<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 10:42 AM, William Flynn Wallace </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><span class=""><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote">><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div> To an outsider it is obvious that the US should update its constitution. But I guess that is not likely, is it?</blockquote></span><div style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>Oh? What do you suggest? The electoral college for one, I suppose. </span></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">Yes. I see no reason why a voter in </div>Wyoming<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> should have 66.7 times more power over deciding who gets to be a senator than a voter in California, or why the Wyoming guy should have 18.3 times more power in choosing the next president than the California guy. It's nuts. Voters should be allowed to vote for more than one person and whoever gets the most votes wins. That way libertarians could vote for </div>Johnson <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">AND Trump and I could vote for Johnson AND Hillary. And it would eliminate the need for runoff elections. </div></font></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><br></div></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">It's far more controversial and it's never going to happen but I'd like to see freedom of religion removed from the constitution because it's redundant. As long as you've got freedom of speech and freedom of assembly you've got freedom of religion automatically; but when you specifically mention one particular thing you can do with </div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">freedom of speech and freedom of assembly</font><div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> it's used to justify situations where if I do something for religious reasons then it's legal but if I do the exact same thing for non-religious reasons then it's illegal. And that is also nuts. </font></div></font></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"><br></font></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"> John K Clark</font></div></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">But that's rather esoteric for most people. </span></div><div style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">bill w</span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 1:45 AM, Anders <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anders@aleph.se" target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span> wrote:<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><span>
On 2016-06-05 00:03, William Flynn Wallace wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Still,
trying to steer towards extropian themes: the way of
handling disasters is to (1) avoid them happening, (2) make
actions during the event to mitigate damage, and (3) have
good recovery options. It might be interesting to analyse
the problem of political systems going into headspins this
way. anders</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">
</div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Russia
has been dysfunctional for nearly 100 years. Surely they
have tried to tweak the system many times, to no avail. Why
don't they change? Why don't Cuba and North Korea, seeing
as how these countries are in permanent disaster? Is it
just that they are ruled by strongmen who control the
military?</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
Blaming political ideology does not work as an explanation, since
they were not exactly in a great state before shifting to socialism
(Russia a collapsing monarchy, Cuba an authoritarian dictatorship,
North Korea occupied by the Japanese and Soviet Union). Plus, other
basket cases like Haiti has never been socialist. <br>
<br>
Now, I know political science has a fair bit of knowledge and theory
about why dysfunction tends to run deep. One clear issue is that
institutions tend to be weak and untrustworthy, the incentives for
rulers and ruled are such that corruption and distrust (or even
outright theft) becomes rational. Some failure modes involve
tribalist politics, making joint government hard. <br>
<br>
To an outsider it is obvious that the US should update its
constitution. But I guess that is not likely, is it?<span><br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University</pre>
</span></div>
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