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People in the US complain about low turnouts. Supposedly
(according to at least one candidate) because they assume
politicians are bought for, and so they are uninterested.
No problems whatsoever drawing those people to the local
7-
11 to buy a Powerball ticket, especially as the jackpot
grows.
And
since you never know what you're going to get after the
election anyway, it seems like a great idea to connect the
two.
Use the money from the lottery to finance the election --
and
ensure that the entire population follows the election
news, I
bet they'll be a lot more informed when you intersperse
jackpot info with political news.
The best candidate thus far...
http://usuncut.com/...rious-new-ad-video/
[RayfordSteele, Feb 16 2016]
Political Polarization in the American Public
http://www.people-p...he-american-public/
Interesting, in-depth (and alarming in parts) report on the polarization issue (plus pages of other interesting stuff) . [zen_tom, Feb 16 2016]
[link]
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Do you have any data regarding the overall cost of, say, the current presidential campaign expenditures vs the lottery dollars spent by would be winners in the same time window ? |
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First order of business for the new president could be to announce the lottery winner. |
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Given that the campaigns are only going to be into a few
billion for each side, I'm thinking the lottery can easily cover
it, [normzone] |
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So what you're proposing is a system where a few "lucky" winners receive a cash payout in exchange for supporting a candidate financially? |
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I'm pretty sure this is how the system already works. |
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Finally a real connection to all those lottery-based choice models. Of course, the stupid things about those models is that the probability that you'll choose to buy a ticket is used to calculate the probability that you'll choose to buy a ticket. |
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// No idea, but all I hear on the news from overseas today is about this owl, and how good it is //
to wit, who? |
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Just hold your nose and vote for Hillary or Bernie and wait
for 2020. None of the current popular (Re)turds are
electable. |
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//to wit, who?//
Could it be the good 'owl' party? |
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[Ray] in both contests so far, more people voted for the GOP
I believe, the so called intensity factor is higher. I wouldn't
be so confident (non-withstanding the fact that I can't
imagine voting for Trump). |
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I think the intensity is directed internally between R
candidates at the moment. |
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When the general public wakes up and votes, they're not
going to want to touch them with a 39-and-one-half-foot
pole. |
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From a distance of several thousand miles, a Bern/Trump showdown promises to be great entertainment - even better would be a three-way with that bloke from NY who sought to infringe the right of the citizens to type two diabetes. However, I worry a little for the people who have to live with the outcome. Good luck, America. |
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American politics: Dumb versus Dumber |
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[pertinax] the key to America is that living with the outcome
still beats living anywhere else. Or so has it been to date. |
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[xenzag] so was it the dumb or the dumber who elected
Obama? |
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That's why I only worry a little. :-) |
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//still beats living anywhere else// ha - everyhere else... funny. Of course life is great if you're a mega rich fat moron with an arse where his mouth should be like the Trump retard, but for many people the "American dream" is a life of 9 to 5 drudgery, underpinned by rising racism; gun crime/mass shootings paranoia, and the constant fear of ill-health. I visit America a lot, as I have friends and relatives there. I have lived in New York and San Francisco. I have worked there at all levels. It's like visiting the circus - plenty of fun for a short stay, but not for the performing monkeys once the curtains close each night. Give me Europe any day. Cities like Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague etc offer incomparable richness and diversity. Beyond them, there is a huge world, most of which is totally unknown to the average American. |
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//Beats living anywhere else.// |
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Unless you live in Flint. Or Ferguson. Or Mississippi. Or
New Orleans. Or Detroit. Or much of Chicago. Or
Youngstown, Cleveland, Baltimore, Atlanta, Union City,
Pontiac, Terre Haute, Lapeer, Burns, Gary, Reno, Camden,
Memphis, Saginaw, Milwaukee, Stockton, Tampa,
Indianapolis, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Newark, most of
Appalachia, 95% of the South, or the rural Midwest. Other
than that, it's great here. |
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[xenzag] permit me some skepticism as to your
understanding of the American dream as it pertains to
"most people". There are lots of great cities in the world,
to be sure, but what is possible in America, from Barack
Obama to to Elon Musk is not possible anywhere else, and
no amount of web ranting is going to change that. Perhaps
history will change that some day, so far, there's clearly
some risk America will change, and that would be sad --
but there's no evidence anything else can change to match
America. |
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[Ray] -- most of the planet is ocean, and one of the
continents is (still) frozen -- and most of the ocean itself
is not inhabitable for high order life. Doesn't make it a
sucky planet to live on. |
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You do watch the TV, don't you? You think Paris has solved
those problems? Athens, maybe? The Ukrainians in Crimea
maybe? Or the people in the Baltics, who grabbed those
EU passports like gold coins and are all over Western
Europe looking for a job. Or perhaps the recently often
mentioned Denmark, where they want to force refugees to
give up valuables to pay for their accommodation? Maybe
you've noticed
that the Chinese, who are desperately trying to get their
newly minted
billions into US real estate chasing the Russians who no
longer can
because of sanctions? |
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I understand (though disagree with) much of your criticism,
but surely you understand whatever parasites may infect
our pasture, there is no greener one? |
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I studiously avoided making a partisan argument in this
idea, just having some fun with the absurdity of money in
politics. Let's not go there. |
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Ian, I did not write this idea to debate American
exceptionalism. I guess we'll wait fur the next
Scotland and EU referendum to debate whether the
sun can ever set :) |
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The last time I visited Mexico at least the locals
could drink the water without fear of lead poisoning.
Having spent some time in Graz, it seemed a tad bit
safer, more pleasant, and much more agreeable
place to live than Detroit. While in Prague at no
time did I ever fear for my life, except for perhaps in
a cab. Brisbane is nice this time of year. Have you
visited Seoul lately? Tokyo? I can think of many
places that suck a lot less on average than here.
How much time have you actually spent in the rural
midwest? |
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I think I've sufficiently demonstrated how the American
system has failed millions across a sizable chunk of its land
area. |
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A: Put money into politics. |
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B: Put money into plastics. |
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C: Put money down a rat hole. |
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//No idea, but all I hear on the news from overseas today is
about this owl, and how good it is.// |
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It /is/ quite superb, [Ian]. |
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//I think I've sufficiently demonstrated how the
American system has failed millions
across a sizable chunk of its land area.// |
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I'll wait for the Sanders election and the immediate
ascendancy of the Hatfields and
McCoys into middle class. |
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Or we could have the Trump/Cruz/(insert your favorite
current R candidate here) Presidency and the immediate
evacuation of the technical class. I wonder how long it
takes to become a Canadian citizen... |
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Not interested in the partisan stuff, except to say that I'm of the opinion that the answer to a political problem is rarely found at the extremes, and the centre ground is the place where actual, useful things happen - which is why Obama has arguably been the best and most effective president in the last 25 years. It's not fashionable to say this these days, but what's generally needed is more cooperation and less dogmatism. |
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To the idea, I've noticed that people pay a lot more attention, and become more emotionally involved in sports, when they've got money riding on the result. Politics and elections are already directly related in this respect, but I think could be made more so if people were able to put money on their preferred winner, and get paid odds. Of course, this would create unusual cases where candidates were rubbished prior to elections in order to lengthen their odds (a similar process happens in horse-racing) but the resulting unpredictability would at least be entertaining - which, from a distant observer, is a property of this quadrennial's process. |
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Trump appeal has a lot more common with Sanders
than Cruz, Ray. I think trump, were he to actually
push through his proposals would be ruinous for
the
economy, Smith Hally territory. As would Sanders.
Cruz is not really focused on that. |
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We'll see by March, I think if he truly is nominated
the party will at best split |
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Zen thanks for that, Fantasy Politics to be posted
shortly :) |
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Zen, the only thing I'd disagree with there would be the 25
year assessment. I'd go more like ~48 years. |
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//[Ray] -- most of the planet is ocean, and one of the
continents is (still) frozen -- and most of the ocean
itself is not inhabitable for high order life. Doesn't
make it a sucky planet to live on.// |
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Except nobody lives in Antarctica or beneath the
sea. People actually live in Flint. And they are
neither the Hatfields, nor the McCoys. That sort of
comment makes you sound like Thurston Howell
the third. |
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