[extropy-chat] polls again

[The Avantguardian]

--- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
 
> 
> Another way to look at these headlines is that as
> confidence in elections
> declines, the difference is made up by making the
> local news poll the de
> facto standard by which the honesty of the election
> may be verified.  Thus a
> process with unknown controls is supplanted by
> another process with known
> but suspect controls.
> 
> Politics is full of paradox.

Yes, Spike, I agree with this observation. I think the
reason that politics seems so paradoxical is that it
is by far the most complicated dynamic on the planet.
If you are uncertain of this point, think of it this
way: We have yet to be able to mathematically model a
single conscious entity. Politics however is the
resultant vector of the "will vector" of any number of
such concious entities.

Yet bizarrely, for the simple concept of "space" in
physics, we have three dimensions" x,y, and z. But for
politics there seems to exist a notion that there is
but a single dimension: X. Now along the X dimension
of politics, a given "platform" is assigned a value of
some magnitude which is either positive or negative. A
political concept is always classified as either being
politically "left" or "right".

Thus politics is a space of N-dimensions, yet for some
reason all that matters in society is whether the
projection of the N-dimensional reality of politics
onto a line of a single dimension. The right or left
of center. This completely infuriates me because my
politics is a point in at least four dimensional space
if not more. That I somehow have to figure out which
three out of four dimensions of my politics I am
forced to ignore every election cycle, in order to
have any say in a two party system is ridiculous.

I say: Down with the two party system! To try to
reconcile the tropics with the North Pole or Antartica
is silly. It is stupid that I convince myself to vote
for Coke or Pepsi when what I really crave is orange
juice.


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."- Siddhartha Guatama aka Buddha.


 
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