Lol, reddit making laws. I mean at least the names of the laws would be interesting. Lawy McLawFace

I think spending on political campaigns is just one way to provide support to a politician. And I don’t think it is the strongest. A promise of a well paying job after thier term is up would sway a lot of randos. Or even cheaper, parties and “speaking” engagements that are really fancy vacations would probably do the trick even while they are in office.

I hear what you are saying, but that isn’t campaign finance reform. Redefining what is protected speech seems like a prerequisite to campaign finance reform. And that does sound like a good idea. It certainly would help. But can it be leveraged to deal with the media which makes money polarizing the issues? If you don’t fix that too I am not sure the problem will really be solved.

Not sure the US can limit private advertising unless the Supreme Court changes it’s interpretation of the 1st ammendment (free speech). I am guessing that in the UK and Australia that free speech doesn’t cover advertising. Maybe that is the lynchpin.

Well polarization can be used to measure how much the nuances affect things. Like the border bill that Biden tried to put up. The nuances were ignored in favor of what was good for the party. Bills that would be passable 20 years ago as bipartisan thanks to those nuances can’t pass now because the parties have driven more people to ignore the nuances and just vote for one party or the other no matter the platform. And thus anyone who crosses the line fears they won’t get reelected. And yes, money drives it as well. But not only directly. The media makes money portraying politicians as extremists to. So they help drive it as well. I don’t think the money can really be controlled, so I think we need a different way to pass legislation that can somehow negate it’s effect. I just don’t know what that is.

Yeah, it’s a hard nut to Crack. Maybe it is just impossible to get the money out of the process.

Can you elaborate?

Random cost less to buy than congress people.

Not much would stop special interests from influencing the random. IT would probably cost less even.

Hm, interesting take on the random group. The US has citizen initiated referendum. Just takes signatures. But the money spent on advertising for or against has a massive impact. I had to look up the uk campaign finance laws. They limit 3rd party spending, but I don’t see that as stopping someone from spinning off hundreds of organizations that each buy like one Comercial or something.

Nah, unless you suspend the 1st ammendment, you can’t really fix that enough. People will always be free to pay for an ad supporting thier opinion.

Hm, I do agree that if you have too many people, things go down hill. But what if one commune decides to use all the water heading to another… or decides their personal values are that other commutes should serve them.

IMO anything with a direct vote of the people will end up as spending wars between special interests with the funds to advertise.

Hm… I can’t see voters being able to understand metrics enough to choose what is in their best interest. Also, anything where everyone votes will be dominated by special interests that have the money to advertise.

I just don’t like soap operas, whatever the form. My kid does though.

I could only wish to be so oblivious. :)

I do like 0 as freezing. We should have a new one where 0 is 0C, and 100 is 100F. Or maybe 1000 is 100F so I can get my extra resolution without decimals

Nice vid. He isn’t wrong. Though maybe we could come up with a compromise temperature scale for everyone to use. Even 100 F isn’t as uncommon as it used to be. But I would love to have more granularity without decimals.

In fairness, that isn’t just America. It’s kind of a male thing. Lol

Yeah, but you can’t argue that adding a whole digit doesn’t make it seem bigger. And take a kid who doesn’t yet know either system. They for sure will think 107 is hotter then 41. That said, I wish everywhere that gave a temp in the US would give both so I could get a better sense of Celsius. Most apps and such let you choose one or the other, but not both.