h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, people with strong opinions will often strengthen those opinions when they feel "attacked" with disputing facts (see climate change, antivaxxers, religion).

But those that were more undecided or not strongly for leave may have changed their mind now.


But who the hell knows. People are eejits.

I'm convinced that this is genetic. Our brains are a mix of reptilian and mammalian add-ons. Jealousy, hate, and the other "bad" emotions are incubated in the reptilian brain. The more positive emotions like empathy and love seem to be sourced by the mammalian or limbic brain. This can create dissonance, cognitive or otherwise.

"Which is why I think that a quorum should be required for every election and referendum"

It's an interesting idea, but it's one that has some potential perverse consequences. UK trade union legislation requires a minimum of 50% turnout in all strike ballots. Which might sound reasonable in isolation, but unfortunately it means that the best way to vote 'no' is to abstain to try to ensure that the turnout doesn't reach the required threshold. And to complicate things further, only postal ballots are allowed - if we were really concerned about turnout, we'd be allowed workplace ballots.

Denmark manages to enforce compulsory voting. Ask the

As usual, George has his finger on the pulse:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/eu-soviet-union-european-elections-george-soros

To summarise:

The EU, fix it or leave it?

Personally I'd say fix it. As to how, I have no idea.
Just browsed through the known systems of government. You could fill an alphabet with those. Haven't found one without its drawbacks.

Anarchy: easy but messy.
Aristocracy: who are those guys/girls to say they are better than the rest.
Absolute monarchy: see aristocracy but with less people involved.
Theocracy: if only we could decide on which god (if any) Can you have an Atheocracy? (We believe there is no god to rule us).Probably a humanocracy, but that eventually leads to any of the other types.
Tiranny: It is said to work, if only the tyrant had the decency to put his subjects' well-being first. (that's the part where it usually goes wrong).
Democracy: Too slow. not suitable if you happen to be a minority group. In order to make sensible decisions, everybody involved should be up to date on each and every subject that needs to be decided. It is hard to find one political party that completely agrees with you on all subjects and even then, they have to work with these other parties you don't agree with. On the other hand, the risk of loosing limbs is probably smallest here.
Gerontocracy: I may come to see the point of this one when I get older myself.
Plutocracy: I'm not rich enough for that. It's probably not a good idea to let the richest people decide on tax legislation.
Meritocracy: Who decides what is a merit? What if you are unable to develop any apparent merits to society?
Technocracy: At least people know what they are talking about. It could lead to inhumane calculated decisions though. And who monitors the validity of the information upon which is acted?
Kleptocracy: Depends on who is doing the stealing.
.....

Maybe we can have a referendum and pick one for, lets say, four years? Just to see what works...
But first we have to decide whether it should be a majority vote and who is going to enforce the result.


Hmmmm... Not easy.

How about a Lottocracy. As some wiseguy once said, no one that actually wants to rule should be allowed to so leadership positions will be decided by random drawing. It would be rather like jury selection. There would, of course, certainly need to be a voir dire process, we can't let just any old fool with a bad come-over into office.

Or cut out the middle man and decide everything with a roll of the dice. I own a d30, so there is enough room for amendments as well.

Did you mean "bad comb-over" instead of "bad come-over?" I don't think the guy with the comb-over would want *any* f us to come over to his place . Nor would many of us want to be the ones going (depending on the event, though....)

I did mean comb not come...


And I've got no excuses. The B key is nowhere near the E key.




[Typing phonetically.]

Phonetically, as in Comey?

<"Which is why I think that a quorum should be required for every election and referendum"

It's an interesting idea, but it's one that has some potential perverse consequences. UK trade union legislation requires a minimum of 50% turnout in all strike ballots. Which might sound reasonable in isolation, but unfortunately it means that the best way to vote 'no' is to abstain to try to ensure that the turnout doesn't reach the required threshold. And to complicate things further, only postal ballots are allowed - if we were really concerned about turnout, we'd be allowed workplace ballots.>

Then perhaps we should move our polling days to a Sunday..

Recently, the newly elected Democratic congress proposed a bill to increase voter registration and turn out, including making election days federal holidays. Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader in the Senate called it a "power grab by the Democrat party".


The hypocrisy, after decades of voter suppression and extreme partisan gerrymandering is so ingrained in him, he didn't even smirk when saying that.

He probably didn't consider putting voting booths on golf courses.

Republicans have power grabs of their own. Why can't the Democrats? Or, more states could adopt the practice of nonpartisan district-drawing. There are a lot of us Independents who think partisanship has many bad features.

So... here we are.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson. If you voted Leave, you voted for this. I hope you like it.

Michael Gove chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. If you voted Leave, you voted for this.

No-deal exit now "very likely". If you voted Leave, you voted for this.

Well done.

(By today, the winning margin for Remain, based on the assumptions in the first post, would be approximately 277,000. By approximately 8th December 2020, the margin passes a million. It only changes in one direction...)

And Boris just keeps on making empty promises. He seems to me like the leader of a mad sect that encourages people to commit mass suicide.

I vaguely remember reading about Johnson's ascension.