In practice, the system grants sparse populations dominion over the majority. There's no well-thought-out philosophical reason for this, by the way, this was just a compromise states like Virginia had to make to get states like Rhode Island to agree to the Constitution.
Philosophically, people are people. Why should they be effectively disenfranchised for choosing to live in cities rather than in the mountains?
Not so! Populism _failed_, but it wouldn't have even had a chance to represent the interests of the agrarian states if statehood were not more important than sheer weight of numbers.
>There's no well-thought-out philosophical reason for this, by the way, this was just a compromise states like Virginia had to make to get states like Rhode Island to agree to the Constitution.
How is that not a well-thought-out philosophical reason? Balancing the needs of states is what enabled the Union. You act as if the compromise was not based in real, valid needs on behalf of the states. Rhode Island needed incentive to join. Virginia needed incentive to join. A two-senator Senate and a two-representative plus population-based-count representative HoR is the result: an _elaborate_ philosophical compromise, balancing power on several axes.
You're looking at it the wrong way: cities have much, much more by way of population. The most populous states would _steamroll_ everyone else if weighted solely by headcount, assuming they acted in unison--which has historically been the rule and not the exception.
In the United States, states are largely a historical accident stemming from the way North America was colonized. No one actually decided to establish a federal democracy in North America and divide it into states, different people from entirely different countries just happened to colonize different parts of the continent without ever intending that New Amsterdam and Jamestown would ever fall under the same American government. The Constitution was a political compromise based on the fact that thirteen of those colonies broke away from the mother country and needed a federal government. The Founding Fathers weren't gods, they were the same breed of hypocritical, self-serving politicians you see in any era, a scarce few wiser than the others for sure, but the same ugly sausage-making all the same.
Believe me, I ain't putting no fathers on a pedestal. But you seem to like putting them in a cesspit.
The higher legislative branch gives more weight to states as individual entities for very precisely balanced reasons. In a very real sense it is not representatives that act, but states themselves.
This has been incredibly important, because it further decouples the population from the decision. Sparsely populated states have traditionally had different concerns than urban states: the Popularist Party of the late 19th century was sharply divided along these lines.
In other words, the popular vote is disregarded because different 'types' of people shouldn't have too much power: the density of cities should not grant that population dominion over the agrarian folk.
People complained about the popular vote being for Gore without realizing that the system was still functioning as intended: the states vote for the president, their votes being determined by the population within. Those foolish states that split their electoral votes make themselves irrelevant!