I’m confused why electoral systems seems to be at the forefront of your thinking about the relevant pros and cons of US or Chinese domination of the future. Electoral systems do and can matter, but consider that all of the good stuff that happened in Anglo-America happened under first past the post as well, and all the bad stuff that happened elsewhere happened under whatever system they used (the Nazis came to power under proportional representation!).
Consider instead that Trump was elected with over 50% of the popular vote. Perhaps there are more fundamental cultural factors at play than the method used to count ballots.
Consider instead that Trump was elected with over 50% of the popular vote. Perhaps there are more fundamental cultural factors at play than the method used to count ballots.
Winning the popular vote in the current system doesn’t tell you what would happen in a different system. This is the same mistake people make when they talk about who would have won if we didn’t have an electoral college: If we had a different system, candidates would campaign differently and voters would vote differently.
Yes, my mistake. I meant Trump votes > Harris votes and forgot about 3rd parties. On the other hand 49.8% vs 50% + 1 feels semi trivial when compared to say the UK where Labour received 33.7% of the vote.
I always find the use of “X% of the vote” in US elections to make some general point about overall acceptability or representation of the general public problematic. I agree it’s a true statement but leaves out the important aspect of turn out for the vote.
I have to wonder if, particularly the USA, would not be quite as divided if all the reporting provided percentage of vote of the eligible voting population rather than the percentage of votes cast. I think there is a big problem with just ignoring the non-vote information the is present (or expecting anyone to look it up and make the adjustments on their own).
But I agree, I’m not too sure just where electoral systems fall into this question of AGI/ASI first emerging under ether the USA or CCP.
I’m confused why electoral systems seems to be at the forefront of your thinking about the relevant pros and cons of US or Chinese domination of the future. Electoral systems do and can matter, but consider that all of the good stuff that happened in Anglo-America happened under first past the post as well, and all the bad stuff that happened elsewhere happened under whatever system they used (the Nazis came to power under proportional representation!).
Consider instead that Trump was elected with over 50% of the popular vote. Perhaps there are more fundamental cultural factors at play than the method used to count ballots.
Winning the popular vote in the current system doesn’t tell you what would happen in a different system. This is the same mistake people make when they talk about who would have won if we didn’t have an electoral college: If we had a different system, candidates would campaign differently and voters would vote differently.
But that’s wrong. Trump received 49.8% of the votes.
Yes, my mistake. I meant Trump votes > Harris votes and forgot about 3rd parties. On the other hand 49.8% vs 50% + 1 feels semi trivial when compared to say the UK where Labour received 33.7% of the vote.
I always find the use of “X% of the vote” in US elections to make some general point about overall acceptability or representation of the general public problematic. I agree it’s a true statement but leaves out the important aspect of turn out for the vote.
I have to wonder if, particularly the USA, would not be quite as divided if all the reporting provided percentage of vote of the eligible voting population rather than the percentage of votes cast. I think there is a big problem with just ignoring the non-vote information the is present (or expecting anyone to look it up and make the adjustments on their own).
But I agree, I’m not too sure just where electoral systems fall into this question of AGI/ASI first emerging under ether the USA or CCP.