How I Teach Gerrymandering

Re:How I Teach Gerrymandering by gortok on Monday October 12, 2015 @08:54AM (#10374163)

This is a great way to teach gerrymandering. It also illustrates the problem with 'Party X is evil, Party Y is not.'

Political parties (stripping away all else) are groups of people who identify with one another. Take that one step further, and they're groups of people that identify with one another and believe their group is the best one to represent the whole.

Or, if you are less idealistic, they want to win (I subscribe to the idea that they want to win because they think their way is the best way and they like the power).

Once you believe those few things, it's easy to understand why politicians aren't evil, they're just vested in their group; in the same way you'd be vested in your group of friends vs. some random sampling of people you met on the street.

Does this make our current set of political problems insurmountable? No; we just have to mold the system so that no one party can have absolute control even if they control the central government. Maybe by delegating a small set of powers to the central government and keeping most governing done at the local level. Maybe we could call it a constitutional republic?

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Re:How I Teach Gerrymandering by ergothus on Monday October 12, 2015 @12:47PM (#10375671)

One slight correction to your "less idealistic view": It's not just (or at all) that one party believes they are the best to represent the whole, it's that they believe the other(s) are HARMFUL.

Ergo, disempowering that other voice is in everyones best interests.

While people can often do "evil" things (manipulative, etc), they usually do them for "good" reasons, at least according to their internal rationalizations. [citation needed :) ]

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Re:How I Teach Gerrymandering by rancur on Monday October 12, 2015 @03:27PM (#10376512)

maybe we should just set up states. half blue, half red. each get to do what they want, and everyone blue or red moves to blue or red state. We come back in 50 years, and see what's up. The blue states are spending gobs on tuition and everyone is still stupid, and the red states, I don't know someone help. I'm colorblind

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Re:How I Teach Gerrymandering by thephyber on Monday October 12, 2015 @04:10PM (#10376701)

The US _has_ been mostly self-sorting for decades now. It's one of the reasons politics is so polarized right now and Congress is incapable of governing without a looming emergency.

It's never as easy as just looking at the outcomes. As with any type of sociology, it's not possible to force large sets of people to do identical things for valid control+experimental groups.

Methods of taxation, tax rates, size of state government, expectations of government services, natural resources, macroeconomic conditions, talent of the population, and natural economic benefits all distinguish different states. There's really no effective way to control for the large variety of conditions across many states.

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Re:How I Teach Gerrymandering by tomaskafka on Monday October 12, 2015 @04:43PM (#10376846)

No. Red/blue map is an illusion.

https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-we-just-split-up-the-United-S...

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Re:How I Teach Gerrymandering by meric on Monday October 12, 2015 @09:57AM (#10374478)

Other ways: Limit the proportion of seats a party can contest to 50% so no party can control the government and will depend on other parties. Force each party to setup a voting platform so citizens in the district can vote bindingly on individual bills. The district will have two votes, one is the representative and the other is proportional vote depending on how many citizens in that district voting for that specific bill. (Can be partial vote e.g 63%)

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Re:How I Teach Gerrymandering by minority-one on Monday October 12, 2015 @11:32AM (#10375142)

> Once you believe those few things, it's easy to understand why politicians aren't evil, they're just vested in their group

So you judge politicians based not on their actions but on their supposed intentions?

> Maybe we could call it a constitutional republic?

Nice save. A constitutional republic is the true "a better government, one tweak at a time" since federalism is the laboratory of government.

No one even remembered that was the point of federalism here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10290172

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