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Cake day: August 3rd, 2023

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  • Crazy answer: The moon to 1969. Imagine, Apollo 11 launches to land on the moon then suddenly a second one appears in space orbiting opposite the original.

    Less crazy but still far reaching: a tazer to the theater the night of the Lincoln assassination. I wonder how different the U.S. would be if Lincoln had survived and the resonstruction period gone differently.

    Somewhat more plasuable: enough documentation and evidence to convince someone high up in U.S. intelligence in 2000 that I am a time traveler then everything we have on the world trade center attack. I’m curious how different things would be if that had failed. Maybe bush only gets one term and the whole U.S. political situation shifts for the better. Maybe a less destabilized middle east avoids the worst of ISIS and with fewer syrian refugees, right wingers in Europe are less successful, Brexit fails, and Russia declines to invade Ukraine.













  • Oh, another thing about secret votes. It transfers blame from individuals to congess itself. If votes are public, and a popular bill fails, then the individuals and parties are blamed, if secret, then the whole of congress gets blamed and you could see incumbents lose reelection not because of how they individually voted but because of how the body as a whole did. That could force cooperation, but it could also introduce a new form of gamemanship.


  • esc27@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlAlternatives to congress
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    3 months ago

    This isn’t an ideal solution, but a practical one. A simple hack for the U.S. would be to make congressional votes secret. Yes, this means congress people would be less accountable, but think about where their accountabilites lie. These people are far more worried about their parties’ strongmen and sponsors than their gerrymandered constituents.

    Impossible to implement in the present U.S. climate, but more idealistic is to divide the US into 50,000 person districts (greatly expanding an individuals access to their rep), then group those into evenly sized super districts. The reps choose from among themselves a super rep to attend congress, who they can recall at anytime. This should make gerrymandering more difficult, and dilute the effectiveness of corporate donors while increasing the influence of individual voters.