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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 2, 2018 - 03:50pm PT
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The beauty and simplicity of "Be the Bridge" is winning me over. One doesn't start with algebra, calculus, or kinematics when teaching a kid to catch a ball.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Nut!, good post overall. Just a couple of points:
A.) Your first post at the start of the thread is solid, but much of the language you used in your most recent post could lead one to believe you want to bridge the divide only on your terms.It is about belaying others up to the point we have reached, rather than cutting the cord because they are holding us back. Belay on! Maybe I'm misunderstanding your personage/use of the pronoun we?
B.) Until you rein in--or at least start calling out--the violent radicals sitting at your campfire, like xCon and KingTut, your points are likely to fall on deaf ears or only the choir. Granted, you have no control over what these small minds say--but giving a pass after what one of them just posted on the last page really detracts from your mostly good ideas.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 2, 2018 - 05:47pm PT
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Hey Lituya, I admit to the hubris in assuming "my" position (or more generally, a "liberal" position) is higher, with the analogy of belaying others up vs cutting the cord. In my defense, in another section of the same post, I acknowledged this possibility... something about assuming I am / we are the parent teaching a 3 year old, perhaps discovering that it is me/us acting like the 3 yr old while the other is the parent.
In general, my way of calling out the folks with "liberal" ideologies but a hate-based approach, is this thread. It is really for folks regardless of ideology. Me saying "hey you are being an A-hole right now" just adds fuel to a fire. I am trying to focus on what I think is right rather than what I think is wrong.
Calling out individuals who are not on what I think is the most helpful track, well that creates an atmosphere that is not in keeping with the safe space for public discourse and widespread individual growth in a group context that I envision. People who get called out are not likely to feel safe, and if they don't feel safe, they aren't going to share what is honestly in their hearts and it will not be subject to change.
That's my thinking at this point, and I may change it in response to alternate perspectives that move me.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Well said. Your reply and your thoughts are appreciated.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 2, 2018 - 06:10pm PT
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ibGoB, thanks for that deep, beautiful, insightful poem. It links nicely with the video footage too.
edit... Power Crux: for me, the appeal of "Be the Bridge" is its accessibility to folks with different levels of engagement in the topic. One can superficially attach to the metaphor without much thought, and profit from the guidance it offers. Still, after much thought and engagement, it still describes a deeper and more nuanced inner journey. I am not settled in my personal feelings/perceptions toward the idea/ideal of selfishness. Some of the more healthy conversations I used to have with my ex-wife related to discussions of selfishness and sacrifice in a relationship. She would say that if you love someone, you sacrifice for them. I would say, if you love someone, it doesn't feel like a sacrifice and it is a selfish act because it gives you pleasure. If we have love in our hearts and feel compassion and empathy for others, then selfishness and generosity merge into one. It is only when we feel disconnected from others that being selfish becomes a divergence from being generous. Bridging the divide through understanding and compassion brings selfishness closer to generosity.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 2, 2018 - 06:51pm PT
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Testing the merits of my arguments is good for me and good for you,
and perhaps for others reading too :)
I agree that rewards come in many varieties. But profiting from an inner journey is not the same as profiting from clear cutting old growth forests for a few reasons I can quickly articulate. Profiting from an inner journey that affects one's perceptions and attitudes and behaviors in a way that makes the world a better place for the people around them... that is a net benefit to a system considered as a whole. In the absence of the journey, there is continued negativity and destruction. The journey changes that.
Clear cutting old growth forests... if it's Sequioa gigantea, well then it's only good for making grape stakes and non-structural stuff. Major destruction for not much construction. System as a whole loses. If it's Sequioa sempervirons, it is messier. The forest is lost, but a lot of structures for human habitation can be created. Regrowth is possible, over time. The world is always changing, and we are agents of accelerating change. Are our changes making the world better or worse for us to live in? What about for other creatures? It's hard to define a boundary for considering the system as a whole, and hard to decide a timescale. Maybe the loss of a forest with 3000-year old trees enables tens of thousands or more people to have comfort, respite from wind and sun and rain. But those houses will crumble to dust before the 3000 year old trees replenish the clear-cut area. The people supported by those structures will reproduce, and need more resources. But the clear-cut forest offers no resources for them... only grass and small diameter trees not worthy of building structures according to modern building code. So is it worth it? This is the same question as, is it sustainable? And the answer is, no.
My primary moral compass, my true north, is this: if everybody did what I'm doing, would the world be a better or a worse place?
If everybody lived in a way that consumed resources faster than they can be replenished, the world would run out of resources. That would be a worse place. If everyone went on an inner journey and profited from it, I think the world would be a better place. Sure some of those people might be sociopaths who feel unburdened by an inner journey and feel free to pursue self-gratification while releasing ever greater levels of suffering on those around them. Most people, however, would find ways to live in greater harmony and support of the people and the natural world around them. And the world would be a better place.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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winner takes all, 50.1-49.9 counted as 100-nil, disincentivizes any inclination to bridge build, no?
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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bridge this:
18.6 million registered voters in california. divide by 55 electoral college votes means each delegate represents 340,000 of them.
200,000 wyoming registered voters divide by three means 67k get an electoral college vote.
340k/67k=5.07
california, with more registered voters than 46 other states, rolls with less than one fifth the per capita representation wyoming enjoys.
come on, six kids graduate from gillette high. five head for twenty first century jobs in cal and even voting as a progressive block,
the kid that stays to mine coal trumps them in the presidential race.
gerrymanderers have a lot of nerve to dance on the shortcomings of the woman that got 2.8 million more votes
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 2, 2018 - 07:11pm PT
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Hooblie, I would say that the issue is not so much with the system of awarding representatives, as with our timeframe for expectations. If we expect instant gratification, and cannot suffer the losses of a round of elections, then we do not have the long view in mind, are not willing to open, maybe change our own hearts, or those of people whose views oppose ours. Then we are stuck in perpetual conflict and the items about which we are in conflict are never resolved.
That is the endless cycle I am trying to break out of. It's not a Dale Carnegie style "how to win friends and influence people" argument. It is about making a deeper societal course-correction, by focusing on what we have in common and, in the process, reducing what divides us.
That said, I agree the winner-take-all style representation is suboptimal. Italy does it in a more interesting way to address the winner-take-all problem while also making efforts to avoid gridlocked opposition in government, but it is still a work in progress:
 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-02/italy-is-rolling-out-a-new-electoral-system-here-s-how-it-works
http://www.camera.it/leg17/561?appro=the_electoral_system_of_the_national_parliament
Edit: Hooblie, thank you for the comparison of how many people are represented by each member of the US House of Representatives. That is a major screw-up for which there is no rational justification, completely against the principle of creating the separate House and Senate. There is no logical defense for that and no motive other than trying to cheat the design of the system. People who resist fixing that... ok, here it comes down to fear. What are the fears? Are they justified? Are people in the fly-over states going to survive in world governed according to people who don't understand or respect their viewpoints? Is the balance of power between the House and Senate working? Is the reach of federal legislation too far and covering issues that should be locally decided? What are universal protections/regulations that should exist for all even if local pockets of people disagree?
The electoral imbalance is a symptom of lack of trust in the system, lack of focus to correct deficits in the system to make it work for all parties, and a slip back toward anarchy or law of the jungle.
For folks who identify themselves on the "conservative" end of the "liberal"/"conservative" spectrum, what do you think of this issue? Is supporting your ideology more important than supporting the intent of the founding fathers? How does one rationalize the electoral imbalance (diverging from the intent of the founding fathers) at the same time as adhering to "original Constitution" arguments to follow the intent of the founding fathers?
These are the intellectual arguments, but they will go nowhere until we address the feelings, the fear, and bridge the divide. If we have frenzied "liberal" people seeking to punish conservative leaders, why should folks who identify as conservative dig into their hearts and do what is right and give up some power they have now? Whether it was ill-gotten or not, people don't like to give up power or advantage to someone who has stated they want to harm you.
So think about it if you are a "liberal" person... if you threaten a "conservative" person, you won't win them as allies in the pursuit of rightness. And the pursuit of rightness requires people who identify as "liberal" or as "conservative" to come together. This goes for "conservative" folks too, and for those who prefer not to join/identify and instead just take cheap shots at all sides. It's easier to destroy something. But what will you build in its place? And can it last?
OK, I've used up my quota for the day, time to back away from politics and social change :)
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Hooblie, thank you for the comparison of how many people are represented by each member of the US House of Representatives. That is a major screw-up for which there is no rational justification, completely against the principle of creating the separate House and Senate. There is no logical defense for that and no motive other than trying to cheat the design of the system.
Except it just isn't true.
Each Congressional district in the US averages 711,000 people. If any state has a gripe right now, it's Montana which averages over 930,000. What's more, many states are apportioned more districts than they should be--based on the counting of non-citizens, including illegals, in the census. In California this is especially pronounced.
As for low population states that have one district, well, that's the way the Constitution was written--and intended. Don't like it? Try to change it. But don't whine about things that just aren't true--or fantasize about The Framers' intent when it was very, very clear.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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different issue looking at number of electoral college votes, not congressional districts and versus registered voters, not general population.
if you're presidentially smug detouring around the popular vote, i guess there's a bridge to be built across the river shenanigan
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 3, 2018 - 03:35pm PT
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Thanks Hooblie for bringing up an interesting point, and thanks Lituya for challenging it and encouraging me to learn something new. Here is how the mapping of population to seats in the US of House of Representatives works now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment
One problem with present system since 1913, is that the population of some small rural states (e.g. North Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont right now) are less than the number for each seat. But by design each state gets at least one representative. Here is a proposal to fix it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule
The basic idea would be to take the lowest state population and make that be the population represented for each seat, and then let the number of seats float upward as populous states grow faster than the mostly rural states.
This seems like a great idea on the surface, but it has non-obvious side-effects that might be very unfair too: there will still be rounding errors, where a small state is not quite enough to get to two representatives, while another state is almost perfectly matched at a multiple of the minimum state. In such cases, the states not quite reaching the threshold for getting an extra seat are relatively screwed. Still, this problem seems better than the present problems. In any case, the representatives that would vote on changes to the system are gaming it to see what works best in their favor rather than what seems most logical or "fair".
The fundamental problem is how to handle rounding errors, or "quantization distortion". In other contexts, like encoding audio signals for phone networks, it is called quantization distortion. It is also a tricky problem for IT equipment manufacturers deciding to make 24, 36, or 48 ports or more for a card that inserts into a chassis. Some companies make cars with a lot of ports and advertise an attractive price per port. But this creates an uglier stair-step function where if you need 73 ports and the cards have 72, now you have to buy 144 ports and the price per needed port gets ugly. This favors having a smaller port count to smooth out the pricing across different sizes.
Extending this logic to how we assign seats in House of Reps, we should keep the headcount for each representative to a minimum that still enables the overall headcount of the House of Reps to be manageable for voting and negotiating.
So there is a basic challenge here with no completely obvious solution in how to make things "fair" in apportioning seats, and whichever side of an ideological divide feels like they get the short end of the stick can use it as a talking point of how unfair the other side is.
I wonder if there is a sort of "I cut the cake and you choose the piece" sort of solution to stop it from being a partisan issue?
In any case, I should be more careful in researching stuff before I take a stand. And my main point in starting this thread was not to get mired down in rational arguments about issues. When I tried that, it devolved into name-calling and insults, because the root of the problem is people have an emotional investment and ingrained set of truth based on their experiences that sometimes overrides logical debate. So here I am just trying to get at the emotional roots of the divide, to create space where a logical/rational debate is possible.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 3, 2018 - 03:58pm PT
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xCon, I have a hard time being open to the message you share because of how you express yourself. Ironically, I am probably already on your side. Do you intend to convince anyone who starts off not on your side? From what I have experienced in life, profanities and inflammatory tones tend to escalate conflict and separateness and suffering, rather than reducing them.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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xCon: high time we did
Looks like you have your work cut out for you. What are you doing about it?
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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NutAgain! - Re the electoral college, a good solution that would not require a constitutional amendment would see more states split-allocate their votes--like Maine and Nebraska already do. This wouldn't "solve" the small-state paradox, but it would give voice to conservatives stuck in liberal states--and vice-versa.
xCon - Your revolution fantasy is going exactly nowhere. And that's good. For the country--and for you.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Xcon...channeling Jar Jar Binks again...?
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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yes,
slave owners were the whiney bitch minority whos despicable selves had to be catered to in order to form the union at that time.
most of the constitution is pretty clear about what those people deserved and what we shoulda done with them the week after they signed
pitty the founders were so limp wristed they didn't get around to it...
high time we did
Well, we had a civil war over it about 75 years later that cost 700,000 lives. And three amendments to the Constitution that corrected (most of) the errors.
Maybe you missed this week of class?
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