“Get ‘em up against the wall”

You’re thinking of complex societies like the Easter islanders and the Mayans.  They destroyed their agricultural bases for the same reasons we’re doing the same now: they had population densities well beyond what the local environment could support.  Our problem is that the “local environment” is pretty much the whole earth at this point.

how do we get around that?

In principle, by getting a better voting system. For single-seat elections (president, mayor), something like Beatpath seems good; for multiple-seat elections (parliement, senate, congress, council) some form of proportional representation (possibly with a Debian-style Beatpath system to decide laws and resolutions).

Beatpath is rather kinder to compromise candidates (and positions) than first-past-the-post or even instant-runoff; in many situations, the compromise is a pretty good outcome, all things considered.

In practice, nobody likes to change the system that got them into office. After all, it’s not likely a substantially modified system would continue to elect them.

If you get a 50/25/25 split, which is … exceedingly unlikely, but ok: Party A has a majority, and can lead alone. If people get even slightly tired of them, they’ll lose a few votes, and maybe the next election is 48/27/25. Suddenly, both A+B, A+C and B+C are valid blocks, and which one you end up with depends on who wants to cooperate.

Realistically, you have more than three parties (the previous election here placed 7 parties in the parliament), and the coalitions are negotiated before the election. Practically speaking that means that voting for a party is voting for the coalition they’re in (unless they get so many votes they can drop some or all the coalition partners) – but which party in the coalition you vote for still matters, since it changes the direction and focus of the coalition as a whole.

Incidentally, that’s one effect I feel is a bit weak in the US system: Simply voting for a party doesn’t help the party understand which direction you want them to go in. The only real feedback is in the primaries, and even that only really applies if you’re not trying to re-elect a sitting president.

At one time the parties drafted a platform with each plank being an issue that the candidates of the parties actually talked up during the elections. Now when a person decides to run for office they have to be squeaky clean or hide the dirt so far into the ground that it won’t be dug up.

One of the best messages that voters could send is that the dirt doesn’t matter. Insist that the politician take a stand. Good politicians are alpha type individuals and more often than not are also likely to have an overactive libido. Howard Cain had a vision and also apparently many women he saw regularly. JFK as well. The difference is that JFK’s supporters didn’t care about what he did on the mattress, only what he did in the office. As much as I cringe at the idea of Howard Cain’s vision, at least people know were he stood.

If it only affected the output of RIAA and MPAA members, that would be fine.

Unfortunately, it’s so poorly written (and/or conceived) that it’ll affect a lot else besides, from DNSSEC to freedom of speech, and a lot of that quite adversely.

we have nothing left to lose. they cannot deploy troops on unarmed civilian non-combatant citizens on domestic lands. that is exactly why you don’t want to even hide a weapon at a protest or treat your body like a weapon. that is the key to victory – consistently remain nonviolent and loud as hell. be heard. make a priority effort to get to know every single citizen around you. find the morons with the weapons early on and banish them from their posts. kick them out for good. they are idiots and missed the point, just like lots of our congress members.

play the game the right way. they want a game? play back but follow the rules. if they tell you to move, wait until it’s official and then simply move to another location. it doesn’t mean you can’t move back in a few days or weeks. they can’t evict the public from the public permanently. only temporarily. if they try to pull ‘safety’ issues, ask for a safety inspection and report. turn to one of the pages and ask them to clarify a random paragraph of your choosing. catch them on film and get it online asap. if they try to pull ‘building code’ issues, ask for the same and ask for specifics – how long must we suspend our occupation for? if  the time frame is excessive, ask for justification and most importantly – other examples where such excessive eviction has ever been necessary in the history of the respective city, county, state and country. basically, call them out. make them listen by holding them accountable at every – single – step. and tell them without high quality justification for every step, there is no way to  make informed decisions to abandon our posts as protesters. if they lawyer you, lawyer them back with common english words that everyone young and old understands. if you don’t understand them, make that extremely clear immediately. you don’t need to hire a lawyer, you can ask for extreme clarification in order to make a well informed decision. but don’t settle for ‘their word’. get quality, legibly signed documentation and evidence to make sure they are listening and understanding what we’re protesting for, and what they’re evicting us from our posts for. if you can’t read the signature on something, refuse to accept that it is real, ask one of them to clarify the specific person that signed it and have them clearly initial, sign and date that neither of you know who signed in the first place.

most importantly, and reiterating further: outsmart these fuckin assholes! we’re the ones fighting, we’re the ones who are hungry, we’re the ones putting in all the sacrifices and we’re the ones who are being silenced. no more. stand up for yourselves, your families and your future.

they have the nerve to say we don’t know what we’re protesting for. ask them what they’re running for. ask them what the constitution’s for. ask them what the country’s for. ask them what are rights for. you’ll hear some canned, insincere bullshit guaranteed. and again, catch them on tape. get it online asap.

one nation divided by three parties; worst case scenario: 50% party a, 25% party b, 25% party c; party a becomes the majority because party b changed their votes to the intriguing party c, and party a is too scared to vote for anyone besides party a thus granting party a majority leadership privileges.

how do we get around that? i mean if party a won’t even consider anything but party a, they are always the majority. and the fear of anything else keeps people voting for their respective majority parties.