That’s a rug pull, though. Both the American and EU states only agreed to join their respective unions in the first place on the promise that these systems of balances would give them this level of input on union policy. Without such assurances, what small nation would ever agree to become inevitably subordinate to the whims of a larger state? It would never happen, and the western world would remain fractured into small nation-states constantly warring with each other, failing to cooperate and probably getting picked off, one by one, by nations like China or Russia which have no such qualms about forcing a union through conquest.

No, these unions were negotiated in good faith and if we’re unhappy with them now, then the answer should be secession. Brexit proved that nobody is forced to remain in the EU if they don’t like the deal.

The EU has a similar system:

• Each EU member state gets ONE seat at the EU Council, regardless of population. This is comparable to the US Senate.
• Differences in population size are accounted for by EU Parliament, where the number of MEPs (Members of European Parliament) a member state gets is determined by population. This is comparable to the US House of Representatives.
• Finally there is the EU Commission which is the executive branch, comparable to the US president and cabinet.

The point of the EU Council/US Senate is to protect isolated regions from getting steamrolled by urban regions. Farmers are comparatively few relative to city industry workers, but any nation, union or federation is built on the back of farming. However, due to the distance and lack of interaction between city dwellers and rural dwellers, it’s easy for city dwellers to grow disconnected from the reality of just how important the rural dimension is, and vote for laws that only suit the city. It is utterly necessary to create a system which balances the two. Otherwise you’d have, like, three states (New York, California, Texas) making all the decisions, with the other 47 states having to like it or lump it.

Put simply: if RCV had been in place for the US presidential race in 2024, the Gaza issue wouldn’t have split the Democratic vote.

Don’t blame me; I voted for Kodos

i’m not advocating that

You don’t have to. Forbes already publishes a real-time up-to-date list of the richest people in the world.

https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#5b60b1453d78

It can be sorted by net worth, country of residence, industry the person made their fortune in, or age.

or sometimes no candidate

How does FPTP help in that scenario?

risks more people accidentally voting different than they wanted

Can you describe how that might happen?

It’s not just the USA that’s in dire need of it. The UK should also adopt it. First Past The Post (FPTP) voting encourages polarized extremism. Because it functions on a Ricky Bobby-esque “if you’re not first, you’re last” philosophy that punishes moderates for being moderate.

Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

Poe’s law is based on a comment written by Nathan Poe in 2005 on christianforums.com, an Internet forum on Christianity. The message was posted during a debate on creationism, where a previous poster had remarked to another user: “Good thing you included the winky. Otherwise people might think you are serious”.[4]

The reply by Nathan Poe read:[1]

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake for the genuine article.

The original statement of Poe’s law referred specifically to creationism, but it has since been generalized to apply to any kind of fundamentalism or extremism.[3]

I assume that’s a reference to the intro screen to Mario 64 where you can pull and deform Mario’d face.

I can’t understand the filing. Did Llama not pay James Earl Jones’s estate?

I’ve not submitted my DNA to any genealogy sites for testing, but what annoys me about all this is that in order to get as much info about my family tree as possible (for posterity and confirming theorized connections) I SHOULD be testing my parents’s DNA because the oldest family members are the best for connecting to distant relatives, and my parents aren’t gonna live forever. But I can’t get them (or myself) tested, because of considerations like this. This shouldn’t have to be a consideration. But it is, because of greedy bastards and the gombeen politicians who allow stuff like this to be legal.