Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[LuckyR]

Not always. It works differently in a preferential system where a candidate can win on preferences even though he/she does not get the most primary votes. This is in contrast to a first past the post system. Some say a preferential system is fairer - it results in proportional representation and allows for more diversity of representation. Others say it is too complicated. But folks seem to like it in Australia. It operates in some US states and cities, too.

I'm definitely for these alternative vote counting systems since the Great Polarization has made traditional democracy unworkable, or at least much less efficient.

[Sy Borg]

Yes, proportional representation is the fairest voting system. It's also the most complex, costly and slow to count. You would not get a result on the day of polling.

[LuckyR]

Yes, proportional representation is the fairest voting system. It's also the most complex, costly and slow to count. You would not get a result on the day of polling.

Any system that supports moderates at the expense of extremists has my support.

[Lagayascienza]

Postmodernists deny scientific truth and see it as an expressions of dominant dominant patriarchal narrative. That is nonsense but I'm wondering about what influence, if any, postmodernism has had on certain areas of science.

[Consul]

Postmodernists deny scientific truth…

So do many non-postmodernists too! For instance, many belonging to the political right or far-right are denialists about man-made climate change.

[Lagayascienza]

Indeed they do. It"s just another sort of nonsense.

[Sy Borg]

Women's sport, and the scientific fact that male skeleton and musculature provides an inherent advantage, allowing mediocre male sportspeople to be outstanding women's competitors. I think the problems of that postmodernism are being addressed as more women's sports are closing their doors to transwomen. Not worth talking about here, though. We have beaten that clichéd subject to death, stomped on its corpse, and set the remainder alight.

Climate change: the idea that a solid baseload energy supply can be achieved in places without significant geothermal of hydroelectric sources, without using fossil fuels or nuclear power.

The ideological aspect of climate change activism, which only hurts the situation. The far left lumps all fossil fuels in together as the tools of the Evil Capitalist Oppressors. They forget that oil is needed for plastics and, thus, just about everything and natural gas is only half as problematic as burning coal, and is a decent option as a transitional fuel from coal. Ditto their biases against nuclear power. They also forget that China produces the by far the most greenhouse gases, because China is not deemed to be the Oppressor like the Evil Capitalist West.

China is still building multiple coal fired power stations daily. I wonder how many of them were built to satisfy the western demand for electric cars and "green" tech? The path to hell ...

Does anyone remember when people would ask what was before the Big bang, and the answer would be "there was no before?", and those who insisted that something must have preceded the BB were ridiculed? Now, the subject of what cam before is a serious topic. The assumption that reality stops where our knowledge stops is essentially unconscious postmodernism.

[Sy Borg]

Another: overweight body positivity influencers on Tik Tok. They are proud of being obese and they encourage other obese people to join them in their rebellion against medicos and others who would generally shame and control their eating and exercise habits. They did not believe that their morbid obesity was unhealthy. Then they started dying in their 40s ...

[LuckyR]

Another: overweight body positivity influencers on Tik Tok. They are proud of being obese and they encourage other obese people to join them in their rebellion against medicos and others who would generally shame and control their eating and exercise habits. They did not believe that their morbid obesity was unhealthy. Then they started dying in their 40s ...

Are they really? Or are they trying to garner followers so they can get paid?

[Sy Borg]

Another: overweight body positivity influencers on Tik Tok. They are proud of being obese and they encourage other obese people to join them in their rebellion against medicos and others who would generally shame and control their eating and exercise habits. They did not believe that their morbid obesity was unhealthy. Then they started dying in their 40s ...

Are they really? Or are they trying to garner followers so they can get paid?

Yes, they post videos talking about the need to be proud, rather than ashamed, of obesity. I've seen one who was proud that she banned healthy foods from her home.

US is becoming weirder. Speaking of postmodernism, how about the "defund the police" movement? What happens if you don't have many police? More crime. To think that people are surprised by this turn of events.

Similarly, decriminalising petty (and no so petty theft). Now people are complaining that they are being victimised because their suburbs have become "food deserts" because all the shops were driven out by theft.

Or how abut Ivy League universities, who figure that, in some contexts, calling for the extermination of all Jews is okay, within university policy. No one asked what context might it be okay to call for the extermination of all, say, blacks. The postmodernism here is almost as egregious as Foucault's.

It's said that Ivy league universities have two types of people - "sharp minds" and "sharp elbows". The sharp elbows are in charge ATM, imposing ways of thinking on students rather than embracing a university's stated brief of encouraging different views. This reduces trust in our academic institutions. Consider a recent report by Australia's CSIRO, whose report claiming that nuclear power is not economic was based on a US case study on a problematic nuclear power project where many things went wrong, and treated it as typical. There are many sneaky ways of presenting objective information in a way that creates a subjective impression.

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, proportional representation is the fairest voting system. It's also the most complex, costly and slow to count. You would not get a result on the day of polling.

Any system that supports moderates at the expense of extremists has my support.

I think it's even better than that. Proportional representation, properly implemented, delivers the consensus government that democracy seems to offer, but it offers only dictatorship of the majority. PR means that government decisions are more likely to last (not be reversed by the next incoming representatives), and to be in accord with the will of the electorate.

[LuckyR]

Yes, proportional representation is the fairest voting system. It's also the most complex, costly and slow to count. You would not get a result on the day of polling.

Any system that supports moderates at the expense of extremists has my support.

I think it's even better than that. Proportional representation, properly implemented, delivers the consensus government that democracy seems to offer, but it offers only dictatorship of the majority. PR means that government decisions are more likely to last (not be reversed by the next incoming representatives), and to be in accord with the will of the electorate.

Even more reasons to support it.

[LuckyR]

Another: overweight body positivity influencers on Tik Tok. They are proud of being obese and they encourage other obese people to join them in their rebellion against medicos and others who would generally shame and control their eating and exercise habits. They did not believe that their morbid obesity was unhealthy. Then they started dying in their 40s ...

Are they really? Or are they trying to garner followers so they can get paid?

Yes, they post videos talking about the need to be proud, rather than ashamed, of obesity. I've seen one who was proud that she banned healthy foods from her home.

US is becoming weirder. Speaking of postmodernism, how about the "defund the police" movement? What happens if you don't have many police? More crime. To think that people are surprised by this turn of events.

Similarly, decriminalising petty (and no so petty theft). Now people are complaining that they are being victimised because their suburbs have become "food deserts" because all the shops were driven out by theft.

Or how abut Ivy League universities, who figure that, in some contexts, calling for the extermination of all Jews is okay, within university policy. No one asked what context might it be okay to call for the extermination of all, say, blacks. The postmodernism here is almost as egregious as Foucault's.

It's said that Ivy league universities have two types of people - "sharp minds" and "sharp elbows". The sharp elbows are in charge ATM, imposing ways of thinking on students rather than embracing a university's stated brief of encouraging different views. This reduces trust in our academic institutions. Consider a recent report by Australia's CSIRO, whose report claiming that nuclear power is not economic was based on a US case study on a problematic nuclear power project where many things went wrong, and treated it as typical. There are many sneaky ways of presenting objective information in a way that creates a subjective impression.

Of course they post those videos... on a platform that pays you if you have greater than 35k followers. Man Bites Dog sells newspapers. Dog Bites Man, doesn't.

You are correct that the rabble, when exposed to (often) insincerely created extreme content, doesn't have the savvy to recognize the circumstances of it's origin and thus swallows it whole. And therefore over time extreme viewpoints are thus "normalized" within the society. In my opinion this is a direct result of algorithm driven content steering on social media. Yet another reason not to partake of it (unless you're a natural skeptic).

[Lagayascienza]

Another: overweight body positivity influencers on Tik Tok. They are proud of being obese and they encourage other obese people to join them in their rebellion against medicos and others who would generally shame and control their eating and exercise habits. They did not believe that their morbid obesity was unhealthy. Then they started dying in their 40s ...

Are they really? Or are they trying to garner followers so they can get paid?

Yes, they post videos talking about the need to be proud, rather than ashamed, of obesity. I've seen one who was proud that she banned healthy foods from her home.

US is becoming weirder. Speaking of postmodernism, how about the "defund the police" movement? What happens if you don't have many police? More crime. To think that people are surprised by this turn of events.

Similarly, decriminalising petty (and no so petty theft). Now people are complaining that they are being victimised because their suburbs have become "food deserts" because all the shops were driven out by theft.

Or how abut Ivy League universities, who figure that, in some contexts, calling for the extermination of all Jews is okay, within university policy. No one asked what context might it be okay to call for the extermination of all, say, blacks. The postmodernism here is almost as egregious as Foucault's.

It's said that Ivy league universities have two types of people - "sharp minds" and "sharp elbows". The sharp elbows are in charge ATM, imposing ways of thinking on students rather than embracing a university's stated brief of encouraging different views. This reduces trust in our academic institutions. Consider a recent report by Australia's CSIRO, whose report claiming that nuclear power is not economic was based on a US case study on a problematic nuclear power project where many things went wrong, and treated it as typical. There are many sneaky ways of presenting objective information in a way that creates a subjective impression.

Of course they post those videos... on a platform that pays you if you have greater than 35k followers. Man Bites Dog sells newspapers. Dog Bites Man, doesn't.

You are correct that the rabble, when exposed to (often) insincerely created extreme content, doesn't have the savvy to recognize the circumstances of it's origin and thus swallows it whole. And therefore over time extreme viewpoints are thus "normalized" within the society. In my opinion this is a direct result of algorithm driven content steering on social media. Yet another reason not to partake of it (unless you're a natural skeptic).

Man bites dog sells... Dog Bites Man, doesn't.

So true. There a millions of fat folks out there who don't want the bad news about obesity and health but who want to be told that fat is beautiful and good. It's a great marketing ploy. And the videos also appeal to non-fat people get to gawk at the fatties and tut tut and shake their heads. No wonder the videos are going viral.

[Lagayascienza]

In the posts above there was some discussion of the pros and cons of proportional representation compared to a first past the post system. We recently had an election in my state and, because of the complex Hare-Clarke system of proportional representation, it took two weeks to get a final result. However, the overall outcome was more or less clear on the night of the election. The conservative government was returned but, again, without a majority in its own right. It has needed to do deals with independents to ensure confidence and supply. But that does not mean the government will be able to push all of their legislative agenda through the parliament. The Greens and the independents will demand modifications to legislation to take account of their own environmental and social concerns. Otherwise legislation won't pass. And that's good. That's what the people wanted. So, I would say that proportional representation takes the hard edges of what might otherwise be a government drunk on its own power. It means we avoid the extremes of the hard right or a hard left, but we still get good, effective government.