I’m amazed at the American obsession with voting machines. A properly organised hand count has an amazingly low error rate. I distinctly remember an article about 20 years ago stating, that even the then newest scanning vote counting machines had an error rate higher than hand counting.

Yes “a human” makes mistakes. But multiple humans paying attention at the same time and also keeping each other honest do a tremendously good job.

And, as a bonus, the old school method has a tremendously low error rate.

I remember an article in a renowned computer mag about 20 years ago measuring error rates. The newest and greatest voting machine, at the time, still had way worse error rates than hand counting. Never mind everything that was around before. Maybe the most modern systems can achieve the same error rates as hand counting, dunno, haven’t been keeping up.

I was absolutely floored with how bad the error rates of lever operated mechanical machines used to be. How anyone accepted those anywhere near a democracy was beyond me.

I had that moment with the flash back in Captain Marvel. I believe it was a “20 years earlier” and the sound track changes to Garbage/Only happy when it rains… The sound track of my friend group in the last years of school. Damn did I feel old…

I don’t even think that’s the ultimate argument. Executions are final. There is nothing you can do when you find out someone wasn’t guilty after all. And that happens way too often.

Don’t forget what I think is the most important reason for elaborate “humane” execution methods. Those ordering or tasked with the executions don’t want to think of themselves as the “bad guys”. Historically what that means has varied strongly. But in our societies we have very little official appetite for being bad or cruel in a physical manner.

And then it’s a matter of required competency. It seems to require real skill to decapitate a person with a sword cleanly. Hanging cleanly is much less simple than it seems. Killing is fairly simple. Killing in a socially acceptable manner much less so.

But that something else I don’t understand. Even DIY executions really should, scientifically, be a solved problem. Potassiumiodide as a leathal agent is essentially a stock compound that should easily be sourceable, even be made by oneself. Sure, pharmaceutical grade will be more difficult, but the goal is to kill someone. Afaik it’s quite an unpleasant experience, so for the executioners to feel better it’s proceeded by some sedative and perhaps a muscle relaxant. Both of those should be available as some generic noname drug. And even if not, those have been around for decades and are a solved problem that could be made in-state. If you consider how much money is thrown at the military-industrial complex and even at law enforcement with rubbish like tanks and heavy weapons for “law enforcement” the money for in-state manufacture of the required drugs should be available. Maybe they can’t find enough chemists/pharmacists without a conscience? But even so I suspect the real reason is simply them wanting to be cheapskates.

And if they want it cheap, they should man up and use one of those in old non-industrial methods. But I guess that makes them too obviously the bad guys.

Tldr: being so incompetent almost has to be a conscious choice.

That’s what is complicated with Heinlein. You can see it as him promoting fascism, as Verhoeven has.

But you also can read it as something promoting more healthy politics. Only people willing to put themselves on the line or at least endure some hardships were eligible to participate in politics. Johnny Rico’s parents didn’t want him to enlist as it was not necessary to have political rights if all you wanted was a good life.

If nothing else this policy would have not only prevented CPT Bonespurs from taking office but even that someone like him got a vote.

I do think though Heinlein was unrealistically idealistic with his book. And the movie took an even more pessimistic view than that.

Reich ME, considering how competent they run things.

I assume we don’t teach kids to be like psychopaths because the system only can take so many. Unlike the image portrayed by propaganda, even American life doesn’t mainly consist of competition but of cooperation. There is competition to fill roles in companies, sure. But once in a role one is supposed to cooperate with coworkers to achieve something larger than one could alone.

If everybody saw life through the lens of a psychopath I guess we’d end up in a Mad Max scenario. Modern cooperative society with a system of division of labour simply wouldn’t work anymore.

On the other hand I’m morbidly curious how a society entirely without psychopaths would look like. Would it be better or worse? (And for wich definitions of “better” and “worse”). I can only assume we’d have much less wars, for one.

Any IT device can be hacked. We completely missed the evolutionary opportunity to have secure computing devices. Proper object capability machines would make it possible. But quick and dirty and by Friday is what we got instead.

Next Monday.

If he’s found dead or unable to conduct his duties before then, there’s a special election. If that happens after Monday, the seat simply remains vacant until it’s filled January with whomever wins the regular election.

But it very much depends on what you count as a language. German used to be a dialect continuum. People could understand their neighbors and a village or two over, but became mutually unintelligible pretty quickly. Transportation was slow, so populations just didn’t mix as much and language was more local. Latin used to mostly be the language of a single city.

They have for decades been at the forefront of cheating. Which party broke into their competitors offices to so on them? Who used the supreme court to stop the count in Florida, where after the fact it was found out they would have (narrowly) lost?

They know they cheat at every opportunity, so they need to accuse their opponents of the same.

More combined starches: Verheiratete (German, something like “married couple”) are a kind of dumplings with potatoes together with diced fried bacon. One of my favourite local foods.

It’s not really even about being a democracy. Kommunist East Germany with one of the most formidable surveillance systems to date could only look on when a sufficient percentage of the population rose peacefully.

I believe the plumbing for democratic change is still present in the US. What is preventing change is people doom scrolling on the couch.

I don’t think it’s about being able to afford it. More that he is loath to let her have anything at all on principle.

It’s not about whether a perpetrator deserves to live or not. It’s about the reliabilty of the judicial system. Even this day and age with our amazing forensic techniques, plenty of innocent people get indicted instead of the actual perpetrators. It’s also about what executing people does to the society doing the executions. Honestly, I have tons of sympathy for the character Hawkeye in Avengers: Endgame. However in this sort of fiction the people getting killed absolutely certainly are guilty. Reality is much more messy than that.

Fun Fact: what killed communism wasn’t so much the ownership details of the means of production, but the fact they chose a command economy instead of a market economy. Planned or command economies are bad, no matter what political ideology is behind it.

Also: the way politicians world wide allowed conentration of mega corporations, I feel we are moving much more towards a command economy than a market economy.

The only thing that makes them “left” is that they are not Republicans and that Republicans keep calling them left.

Establishment Democrats would fit right in with traditional conservative parties throughout Europe. I could easily see Merkel of the CDU being to the left of quite a number of Establishment Democrats.

Not entirely. Generally of course people who don’t have to labour for their livelyhood have more time and certainly more resources to influence politics. But the common man can make their voices heard. -you can vote in your interest. Be careful of what people try to tell you is your interest -you can protest (peacefully); look at France to see a populace that doesn’t just take what is rammed down their throats -you can talk to your neighbours; discuss things with them to form an opinion; don’t just parrot talking points from media; -you can write to representatives; sure, your letter won’t be directly shown to then, unlike one from Koch or someone. But it won’t go unnoticed. -participate at town halls -participate in polls A fortune 500 CEO or Forbes billionaire list name will have more impact than a single voice from the population. But organised, the voices of the population make a difference. Organisation, participation and critical engagement can make a difference.