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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • Statistically speaking, the majority of campaigns are going to fail.

    That wasn’t quite what I was getting at. Roughly half of all positions are democrat held, the other half republican held. 3rd parties make up such a small percentage of the existing seats, hence the “they don’t succeed frequently enough for it to be called fair” statement.

    The spoiler effect only matters to losers.

    Not really. Take the green party for instance. They definitely don’t align with the democrats, but they can at least agree on some things, where as them agreeing with republicans is far, far more rare. So it is in the interest of green voters that green politicians get voted in most, followed by democrat politicians, then republican.

    But when they split the vote due to the spoiler effect, it ends up meaning the worst of the worst options gets voted in, a republican. And that should matter to the 3rd party losers.

    Third parties didn’t have anything to do with that.

    They don’t have to. The threat of splitting the vote is more than enough for everyone to vote strategically, which means 3rd parties don’t get any votes.



  • when strong third party campaigns force rival parties to cater to the independent vote to get over the 50% hump.

    I’m not saying 3rd parties have zero influence, but they just don’t succeed frequently enough for it to be called fair. The spoiler effect is far too strong for that to happen.

    we absolutely do have factions within the main two parties that have regionalized and polarized constituencies that are fighting for control of the national party apparatuses.

    Absolutely. But because of the spoiler effect, the two parties are held together with glue. Reforming our electoral system would weaken that glue, and hopefully fracture them enough to make a difference.


  • Yeah it absolutely isn’t the only factor, but it’s one of the biggest ones. I neglected to point out it isn’t the only factor.

    After FPTP issues, the next biggest one in my mind is the spending rules. I think that all candidates should operate from a “shared pool” of election funds. So if candidate A wants to use 1 million for the election, half of it goes to them, half of it goes to their opponent. No candidate should have a higher spending fund from another. It would drive down campaign spending, make bullshit political ads less frequent, and add a degree of fairness.

    That, and there needs to be a full ban on lobbying (read bribery).

    As for the few elections in southern states that use run offs, that’s not quite what I’m looking for, and those elections aren’t in a vacuum. The political power the two parties get from surrounding areas is enough to mean 3rd parties still don’t have a chance.




  • I will say, part of that ignorance, apathy, and laziness is an intentional part of our existing society. You can’t spend the time to research every single product you ever buy, because many are stuck working several job, basically everyone is juggling their work, family, and social life.

    A couple months back, I tried putting some effort into finding a printer that had all of the qualifications I wanted.

    • usb printing, no network needed

    • laser

    • color

    • not a brand that will fuck you over (looking at you HP)

    • within a reasonable budget of $300-$400

    And such a product just doesn’t exist. Brother comes close, but the market straight up isn’t producing good things. So at the end of the day all I can do is either get shafted at the local print store, or suck it up and get an inferior product.

    But going back to the OP, it’s so much worse with cars because we have a car-centric society. You NEED a car in this place to have a normal life. Our cities and transportation have been intentionally designed to fuck over everyone not in a car.

    So there is inelastic demand. The manufacturers can do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it.