Re: [Fwd: [ga-full] RE: [ga] Voting rules, take 4]

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2000 at 09:10:47AM +0200, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> At 19:22 21.06.2000 +0100, Michael Froomkin wrote:
> >STV is described in the voting systems of most civilized nations and it
> >should be easy to crib from, say, the German (or Norwegian???)
> >constiution....
> 
> we don't use it - we use party lists, personal votes and proportional 
> representation.
> So do most civilized countries, apart from the US, UK and Australia, 
> apparently :-)

Gee, you know, I looked in vain for a description of STV in the US
constitution.  But the US is populated by uncultured barbarians, anyway 
-- you will have to look elsewhere for civilization.

More seriously, I am struck by the utter absurdity of this conversation. 
I know that there are many who would like to see a world government
here, but, objectively speaking, the ga is basically an informal mailing
list, and a relatively small one at that.  If we were packed in a room
almost certainly we would just use a show of hands to vote, with a very
simple decision rule to evaluate the results.  Maybe, in extreme
circumstances, we might pass a hat around and collect scraps of paper
with various people's names on them. 

Under other circumstances it might be fun to continue this as an academic 
exercise in self-governance, but from a practical point of view that would 
be silly. 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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