a civilian nuclear deal in a few weeks. So he would have wanted to discuss it with the Indian PM. Also, many industrialists & corporates in Canada seem interested in investing in India because of our shortfall for everything & a billion-plus population. India is the world's second fastest growing economy & is annually pulling millions of people out of poverty, so there's a huge demand & a lot of money can be made by catering to the growing middle-class. And also, a Canadian national Tahawwur Rana (LeT operative), has been arrested by the FBI for planning (not executing) massive terrorist attacks in India. Going by the frenzy over it, it sure seems bigger than 26/11. So possibly some discussion about how to tackle global terrorism too.
Can't really think of anything else. And yeah, there were some reports in Canadian newspapers about your Opposition claiming that Harper came to India to strengthen his Indian support base in Canada or something like that(there are many Indians living there, right?).

I'm not sure if there are or not. It just could be a case of the opposition complaining about everything. Which they do. A lot.

That's the job of the Opposition.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:And yeah, there were some reports in Canadian newspapers about your Opposition claiming that Harper came to India to strengthen his Indian support base in Canada or something like that(there are many Indians living there, right?)

idk if visiting is going to do anything unless he manages dual-citizenship (unlikely).

And there are so many other nationalities. My city is like 70% immigrant. Stormfront hates us, I searched it on their website and they were like "omg i hate going..will get germs" or something like that, It was funny.

I think its cool to live in a place with lot of diversity. Living with people of different nationalities, or with people practising different religions & cultures, and speaking different languages is awesome. I can't stand homogeneity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091129/ap_ ... inaret_ban

That's a funny reason.

:blink:

Wow.

Article wrote:The referendum by the nationalist Swiss People's Party labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation.

There. Are. Four.
...

Talk about retarded.

FuzzyLobster wrote::blink:

Wow.

Article wrote:The referendum by the nationalist Swiss People's Party labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation.

There. Are. Four.
...

Talk about retarded.

And thus we observe the greatest problem with democracy: namely, people are morons.

This is why I have come to believe in a form of direct democracy moderated by an algorithm along the lines of Google's PageRank. You'd have each person name people whose political opinions they respected and trusted (analogous to an outgoing link in the PageRank algorithm). Run the algorithm on this data to get a voting weight for each person. Then, each person simply has that number of votes on any given issue. (You could also try conscripting the top-ranked people into a government; I'm not sure how well that would work, but it'd be less labour-intensive than having everybody vote on everything.)

In theory, you should then get a truly fair system which is nonetheless moderated to give people with well-considered, genuine opinions more of a say than your average moron.

It's not perfect, but I think it's closer than anything we've got today.

It works for Google.

Sentynel wrote:

FuzzyLobster wrote::blink:

Wow.

Article wrote:The referendum by the nationalist Swiss People's Party labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation.

There. Are. Four.
...

Talk about retarded.

And thus we observe the greatest problem with democracy: namely, people are morons.

This is why I have come to believe in a form of direct democracy moderated by an algorithm along the lines of Google's PageRank. You'd have each person name people whose political opinions they respected and trusted (analogous to an outgoing link in the PageRank algorithm). Run the algorithm on this data to get a voting weight for each person. Then, each person simply has that number of votes on any given issue. (You could also try conscripting the top-ranked people into a government; I'm not sure how well that would work, but it'd be less labour-intensive than having everybody vote on everything.)

In theory, you should then get a truly fair system which is nonetheless moderated to give people with well-considered, genuine opinions more of a say than your average moron.

It's not perfect, but I think it's closer than anything we've got today.

It works for Google.

Would the morons not just name each other, and you'd then have lots of morons with high vote weight...

David Cat wrote:Would the morons not just name each other, and you'd then have lots of morons with high vote weight...

The idea is that the political morons are morons mostly because they can't be arsed to have any particularly well-thought out opinion on politics, rather than because they're enthusiastically idiotic. For every rabid BNP voter you've got a thousand people who're too lazy to care.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091129/ap_ ... inaret_ban

That's a funny reason.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SWISS BEING NEUTRAL!?!?!??!?!??!!ONE111!!one

---

Sentynel wrote:

FuzzyLobster wrote::blink:

Wow.

Article wrote:The referendum by the nationalist Swiss People's Party labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation.

There. Are. Four.
...

Talk about retarded.

And thus we observe the greatest problem with democracy: namely, people are morons.

This is why I have come to believe in a form of direct democracy moderated by an algorithm along the lines of Google's PageRank. You'd have each person name people whose political opinions they respected and trusted (analogous to an outgoing link in the PageRank algorithm). Run the algorithm on this data to get a voting weight for each person. Then, each person simply has that number of votes on any given issue. (You could also try conscripting the top-ranked people into a government; I'm not sure how well that would work, but it'd be less labour-intensive than having everybody vote on everything.)

In theory, you should then get a truly fair system which is nonetheless moderated to give people with well-considered, genuine opinions more of a say than your average moron.

It's not perfect, but I think it's closer than anything we've got today.

It works for Google.

While we're on the subject...

What stops being from being morons in an anarchist society? You know, without rules, you'd have to expect people to be sensible and fair because there's not laws. Or when everyone's making a general consensus? (I'm actually genuinely curious here)

Nero wrote:While we're on the subject...

What stops being from being morons in an anarchist society? You know, without rules, you'd have to expect people to be sensible and fair because there's not laws. Or when everyone's making a general consensus? (I'm actually genuinely curious here)

The lack of a discrete government entity doesn't preclude laws or law enforcement; it just changes who defines the laws. The society can quite easily vote to disallow, say, murder, and to support a police force to prevent people from committing it.

That the people, as a whole, making the laws are going to be largely comprised of morons in any city-sized or upwards society (and many smaller ones) is a problem I aim to address with the aforementioned PageRank algorithm-based voting system.

Sentynel wrote:

FuzzyLobster wrote::blink:

Wow.

Article wrote:The referendum by the nationalist Swiss People's Party labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation.

There. Are. Four.
...

Talk about retarded.

And thus we observe the greatest problem with democracy: namely, people are morons.

This is why I have come to believe in a form of direct democracy moderated by an algorithm along the lines of Google's PageRank. You'd have each person name people whose political opinions they respected and trusted (analogous to an outgoing link in the PageRank algorithm). Run the algorithm on this data to get a voting weight for each person. Then, each person simply has that number of votes on any given issue. (You could also try conscripting the top-ranked people into a government; I'm not sure how well that would work, but it'd be less labour-intensive than having everybody vote on everything.)

In theory, you should then get a truly fair system which is nonetheless moderated to give people with well-considered, genuine opinions more of a say than your average moron.

It's not perfect, but I think it's closer than anything we've got today.

It works for Google.

I like the idea. An average person surely doesn't understand all issues well enough to comment or vote on it. They sadly seem to be governed more by emotions than by rational thought. But the problem is, this algorithm system could give a lot of powers to one person who could override decisions made by others(since its quite possible that a majority of people end up voting for only one candidate). Even if each citizen is allowed to choose a few respected & trusted persons, it could very well happen that a small group of individuals have a big say in a country's functioning. That could be disastrous.
As for Switzerland's case, it would be better if the Constitution or Universal Human & Freedom Rights are considered supreme & people should not be allowed to vote on such issues as these are basic rights which ought to be guaranteed to everyone & are hence undebatable.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:

Sentynel wrote:And thus we observe the greatest problem with democracy: namely, people are morons.

This is why I have come to believe in a form of direct democracy moderated by an algorithm along the lines of Google's PageRank. You'd have each person name people whose political opinions they respected and trusted (analogous to an outgoing link in the PageRank algorithm). Run the algorithm on this data to get a voting weight for each person. Then, each person simply has that number of votes on any given issue. (You could also try conscripting the top-ranked people into a government; I'm not sure how well that would work, but it'd be less labour-intensive than having everybody vote on everything.)

In theory, you should then get a truly fair system which is nonetheless moderated to give people with well-considered, genuine opinions more of a say than your average moron.

It's not perfect, but I think it's closer than anything we've got today.

It works for Google.

I like the idea. An average person surely doesn't understand all issues well enough to comment or vote on it. They sadly seem to be governed more by emotions than by rational thought. But the problem is, this algorithm system could give a lot of powers to one person who could override decisions made by others(since its quite possible that a majority of people end up voting for only one candidate). Even if each citizen is allowed to choose a few respected & trusted persons, it could very well happen that a small group of individuals have a big say in a country's functioning. That could be disastrous.
As for Switzerland's case, it would be better if the Constitution or Universal Human & Freedom Rights are considered supreme & people should not be allowed to vote on such issues as these are basic rights which ought to be guaranteed to everyone & are hence undebatable.

You shouldn't get as much power vested in a single individual as any of our current systems which require a limited number of people to stand for any one position; any individual in the country can be "linked to" in the algorithm by anybody else.
And if one person or a small group of people /do/ get a large amount of power, then it's still no worse than the current system, and if they screw up it's a lot easier to deprive them of their power because people can and will immediately remove their "links" to these people, thus drastically reducing their power with no need to wait four years for an election.

See, we're getting into dangerous ground here. Universal human rights are universal precisely because a majority of nations have agreed to them. They're not infallible and they certainly shouldn't be impossible to challenge, any more than any other law should be.

Sentynel wrote:

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:

Sentynel wrote:And thus we observe the greatest problem with democracy: namely, people are morons.

This is why I have come to believe in a form of direct democracy moderated by an algorithm along the lines of Google's PageRank. You'd have each person name people whose political opinions they respected and trusted (analogous to an outgoing link in the PageRank algorithm). Run the algorithm on this data to get a voting weight for each person. Then, each person simply has that number of votes on any given issue. (You could also try conscripting the top-ranked people into a government; I'm not sure how well that would work, but it'd be less labour-intensive than having everybody vote on everything.)

In theory, you should then get a truly fair system which is nonetheless moderated to give people with well-considered, genuine opinions more of a say than your average moron.

It's not perfect, but I think it's closer than anything we've got today.

It works for Google.

I like the idea. An average person surely doesn't understand all issues well enough to comment or vote on it. They sadly seem to be governed more by emotions than by rational thought. But the problem is, this algorithm system could give a lot of powers to one person who could override decisions made by others(since its quite possible that a majority of people end up voting for only one candidate). Even if each citizen is allowed to choose a few respected & trusted persons, it could very well happen that a small group of individuals have a big say in a country's functioning. That could be disastrous.
As for Switzerland's case, it would be better if the Constitution or Universal Human & Freedom Rights are considered supreme & people should not be allowed to vote on such issues as these are basic rights which ought to be guaranteed to everyone & are hence undebatable.

You shouldn't get as much power vested in a single individual as any of our current systems which require a limited number of people to stand for any one position; any individual in the country can be "linked to" in the algorithm by anybody else.
And if one person or a small group of people /do/ get a large amount of power, then it's still no worse than the current system, and if they screw up it's a lot easier to deprive them of their power because people can and will immediately remove their "links" to these people, thus drastically reducing their power with no need to wait four years for an election.

What exactly do you mean by 'immediately remove their links to these people'? I mean, don't you need to have elections to get these people elected in the first place? You can't keep having some sort of elections every now & then. Most people don't have access to internet or the likes to remove their "links" immediately.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:What exactly do you mean by 'immediately remove their links to these people'? I mean, don't you need to have elections to get these people elected in the first place? You can't keep having some sort of elections every now & then. Most people don't have access to internet or the likes to remove their "links" immediately.

The system would require that the vast majority of the population were connected to the internet. It's simply not manageable in any other way. The lag time required by paper-based democracy is one of the problems with it.
Ideally speaking one would have the first situation I mentioned, wherein you don't have a government per se at all, merely citizens voting on issues with vote power determined by their PageRank (PoliticsRank?) score. This would require an even greater level of connectedness to work, however.

The former system is probably manageable infrastructure-wise in most 1st-world nations; the latter is pushing it for even the most connected.