gslavik

gslavik t1_je8ucno wrote

Reply to comment by somberblurb in Police swarm multiple local schools after reports of shootings, believed to be hoax by Bmartin_

Don't need lots of resources, just enough determination. Asterisk and a TTS (https://medevel.com/14-os-text-to-speech/) and you can do such things.

I used to work in a company that did something similar. It would escalate issues and if the automation was coded for it, you could respond on your phone and it would take actions against your systems.

One time, someone used this system to call a local restaurant to place an order for pick up.

This is tech from like 15 years ago, if not earlier and it is open source.

All you really need is a phone exchange or VOIP provider who can hide your true identity (this is also how all those scam calls from across the pacific get made).

1

gslavik t1_j8tafu7 wrote

Reply to comment by Spiritual-Hedgehog-7 in Governor Shapiro vows to "not issue any execution warrants during my term as Governor". Also urges Assembly to abolish death penalty. by Canopenerdude

The only "pro" for the death penalty is that people who would refuse to use violence against others get to witness the state use violence on people they consider "sub par".

I would argue that death is probably better than "sit in this prison until you die".

−9

gslavik t1_j53mdgk wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Ranked Choice Voting (aka instant runoff voting) in Pennsylvania by squirreltalk

You bring up a good point and that is definitely a concern. Only counter argument I have is that RCV doesn't make things worse.

In NYC, they let you rank 5 candidates. In Alaska, they have a primary that is essentially plurality and top 3 go into general where RCV determines the winner (it was 2 Republicans and 1 Democrat in the last election).

There are definitely ways to solve this that can be done on computerized ballots and on paper ballots. We can print a 20x20 grid of bubbles, I am sure. Alternatively, use a computer to create the list that is then printed, scanned and counted (so you have a paper ballot that can be manually verified and an electronic count for a much quicker result).

1

gslavik t1_j53h7ze wrote

Reply to Ranked Choice Voting (aka instant runoff voting) in Pennsylvania by squirreltalk

TL;DR: RCV is better than plurality/fptp, but it is not without critique and it's worth learning/thinking about other election methods for a deeper discussion.

One issue with RCV is that it might not always produce a Condorcet winner. This is because RCV does not allow for circular preferences.

If you have three candidates: A, B, and C. The Condorcet winner is the one who wins all the "heads up" (1v1) contests. But it is also possible for voters to have a circular preference (A>B, B>C, C>A), whereas RCV removes that ability.

There is also STAR (Score Then Automatic Runoff), which I think is better than RCV due to it being able to pick a much better neutral winner, but good luck educating the average American on how that is good. In STAR, you score every candidate. Top two average/total scores win and move on to second round. Then you count ballots where one candidate is preferred more (scored higher) than the other candidate. So a candidate with the highest average/total in round 1 might end up losing to the second place finisher (of round 1).

On a side note: House districts should be multi member districts with STV/proportional representation voting.

6