When I left China 9 years ago, I used to think the internet with social media is a great democratizing power. It opens information to common Chinese to the extent that the government cannot control all the narratives anymore, especially with social medias like Twitter.

Now after staying in US for 9 years, I'm not sure if the internet is such a positive power any more. It might actually just be the opposite. With internet and social media, it enables information bubble to form. It enables people to live in totally isolated worlds. And it is almost impossible to penetrate through the bubbles to reach the other side. In US, it fueled the ever growing polarization in the society, essentially created 2 or more totally different US'. While in China, the government creates its narrative bubble through its propaganda machine and censorship. Rather than the liberation of people's mind we hoped to see, we actually seeing people's opinion more converged to the official narrative.

I'm afraid, even someday CCP loosens it's iron grip of censorship, we still won't see the information freedom we hoped for. But rather bubbles like US, just with one giant bubble of official narrative, and many tiny bubbles of other opinions, which can never penetrate the giant bubble.

The world in general is more bubbled than the web, and most people spend their whole lives not having substantive experience with people from other countries. And where does a gay individual find alternative stories in a world without the web? The world before the web was a terrible fishbowl for anyone who didn't have money or access.

The web gives people choice where before you either had the money to live a "broad" lifestyle or you didn't. That some people choose to stay within little boundaries is the way the world has always worked, but at least they have a choice.

We're far more alike than we'd like to admit. We can point and laugh (so to speak) at struggle sessions, but in 2020 US, we have plenty of our own.

> It... passes?

Passes the inevitable Supreme court test. Are you confident that this supreme court will hold your rights?

There won't be a Supreme Court test. The law is explicit and so is the First Amendment. They can appeal it all they like, the Court won't hear it because it's idiotic.

Yes.

The US was never intended to be a true democracy. So all you're saying is a car isn't really a boat and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

It was intended to be a representative democracy. It is not representative because it assigns unequal voting power to constituents based on what state they live in.

It was designed that way from the start, that’s the whole point of the Senate.

It protects the smaller states from bullying by large population centers — which was the original intent and still functioning.

Why do those who live in smaller states deserve more voting power than those who live in larger states?

Because that was literally the only way they could convince the smaller states to join, and not have the whole thing collapse at the very beginning.

Ok. That was over 200 years ago, and it seems unlikely that smaller states are going to opt out of the union at this point. Why do they still deserve more voting power than populous states?

Because constitutional amendments are hard to pass, by design.

You need a supermajority in both the senate and house of reps, and then you also need effectively a majority vote in 75% of the states (so 38 states now).

There is a sufficiently large number of smaller states that it is no longer possible to change this.

There are some courses that cover the basics of US constitutional history, which might be instructive:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/road-to-re...

You are conflating is/ought.

Constitutional amendments are hard to pass. That doesn't mean they ought to be.

I/the poster is claiming small states should be allowed to be "bullied" by larger states since smaller states have less people, and thus, are less important.

They aren't allowed to opt out, well except for Texas.

Texas really isn't allowed to opt out either, they just like to pretend they are.

Because Hillary Clinton lost ?

By this logic, all policy and political decisions would be made by California, Texas, and New York. The point is not to give more voting power to anyone, but you equalize.

If the majority of the populations are in these states, why should they not be the primary drivers of political decisions? This won't magically ignore the other states, it simply means a the majority of the population would actually have control of their government - this is a bad thing how exactly?

The extra voting comes from giving them enough legislative say that they can negotiate for their own benefits in the Senate.

The Senate is a counter-balancing force to the population distributed House of Representatives. The Senate is meant to represent each state as an equal and autonomous member of the union.

Your snark aside, horse-trading in the senate seems to be what accomplished small state agendas.

The US government was never meant to be a democracy, and certainly not one with fully equal representation across states.

The majority of the country already has a majority of the representation — only 1 in 10 states has the minimal representation, thus extra voting. The majority of votes in the House, by a wide margin, are distributed based on population with less than 3% going to minimums in excess of population.

But if you truly believe this is a better way, implement it on a regional or state level first to model for the rest of the country how well it works. That’s the beauty of autonomous states — we can try before we fully commit.

Populations in these states have 100% power over their government and are already primary drivers of political decisions that do not affect other states. However, why people in California should have to be the primary driver of political decisions affecting people in Montana? This would be a good thing how exactly?

To counterbalance the impact of factions, ensure that national level politicians continue to pay attention, and generally counteract the soft power that comes from having a higher population.

If you think it’s such a benefit, then move there. That’s your right as a citizen.

But almost no one does because that small political benefit doesn’t outweigh the many benefits that population centers enjoy.

So, voting power is the best way to counterbalance the downsides of living in a small state?

I'd understand if someone proposed, for example, increased federal aid for smaller states that don't have as many support systems, but voting power seems like the wrong way to do this. (Same reason we don't use laws to fix inequality).

It's also not a true democracy because individuals don't vote on all measures. Instead, we elect representatives who do the voting for us, typically in line with, or in a more educated fashion than, we would on our own (well, at least that's what my social studies teacher said back in the day). I don't think there are any major countries which are true direct democracies although if you like the idea see the Demarchists in Alastair Reynolds science fiction. Everybody votes on everything.

Straight democracy is a disaster, rightly avoided whenever possible. Allowing "the masses" to dictate policy such as you propose results in giant unsustainable welfare states, where the masses in cities vote themselves the property of those who produce, based on sheer numbers. It is an appeal to the masses, a fallacy.