=== ANCHOR POEM ===
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 ┌────────────────────────┐
 │ CW: politics-mentioned │
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 one of the downsides of "first-past-the-post" style voting is that the winner
 gets *all* of the power, no matter if 100% of the population voted for him or
 51%.
 
 if, however, the top 2 candidates were chosen, then it's naturally likely that
 the older, more experienced of a particular position would spend their effort
 mentoring the young, rising star.
 
 in doing so, they would naturally transfer knowledge from one generation to
 the next like parents to children.
 
 however, this only happens when the primary candidate and the secondary both
 believe the same things.
 
 meaning those who have collectively similar beliefs concentrated in an area
 will have the advantage of passed-along experience, while those from more
 divided areas (thus implying that the primary and secondary candidate don't
 agree) will often have better actionable skills.
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=== SIMILARITY RANKED ===

--- #1 fediverse/2238 ---
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 ┌──────────────────────┐                                                         │
 │ CW: uspol            │                                                         │
 └──────────────────────┘                                                         │
 two parties obviously can cause division.                                        │
 but it can also give you the ability to "tune for balance", while a single       │
 monolith strives straight into disaster.                                         │
 and disaster will come, for the future is a shifting and dynamic place, and      │
 the best laid rail lines can't handle sudden floods.                             │
 we have ranked choice voting now, and if you vote on how important each          │
 decision is to you (via smartphone app once or twice a day, in a way that can    │
 be changed later as your feelings shift)                                         │
 [6+months-later]                                                                 │
 ... then you can have left unity for long-term governance by having cohesion     │
 at one end, and dispersion on the other.                                         │
 If everyone votes, then we can ensure (based on voted priority) that each        │
 issue trends towards an equal exchange.                                          │
 (I'm sure there will be issues but we're all cool and pretty chill so we'll      │
 figure it out)                                                                   │
 [6+ months later]                                                                │
 okay we're battle-hardened vets, but we hold true to our values and so we can    │
 remember the spirit of unity we wept for.                                        │
 ... I'm better at writing than making sandwiches. BRB                            │
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--- #2 notes/democracy-betcha-didnt-think-of-this ---
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 Democracy is not the best way to select leaders or representatives. See this
 example:
 
 There are two candidates. One is the best candidate, and the other is the most
 popular candidate. The most popular candidate will win an election.
 
 Is the system that selects a popular candidate over a better candidate, a good
 system for selecting the best leaders and representatives?
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--- #3 fediverse/3168 ---
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 ┌──────────────────────┐                                                         │
 │ CW: uspol            │                                                         │
 └──────────────────────┘                                                         │
 You know how we select from amongst our number electors and representatives      │
 who vote on our behalf?                                                          │
 Truly an excellent strategy in the era of instant communication, an aft-gone     │
 luxury that our ancient forebearers surely would have incorporated into their    │
 nationbuilding design, if they had had it.                                       │
 I can't help but wonder if it would be a useful strategy to "give" our votes     │
 to a representative who voted on our behalf. Most people *do not care and        │
 cannot possess the capacity to care* about voting, but if they gave their vote   │
 to someone they *trusted* who they had a *personal connection to* beyond party   │
 loyalty, then perhaps we could *mandate voting*                                  │
 I can't help but wonder what that would do to our electoral landscape. If        │
 voting is mandated, and as easy as pointing at someone and saying "yeah          │
 whatever she picks", then perhaps the old white grannies with quivering lower    │
 lips who stare with hatred whenever a black person walks past and chat with      │
 their gal pals at church wouldn't have as much power over us.                    │
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--- #4 fediverse/3523 ---
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 a democracy functions best when people outside of the system's influence can
 cast ethereal votes which do not mechanically impact the results, but still
 signal their interest and desire.
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--- #5 messages/687 ---
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 What the person you voted for represented you?
 
 At the end of rue election, the top X percent of broad demographics each vote
 for a specific candidate, yeah? What if each candidate could represent those
 people specifically and any laws they made wouldn't effect people who they
 didn't represent. Sounds like a legislative nightmare doesn't it? And
 repealing laws, they'd only be repealed for their constituents.
 
 You'd need a github page to track the changes and each demographic's "forks"
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--- #6 fediverse/2825 ---
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 │ CW: politics         │
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 ideas for how to better communicate with voters:
 
 when signing up to join a political party, and at any time there-after, you
 may choose your top 10 issues (ranked choice voting, of course, so no vote is
 wasted)
 
 then, they can see *exactly* what their voters care about.
 
 this is the computer age. We can process *massive* amounts of data and we're
 using it to make NFTs and blockchain nonsense. We could learn SO MUCH ABOUT
 EACH OTHER.
 
 *enter, google, with a big wad of cash*
 
 hey how about you stay outta our business yeah?
 
 ......... okay fine BUT ONLY if you keep bribing us for eternity.
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--- #7 fediverse/4113 ---
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 ┌──────────────────────────┐                                                     │
 │ CW: capitalism-mentioned │                                                     │
 └──────────────────────────┘                                                     │
 I don't know how much simpler I can state it than this:                          │
 *power is penance*                                                               │
 and yet repentance is scant amongst those chosen to lead us.                     │
 Voting slows things down. It gives us room to breathe. It is crucial for         │
 long-term operations. Leaders should be chosen for experience, wisdom, and a     │
 humble lifetime of dedicated service to others.                                  │
 Executive action is important when reactivity and adaptability are important.    │
 Projects should be undertaken by those chosen for merit and spirit. They         │
 should not be chosen for charisma or gravitas - both can be earned in the line   │
 of duty.                                                                         │
 Power should not be rewarded. It is it's own reward, the feeling of strength     │
 and control, and it must be wielded with care, precision, and honorable          │
 intention.                                                                       │
 Self flagellation and forced humility are self defeating. They are traps that    │
 the greedy fall into when seeking righteous power. They misunderstand the        │
 nature of virtue and seek to claim it for themselves, failing to realize that    │
 virtue helps more than it hedonizes                                              │
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--- #8 fediverse/4859 ---
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 │ CW: re: politics-kink │
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 what if the whole party shares their gold and the fewer resources you spend at
 the market the more your vote is weighted
 
 so, the opposite of:
 
 In the eternal quest for increased revenue, YouTube is introducing a feature
 where rich people can like videos more than poor people, and I am about to
 throw up.
 
 It is called the hype button, and it is similar to the like button. But where
 likes are democratic, hypes are for pay, allowing rich kids to add as many
 hypes to videos as they can afford.
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--- #9 fediverse/2777 ---
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 │ CW: politics         │
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 if you cannot trust that both candidates will try to make the country better
 *in different ways*, but with the same *goal*, then you do not have a choice
 when voting.
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--- #10 fediverse/4300 ---
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 @user-467 
 
 democracy works best with a well-informed populace, and those who are against
 democracy would do anything to make it harder to be "well-informed" -
 including diluting the pool of candidates in order to make it harder to
 research them.
 
 ... Or maybe it was the first time and none of the candidates realized they'd
 be running against so many people? I'm not sure, I'm on the other side of
 forest park and I had at most 5ish options, and no ranked choice voting. : (
 
 I think this might be one of the reasons political parties formed, way back in
 the distant days of yore. Much easier to say "I agree with this group of
 people so I'm voting for who they champion" than "I don't know how to pick
 between 30+ candidates (who I don't know because this is the past and we don't
 have the internet back ~~then~~ ... back now)
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--- #11 fediverse/2723 ---
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 │ CW: politics         │
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 most people have *no* idea what's going on in politics. Absolutely no
 conception. It's all just "good/bad thing happened today, here's how the
 pundits feel about it" it's literally scenery to them.
 
 why would they care? nothing changes for them.
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--- #12 fediverse/4808 ---
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 │ CW: politics-mentioned │
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 what if we elected one party to each branch of government every election
 
 and they checked and balanced each other
 
 georgism style individualism, chinese style communism, and american style
 anarchism
 
 for the person, for the nation, for the people
 
 individualism, collectivism, and distributed nodes
 
 when in power, each branch would work to move their institutions toward their
 ideals.
 
 Hey, they're the ones who repealed the chevron doctrine. How are we gonna
 weaponize it?
 
 (just spit-balling)
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--- #13 fediverse/2712 ---
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 │ CW: politics-toxic-masculinity-mentioned │
 └──────────────────────────────────────────┘


 I fundamentally believe that governance should be structured in such a way
 that people are encouraged to make good decisions.
 
 positive reinforcement, not punishment for breaking rank.
 
 in doing so, people learn and can more effectively re-teach those lessons to
 the children.
 
 basically... if you're not constantly stressed out, you have more mental
 energy to focus on improving yourself and being a better parent.
 
 the power of the nuclear family came from the stay-at-home parent mechanic,
 not the toxic masculinely domineering culture that it became.
 
 [I don't like talking about toxic masculinity because it's not masculine to
 gloat and step over your peers. feels like some other impulse other than
 masculinity.]
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--- #14 fediverse/207 ---
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 @user-179 @user-180 
 
 still means it will kill "unimportant" jobs, where "unimportant" is defined by
 people in power.
 
 so what we need is a way to align the incentives of "people in power" to the
 will of the people. something structural and immutable (by them). maybe like,
 an extra check or balance that wouldn't have made sense in a bygone age but
 now in our digital era is increasingly more and more relevant?
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--- #15 fediverse/6435 ---
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 if everyone was trained to think? would direct democracy work? until we have
 radical abundance (fascist ideology, take from the weak) or, hear me out, or,
 infinitely scale
 
 old style machine learning was just problem solving.
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--- #16 fediverse/1542 ---
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 People don't measure the quality of their elected officials from the tangible
 changes made to their life. They measure it from the temperature and flavor of
 their social media experience.
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--- #17 fediverse/1451 ---
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 │ CW: politics         │
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 politicians appeal to certain segments of the population. That's just how
 they're designed. They're meant to be reflections of your hopes. We shouldn't
 demand them to be moral, or kind - they should just do what we want them to.
 That is the spirit of democracy, that we the people should decide.
 
 ... a lot of people watch reality TV though, like... all day every day
 
 and a lot of people listen to fox news and such
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--- #18 fediverse/2664 ---
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 @user-1311 @user-1312 @user-1313 @user-1135 @user-1314 @user-1315 @user-687
 @user-1316
 
 a rare chance when retracting the right to strategically vote actually
 increases the number of options available to the user.
 
 the difference between frequency and magnitude of impact.
 
 the only thing a political party can really offer is consistency. otherwise
 people would just vote in whoever was most relevant to them at the time! can't
 have the proletariate choosing their fate, after all.
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--- #19 fediverse/5321 ---
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 │ CW: politics-I-think? │
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 the honest question to ask yourself is this:
 
 do you think you could do a better job than him and his team?
 
 how about the establishment politicians?
 
 if yes, then go for it. you deserve a chance.
 
 if no, then you are ignoring politics to bask in moral virtue. [wait that's
 backwards... isn't it?]
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--- #20 fediverse/4363 ---
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 │ CW: politics-mentioned-AI-mentioned │
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 electoral college maps show how much area each population controls
 
 popular votes show how many individuals worth of resources each side consumes
 
 GDP shows how valuable each area is
 
 rates of bachelor's degrees shows how well a population can adhere to a strict
 orthodoxy of thought
 
 rates of published experiments show how unique and/or bureaucratic their
 decision-making processes are
 
 meanwhile, neoliberalism comes in and said "noooo you HAVE to go to college
 out of state, trust me bro"
 
 who cares about AI the real struggle is whether or not people can obey those
 who are more smart. like... *in general*.
 
 I don't know about you, but I sure as heck respect the authority of someone
 who knows who they are. Like... "I'm a doctor, I'm a king, I'm a
 rose-gardener, I'm looking for this thing..."
 
 they wouldn't be
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--- #21 messages/386 ---
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 Every 10 years vote on whether you liked the old way or the new way. Then, do
 the winner for 10 years. After that, do something new for 10 years, and then
 vote again. Keep repeating forever, meaning even if you find a perfect system
 you can't keep it for more than 10 years. Well, 10 years of the alternative
 must separate each 10 perfect years, but the idea is that the alternative
 might end up being better than your first idea. Just make sure they don't
 switch back and forth, there needs to be real radical change. Complete
 rethinking of how the processes should proceed. Then you can iterate if it
 sticks.
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--- #22 fediverse/2778 ---
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 │ CW: re: politics     │
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 everyone votes for a better world. every time. that is the promise of voting -
 that you might choose how the world gets better.
 
 when people don't think a better world is possible, they don't vote.
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--- #23 messages/441 ---
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 Do you remember stores with floor-to-ceiling goods? The kind that didn't go
 bad, so you could afford to have lots of inventory. Not like it's being
 replaced and thrown out as soon as the executives with their profit margins
 decide that its no longer worthwhile.
 
 Here's an idea - how about executives are paid by the employees to manage
 their company? And if things aren't going right, they can get a new team.
 Like, if every team had control of their manager, I wonder what dynamics would
 emerge?
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--- #24 fediverse/4365 ---
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 │ CW: politics-mentioned │
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 what if Trump controlled x% of the land (according to electoral college votes)
 and kamala controlled y% of the resources (according to popular vote) and they
 each could do whatever they wanted there
 
 the house and the senate in congress would function the same and unite the
 two, but anything the president disagreed with they could veto *for their
 particular pieces of land* and it would only affect their constituents.
 
 why should we settle for anything less than legitimate representation,
 unclouded by the division and spite?
 
 if some combination of presidential vetos created an impossible situation,
 then by law people weren't allowed to interface.
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--- #25 fediverse/1833 ---
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 democracy as it was currently conceptualized dates back from a time when it
 was impossible to ask every person every question all at the same time. We
 needed time to talk through and get to know a topic before we made any choices
 about it. Hence, single-party voting, and the build-up of disagreement when
 people feel like the one thing they care about is not implemented. Too bad
 they care about things like, bodily autonomy and human rights.
 
 Maybe we could appease them by giving them something else that they want
 
 Oh? Like trans people?
 
 No brad, like the russians
 
 Or maybe the rich, ya?
 
 goodness. how about nobody
 
 [appeasement never goes anywhere]
 
 [the issue is more fundamental than compromise]
 
 [human rights are not up for discussion]
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--- #26 fediverse/4493 ---
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 │ CW: re: politics-mentioned-death-mentioned │
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 @user-1573 
 
 the easiest analogy would be to say an election is a gun, votes are bullets,
 and the shooters are the candidates
 
 could also say that the shooting event is an election, bullets as a concept is
 democracy while each individual bullet is a vote, and the gun and shooters are
 the ballots and voters
 
 I dunno. I don't especially like thinking about guns and elections in the same
 sentence...
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--- #27 messages/1204 ---
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 when people say they want a woman president what they want is not a woman
 president. what they want is a kind old lady.
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--- #28 fediverse/351 ---
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 │ CW: us-politics      │
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 @user-252 kinda makes me think we need another layer between state and
 federal. or would three be too many? four if you count local, which frankly
 suffers from the same problem. I mean, how many people go to city council
 meetings? how many city council meetings actually matter? Idk never been /shrug
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--- #29 messages/463 ---
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 A democracy only works if the losing side consents to being governed by the
 victor.
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--- #30 fediverse/4271 ---
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 if control of a company (or other component or factor of an economy) is not
 sufficiently distributed, political biases may slip in to decisionmaking.
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--- #31 fediverse/4316 ---
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 @user-883 
 
 plural people still use one person's worth of resources, so... they should
 contribute one person's vote toward the distribution method of those resources
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--- #32 fediverse/859 ---
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 when two people undertake a task together (like growing up, or solving a
 problem) they'll naturally learn together. Not necessarily the same things,
 but they'll be around one another and can advise as things became more
 difficult.
 
 sorta like a morning standup, where you each discuss what you've been working
 on. other people can guide you, but only if you're stuck. if you solve
 everyone's problems, then you probably should be transferred somewhere with
 harder problems.
 
 "ah, but what if there are no harder problems" well then you're not applying
 yourself correctly. Not if you want to grow..."
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--- #33 fediverse/5542 ---
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 @user-1074 
 
 people crave diversity, and their yokes chafe them even as revolution draws
 near. I doubt it'd be possible to constrain them to one set of procedures, no
 matter how equitable.
 
 Protocol, not procedure.
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