[esteth]

I'm not sure I understand the "why" here though. Why should you get more of a say because you want something different than the majority?

Why should the majority be beholden to the political view of the minority because of the geographic distribution of the minority?

[rayiner]

Because humans aren’t atomized individuals, and instead belong to communities that themselves have a political identity. Therefore there’s a multi-dimensional optimization space, which involves not just how to make the decision (majority vote, etc.) but where to make the decision. For example, if you had a national majority vote to decide Puerto Rico’s political status (independence or statehood), Puerto Ricans probably wouldn’t be happy about that.

There is a reason that virtually every country has some form of multi-level government. And in a multi-level government, non-majoritarian voting at higher levels can help protect the integrity of the multi-level system.

[lapcat]

> For example, if you had a national majority vote to decide Puerto Rico’s political status (independence or statehood), Puerto Ricans probably wouldn’t be happy about that.

"Two in three Americans (66%) in a June Gallup survey said they favor admitting Puerto Rico, now a U.S. territory, as a U.S. state. This is consistent with the 59% to 65% range of public support Gallup has recorded for Puerto Rico statehood since 1962." https://news.gallup.com/poll/260744/americans-continue-suppo...

[foolswisdom]

The point is of course not whether the national vote would happen to agree with what the puerto Ricans would want, but the fact the whatever they want (which may or may not be statehood, don't forget a lot of people there are against statehood) would be drowned out by the rest of the country, and despite being ostensibly democratic, that doesn't mean it (nation vote) is the best solution.

[lapcat]

The majority of Puerto Ricans and the majority of Americans both support Puerto Rican statehood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_refer...

The only thing stopping Puerto Rican statehood is the lack of majority rule in the US, and the fact that Republicans are heavily against Puerto Rican statehood. It's a partisan issue: "The majority of Democrats showed support for statehood for both D.C. (61.8%) and Puerto Rico (69.7%)" while among Republicans, only 26.7% supported D.C. statehood and 34.8% supported Puerto Rican statehood.

[foolswisdom]

The majority of supporting Puerto Ricans is quite slim (especially compared to the national support). A couple percentage points lower and the majority wouldn't be in favor. So my point was that if you _determined_ the question in a national vote versus a local vote, locals might be quite upset about it (particularly those who lost - if it was a local loss, then they fit to participate and lost, if it was national, then they never got a say).

Although, if you're now switching to argue that the national opinion is _against_ (or at least the republicans would block it), then this actually excellently illustrates the original point that there are decisions which shouldn't be made nationally instead of locally!

[lapcat]

> The majority of supporting Puerto Ricans is quite slim (especially compared to the national support). A couple percentage points lower and the majority wouldn't be in favor.

So? Majorities are often slim. Just look at US elections. The difference is whether you have majority rule or minority rule.

> Although, if you're now switching to argue that the national opinion is _against_ (or at least the republicans would block it)

I'm not switching, I'm just saying it's a partisan issue, and Republicans happen to be over-represented in the national government due to territorial representation, which is how they're able to block Puerto Rican statehood, against the wishes of the majority. And it's pretty obvious why Republican leaders want to block Puerto Rican and D.C. statehood, because that would likely lead to additional Senate and House seats for Democrats.

[anlaw]

This all makes sense as long as questions like “state hood” are a thing.

Us primates need not foist past spoken traditions and hallucinations on the future.

[rayiner]

58% of Americans live in the state where they were born, and the median American lives 18 miles from their mom. Statehood absolutely is a thing.

It’s absolutely hilarious that we’re watching Supra-national unions disintegrate (how much longer will Scotland be part of the UK?) but some Americans think a unitary majority-rules government in a country of 330 million people is a good idea. Madness.

[belorn]

The simple answer is that there is no natural law that dictate that people work together. Getting people to cooperate involve compromises.

Taken to an extreme, would you want a global government that had proportional representation? Most of the worlds population is not located in the geographic location of north America. With large international agreements, should EU, US and China get one vote each, or should it be based on populations?

To take a other perspective, is populate based voting the best system? In the past we had systems based on wealth or families, with the concept being that fairness is about stakes in the political outcome. Why should anyone get a vote if they don't have a stake in the outcome, and if they do have a stake, shouldn't votes be proportional to that stake? Populate based voting makes more sense in time with military drafts where every individual has an identical stake in the political outcome.

Looking at the EU the answer is both more simplistic and more complex. The reason the majority is beholden by the minority is that otherwise it would just be the German empire under a different name. German votes get slightly less power than citizens of other nations, and in return we have a union. It doesn't make Germany powerless, as they have more representatives than any other country, which also make other people upset. Why should Germany get more votes than Luxembourg? Is a system of one country one vote more fair?

[jabradoodle]

> In the past we had systems based on wealth or families, with the concept being that fairness is about stakes in the political outcome. Why should anyone get a vote if they don't have a stake in the outcome

I would think those with no/ little wealth have a large stake in the outcome of politics.

Exactly what are you advocating for here?

[belorn]

I am not advocating, and if I were to extract some form of advocacy from it it would be that cooperation generally require compromises in order for people to feel that it is worth it. Fairness is based on when everyone involved feel that things are fair enough to participate.

What "between the lines" stuff are you trying to find?

[arrozconcosas]

Ask someone from an urban area any basic question about a rural area, and they will be clueless about some simple things. I once had a friend who grew up in Chicago ask me if a cow was a Buffalo because it was brown and he thought cows were into black and white. That’s a silly example but it applies even more so to more meaningful policy decisions that happen is rural areas.

[umanwizard]

The states in the US aren’t divided on urban/rural lines though. They are divided arbitrarily.

Someone from Hoboken, New Jersey has a lot more in common with someone from Brooklyn than the latter does with someone from a farm in rural upstate NY.

[rayiner]

Maybe, but someone from a farm in rural upstate New York is also quite different from someone from a farm in Georgia. Because of mass media and news, Americans aren’t necessarily attuned to their cultural differences.

Anecdote: my parents moved to the Virginia side of the DC suburbs in 1989. In 2018, they moved 50 miles to the Maryland side, to be near my wife and our kids. I moved around a lot between high school and now so I didn’t notice it. But my dad (he travels all over the developing world for his career) immediately noticed. (And they both hate Maryland, lol.) He can tell the accents are different. The way people make small talk is different. In his view (as a Bangladeshi and then a Virginian) people are less courteous. When he pointed it out, I couldn’t unsee it. Maryland is the southernmost part of the mid-Atlantic (NJ/DE/PA). Virginia is the northernmost part of the south. Even just looking at places 25 miles on either side of DC, the Maryland side has way more Jewish people and Catholics, and way fewer Asians. (Growing up in northern Virginia in the 1990s, I don’t think I ever met a Catholic. Apparently, Virginia is only 8% Catholic compared to 20% for Maryland.)

[umanwizard]

I have no reason to disbelieve your anecdote, but I think even if true, it’s a bit of a special case. Most Americans’ culture is determined by the metro area they live in (or lack thereof), rather than by state boundaries.

[giantg2]

Exactly.

In theory this is not a big deal because of the 10th amendment and the states having legislatures that provide some level of urban/rural balance. In practice, it's more complicated.

[techdmn]

Having lived in both urban and rural areas, I don't think either has a monopoly on ignorance of the other.

[giardini]

Having lived in both urban and rural areas, I don't think either has a monopoly on ignorance.

FTFY

[brookst]

Sure, but the same is true of rural peoples’ understanding of urban areas.

Given that no policy can be perfect for everyone, why do we think that votes should be proportional to land area and not number of people affected?

[dfxm12]

It's a silly example, because it doesn't really apply to the situation at all, unless your friend in Chicago happens to be Tammy Duckworth.

[Vvector]

Isn't the converse true as well? Rural people lack basic understanding of urban issues.

[hammock]

Curious (not trying to be snarky), where and when did you grow up? Because I am grateful I was taught the answers to these questions in elementary school civics lessons

[netbioserror]

Why should the minority be beholden to the political view of the majority because of the geographic distribution of the majority?

[brookst]

Because it’s the majority, which is true regardless of geographic distribution?

If 10 people want A, and 3 people want B, how does geographic distribution even enter into the equation?

Are you suggesting that the minority should rule because of the majority’s “geographic distribution”.

[netbioserror]

I'm suggesting that the baseline assumption that majority rule is some selection of "good" or "ideal" or "preferred" is at minimum misguided and at worst downright evil. Sprinkle in some geographic distinction and you edge much closer to the "evil" end of the scale.

[pseg134]

And what do you supposed we do if the A that the 10 people want is for the 3 people who want B to pick their cotton for free?

[brookst]

The same thing you do if 3 people want 10 people to pick their cotton for free.

I can’t even tell what you’re advocating for. Minority rule? Anarchy? Democracy were you always win?

No system is perfect. Much control should be local. In zero sum situations, there isn’t a better answer than majority rule. That can be imperfect or even evil, but so can every other approach.

[CRConrad]

> I can’t even tell what you’re advocating for. Minority rule? Anarchy? Democracy were you always win?

Slavery, AFAICS.

[LanceH]

You're not understanding. The "correct" people have the majority numbers now, so we should embrace the tyranny of the majority.