The Supreme Court discussed my research on gerrymandering: some misconceptions(washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com
The Supreme Court discussed my research on gerrymandering: some misconceptions
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/06/the-supreme-court-discussed-my-research-on-gerrymandering-there-were-some-misconceptions/
187 comments
This is, in a nutshell, both why I love hackernews and what's so frustrating about discussing a topic these days. It's impossible to explore something you may totally disagree with without people generally reducing that exploration to a proxy for your worldview and consequently making character judgements or finding a way to get offended to the point where the identity politics card gets played and you get labeled a bigot for some conclusion you never supported but was obviously present in the undercurrents of your questions. The Supreme Court judges aren't special in that respect. Anyone should be allowed to question and explore a topic without having to issue trigger warnings or generally be expected to manage the "visceral" response their questions might evoke from a bystander observing the discussion or even the participants. The way you handle input into your personal biological process is your responsibility not mine. And society does not exist to protect you from malicious input, although you are free to choose networks where the chances frequency of receiving such input is relatively low.
One prerequisite to having those sorts of meaningful exploratory discussions is trust between the participants. When I was a member of my college's debate team, there were plenty of times I had to not only explore distasteful viewpoints, but also defend them. But because all participants (debaters, judges, audience) were participating in a structured activity there was less fear that my words would be tied to my worldview.
But in general social contexts, there are vastly different rules. When it comes to dealing with possibly distasteful words or actions, then the safest assumption is that the speaker means what he says (walks like a duck...)
Now, whether that has always been as apparent, I can't say. I didn't live in the golden years before the internet. But I don't like the automatic assumption that "these days" are somehow incapable of fostering well-intentioned rhetoric.
But in general social contexts, there are vastly different rules. When it comes to dealing with possibly distasteful words or actions, then the safest assumption is that the speaker means what he says (walks like a duck...)
Now, whether that has always been as apparent, I can't say. I didn't live in the golden years before the internet. But I don't like the automatic assumption that "these days" are somehow incapable of fostering well-intentioned rhetoric.
I would say another prerequisite is allowing that you might have misinterpreted the other party, and exploring what they said that you disagree with before assuming you know all the details of their stance, or whether what you think is their position is actually their position.
That's what confused me about the following, if I'm interpreting it correctly:
> But in general social contexts, there are vastly different rules. When it comes to dealing with possibly distasteful words or actions, then the safest assumption is that the speaker means what he says (walks like a duck...)
I would say the safest assumption is to assume as little as possible initially, and try to dig out the details. Assuming they mean what they say is always problematic because you are assuming they mean what you interpreted them as saying, when in reality they may mean what they intended to express. And lest someone say that's uncommon, I find that it's at least in part true of the vast majority of positions I don't agree with here when solicit more details from the other party.
Edit: Cleaned up for clarity
That's what confused me about the following, if I'm interpreting it correctly:
> But in general social contexts, there are vastly different rules. When it comes to dealing with possibly distasteful words or actions, then the safest assumption is that the speaker means what he says (walks like a duck...)
I would say the safest assumption is to assume as little as possible initially, and try to dig out the details. Assuming they mean what they say is always problematic because you are assuming they mean what you interpreted them as saying, when in reality they may mean what they intended to express. And lest someone say that's uncommon, I find that it's at least in part true of the vast majority of positions I don't agree with here when solicit more details from the other party.
Edit: Cleaned up for clarity
Yep. That's why labeling is one of the most active tactics in political marketing.
If you CREATE a definition for a subset of view points and pound it into the general public enough, if a person hears a piece of it from somebody they'll tend to assume the entire label. This is how people end up arguing with things that other people have never said. They're arguing with the label, not the person.
If you CREATE a definition for a subset of view points and pound it into the general public enough, if a person hears a piece of it from somebody they'll tend to assume the entire label. This is how people end up arguing with things that other people have never said. They're arguing with the label, not the person.
Thanks for responding, I think I get what you're saying.
>I would say the safest assumption is to assume as little as possible initially, and try to dig out the details
Just to clarify, when I said safest assumption I actually meant in the context of personal safety (not trying to spread FUD, just acknowledging we live in uncertain times).
I would characterize your assumption as the fairest because it avoids misunderstanding and makes sure all participants get to fully articulate what they believe. While fair discourse ought to be the bedrock of a just society, it might not always be irrational to take people at their word.
>I would say the safest assumption is to assume as little as possible initially, and try to dig out the details
Just to clarify, when I said safest assumption I actually meant in the context of personal safety (not trying to spread FUD, just acknowledging we live in uncertain times).
I would characterize your assumption as the fairest because it avoids misunderstanding and makes sure all participants get to fully articulate what they believe. While fair discourse ought to be the bedrock of a just society, it might not always be irrational to take people at their word.
That's true, I was still looking at it from the perspective of a safe setting (such as an internet comment). In physical contexts, my strategy is a bit more nuanced, in that I'll assume I may have misinterpreted[1], but make certain decisions as to involvement with the assumption I interpreted correctly. In other words, I'll choose to disassociate myself from situations where I feel danger. What I endeavor to do after situations like that is to not assume I was correct (without further evidence) and use that in future decisions. That is, I try not to say or think "the guy driving in front of me was drunk so I made sure not to drive close to him" but instead "the guy driving in front of me was swerving a lot and it appeared he might be drunk, so I made sure not to drive close to him." To some it seems like a small difference, but keeping your assumptions classified as assumptions in your head can be hard.
1: Of course this is with respect to how possible it is to misinterpret. "Kill the Jews!" is unlikely to result in a different interpretation on examination that results in a different action on your part.
1: Of course this is with respect to how possible it is to misinterpret. "Kill the Jews!" is unlikely to result in a different interpretation on examination that results in a different action on your part.
Safest doesn't mean likeliest to lead to clarity and/or agreement.
If I were a black man and saw a guy spewing what seems like inflammatory racist drivel, asking probing questions to better understand his position and clear up misunderstandings is all well and good, but I'd feel much safer hightailing out of there.
If I were a black man and saw a guy spewing what seems like inflammatory racist drivel, asking probing questions to better understand his position and clear up misunderstandings is all well and good, but I'd feel much safer hightailing out of there.
And there would be nothing wrong with hightailing it out of there.
On the other hand calling for the potentially racist drivel or potentially devil's advocate debater to be shut down because you were feeling unsafe and didn't want to try better understand his position and thus it would be better for everyone if he didn't talk at all and thus everyone could feel safer... well... that seems to be some kind of goal displacement error. It's elevating the heuristic of feeling safe over the actual outcome of avoiding real harmful events.
On the other hand calling for the potentially racist drivel or potentially devil's advocate debater to be shut down because you were feeling unsafe and didn't want to try better understand his position and thus it would be better for everyone if he didn't talk at all and thus everyone could feel safer... well... that seems to be some kind of goal displacement error. It's elevating the heuristic of feeling safe over the actual outcome of avoiding real harmful events.
Exactly this. I prefer to "assume no evil" because in my experience, at large, humans are not trying to be assholes to each other and genuinely want what's best for everyone. Or at least it's pretty depressing to operate under the oppossing worldview. After gaining more context then fine, declare evil where it does exist, but don't assume such off the bat.
What does it matter if somebody genuinely holds heinous views? So long as they are willing to discuss things logically, cool-headedly, and coherently --- I'd be happy to discuss anything with anybody. In making this distinction, it seems you are implicitly providing evidence of argument you're replying against. Today there is an increasing tendency of labeling people a certain way and then using that as a justification to completely avoid any and all discussion.
I wish people could imagine others doing this in a similar situation. For instance in most Mideastern nations apostasy and heresy/blasphemy are still crimes. In a number of nations they're among the most grievous of crimes imaginable, carrying the death penalty. And the majority of people support this. Can you imagine how ridiculous it is that many of these people would thusly refuse to even consider discussing the possibility that these acts ought not be criminalized, if they felt the person discussing it genuinely believed that? After all the person suggesting such thing must be some sort of subhuman deviant incapable of basic moral and ethical comprehension.
We're doing the exact same thing. And the only reason it seems less ridiculous is because of our cultural values. To believe that all of our beliefs that are taboo to go against are somehow objectively true and just is, in my opinion, the height of arrogance. Even if, somehow, it is true - it certainly will not always be. And we risk ending up in this same sort of silly cycle these countries are left in where religion holds them back, yet it is simultaneously impossible for them to ever actually discuss such a thing as words would be met with sticks and stones. And that behavior is something that I think, more than any other, is the epitome of cultural regression.
I wish people could imagine others doing this in a similar situation. For instance in most Mideastern nations apostasy and heresy/blasphemy are still crimes. In a number of nations they're among the most grievous of crimes imaginable, carrying the death penalty. And the majority of people support this. Can you imagine how ridiculous it is that many of these people would thusly refuse to even consider discussing the possibility that these acts ought not be criminalized, if they felt the person discussing it genuinely believed that? After all the person suggesting such thing must be some sort of subhuman deviant incapable of basic moral and ethical comprehension.
We're doing the exact same thing. And the only reason it seems less ridiculous is because of our cultural values. To believe that all of our beliefs that are taboo to go against are somehow objectively true and just is, in my opinion, the height of arrogance. Even if, somehow, it is true - it certainly will not always be. And we risk ending up in this same sort of silly cycle these countries are left in where religion holds them back, yet it is simultaneously impossible for them to ever actually discuss such a thing as words would be met with sticks and stones. And that behavior is something that I think, more than any other, is the epitome of cultural regression.
> What does it matter if somebody genuinely holds heinous views?
"I think you should be murdered. Don't worry, that's just my opinion. But I'll be voting for the 'murder people like you' candidate at the midterms. Do you like my 'Death To The Inferior' lawn sign?"
(OK, so that's the extreme version, but "I think you should be denied a particular kind of medical treatment even if it results in your death" is practically mainstream policy, as is "some kinds of humans are intrinsically inferior" and "people should be deported to countries which will murder them")
Edit: I literally tabbed out to twitter and found another example immediately, https://stv.tv/news/international/1399390-model-targeted-by-...
"I think you should be murdered. Don't worry, that's just my opinion. But I'll be voting for the 'murder people like you' candidate at the midterms. Do you like my 'Death To The Inferior' lawn sign?"
(OK, so that's the extreme version, but "I think you should be denied a particular kind of medical treatment even if it results in your death" is practically mainstream policy, as is "some kinds of humans are intrinsically inferior" and "people should be deported to countries which will murder them")
Edit: I literally tabbed out to twitter and found another example immediately, https://stv.tv/news/international/1399390-model-targeted-by-...
> What does it matter if somebody genuinely holds heinous views? So long as they are willing to discuss things logically, cool-headedly, and coherently --- I'd be happy to discuss anything with anybody.
Sadly that's not how the world works. People end up on lists for discussing "anything" or having "any" heinous views, and sometimes have their lives via this. And so far as I can see, the vast majority are okay with this.
Sadly that's not how the world works. People end up on lists for discussing "anything" or having "any" heinous views, and sometimes have their lives via this. And so far as I can see, the vast majority are okay with this.
> What does it matter if somebody genuinely holds heinous views? So long as they are willing to discuss things logically, cool-headedly, and coherently --- I'd be happy to discuss anything with anybody.
So, it sounds like what you're saying here is that if Alice says to Bob, "I think you're fundamentally subhuman; you have no value as a person, and I think that you don't deserve the same human rights that I do" and Bob replies, "That's a disgusting viewpoint and you're a disgusting person for having it", you feel like Bob is in the wrong because Bob is getting emotional while Alice is being logical, cool-headed, and coherent. This is a weird viewpoint because being able to express something logically doesn't necessarily make you more right or better than the other side; see the comic[1] where an angry person is shouting "Raarg people deserve to be treated like humans nobody has the right to murder millions hurr" and the calm, collected Hitler is saying "I just want to murder all the Jews and take over the world, but that's your opinion and I'm fine with that. Looks like you've got some growing up to do"
If you haven't picked up on it yet, the idea that I'm trying to express here is that even if something can be expressed logically, that doesn't mean it deserves a platform for logical debate. Murdering all the Jews is a _bad position_, no matter how you express it. If your position is that it might be a good thing to murder all the Jews, trying to debate with you logically about why it is bad can only serve to legitimize what is unlegitimate. If you don't accept the premise that murdering people for being Jews is bad, I'm not going to convince you that it's good. And if I'm a Jew, I might get a little worked up about the idea that you think murdering me is a viable path towards improving the world. This is not an indication that I'm bad or that I'm arguing in bad faith; it means that I take poorly to the idea of being murdered arbitrarily. Similarly, when somebody expresses the idea that black people are subhuman trash and deserve to be shot in the streets by police because they are no different from monkeys, it's not really going to be that easy to convince them that actually, people are people and deserve to be treated as such. If I'm black and being called a monkey, that's not really an invitation to a fair and open debate, right? Your position is couched in the idea that I'm not even worth debating with, because I'm subhuman.
Additionally, it's very rare that people _hold_ heinous viewpoints but never _act_ on them. Even if all you do is express your heinous viewpoints, that has the effect of normalizing those heinous viewpoints for other people; consider the recent event where a popular Youtuber (Pewdiepie) called somebody a "nigger" in an online game; part of his defense for his actions was that it's a common thing and everybody does it. Calling out the holding (and expressing) of heinous viewpoints is an important part of helping the rest of society move past those viewpoints. If I make it clear that it's not okay to call people niggers as a joke, then maybe people will stop saying it as a joke. And if people stop saying it as a joke, then the people who are saying it for real won't have the legitimizing cloak of 'irony' (think "come on, dude, I was only joking, don't get so mad!") and will be shows as the actual racists they are.
[1]: http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/578/682/575...
So, it sounds like what you're saying here is that if Alice says to Bob, "I think you're fundamentally subhuman; you have no value as a person, and I think that you don't deserve the same human rights that I do" and Bob replies, "That's a disgusting viewpoint and you're a disgusting person for having it", you feel like Bob is in the wrong because Bob is getting emotional while Alice is being logical, cool-headed, and coherent. This is a weird viewpoint because being able to express something logically doesn't necessarily make you more right or better than the other side; see the comic[1] where an angry person is shouting "Raarg people deserve to be treated like humans nobody has the right to murder millions hurr" and the calm, collected Hitler is saying "I just want to murder all the Jews and take over the world, but that's your opinion and I'm fine with that. Looks like you've got some growing up to do"
If you haven't picked up on it yet, the idea that I'm trying to express here is that even if something can be expressed logically, that doesn't mean it deserves a platform for logical debate. Murdering all the Jews is a _bad position_, no matter how you express it. If your position is that it might be a good thing to murder all the Jews, trying to debate with you logically about why it is bad can only serve to legitimize what is unlegitimate. If you don't accept the premise that murdering people for being Jews is bad, I'm not going to convince you that it's good. And if I'm a Jew, I might get a little worked up about the idea that you think murdering me is a viable path towards improving the world. This is not an indication that I'm bad or that I'm arguing in bad faith; it means that I take poorly to the idea of being murdered arbitrarily. Similarly, when somebody expresses the idea that black people are subhuman trash and deserve to be shot in the streets by police because they are no different from monkeys, it's not really going to be that easy to convince them that actually, people are people and deserve to be treated as such. If I'm black and being called a monkey, that's not really an invitation to a fair and open debate, right? Your position is couched in the idea that I'm not even worth debating with, because I'm subhuman.
Additionally, it's very rare that people _hold_ heinous viewpoints but never _act_ on them. Even if all you do is express your heinous viewpoints, that has the effect of normalizing those heinous viewpoints for other people; consider the recent event where a popular Youtuber (Pewdiepie) called somebody a "nigger" in an online game; part of his defense for his actions was that it's a common thing and everybody does it. Calling out the holding (and expressing) of heinous viewpoints is an important part of helping the rest of society move past those viewpoints. If I make it clear that it's not okay to call people niggers as a joke, then maybe people will stop saying it as a joke. And if people stop saying it as a joke, then the people who are saying it for real won't have the legitimizing cloak of 'irony' (think "come on, dude, I was only joking, don't get so mad!") and will be shows as the actual racists they are.
[1]: http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/578/682/575...
I see your point, but I’d reply that even if you are dealing with an extreme case of “Kill all the Jewish people!” there still can be some discussion around that.
I’ve never met someone (that I know of) who actually thinks that.
But even in that extreme case, there’s a fair amount that could be discussed. Though if I were Jewish and ran into a large crowd of people shouting this, I probably wouldn’t not choose that moment to have a conversation.
I think that’s at least part of the trust mentioned a few comments above about having a conversation needing trust as a prerequisite.
But in a situation where you are talking honestly with someone who believes all Jews should be killed, I think there is room for investigation and possibly persuasion.
For example, there’s the idea that a large group of people yelling for all of category x to be killed could one day be turned against them. There could be people saying that they, in fact, are subhuman scum and should be exterminated. So maybe not such a great social policy on those grounds.
Many people with these extreme views hold them because they were convinced at some point that all members of category x are guilty of a particularly heinous crime and should be punished for that.
This is a good time to talk about the rule of law, the presumption of innocence and just how bad it could be for all of us if these things are suspended in this one case.
It’s also an opportunity to talk about problems with the death penalty in general.
So, in reality, no. I don’t really think that the appropriate response to all Jews should be exterminated is, “You’re a terrible person, and I won’t talk to you.”
I think that falling into the trap that something’s simply can’t be debated because they are so obviously repugnant is part of the problem we have right now in a deeply and badly polarized U.S., not to mention the same divisions we are seeing elsewhere around the world.
The idea that some ideas are so awful that we simply cannot engage with them and, in fact, have a moral obligation not to is just as broken as blindly asserting that all x are bad and should be killed.
These things shift over time, and if we create a culture where we refuse to engage in certain debates because of some moral high ground, we will eventually find ourselves on the other side of that. Unless we just decide to exterminate everyone who disagrees with us because they are such awful peoples. Probably criminals, actually.
It’s not hard to find people on either side of the political fence right now who view the opposing side as scum who should at least be locked up. Perhaps even given the death penalty.
It’s less easy to find left-wing people who think this way, but it’s not that hard. There are plenty of people there who think that all Trump supporters are vile, ignorant, criminal scum who at the very least shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Hell I have both sides in my own immediate family. People who think Trump is basically Satan and that he and people who voted for him should be charged with treason. And just as many who think Hillary is a crazy child rapist and a socialist and shout be prosecuted for treason.
We are mostly well-educated and thoughtful people. And that’s just in one family where we all really love each other at the end of the day, even when we disagree, there’s a lot of trust, and some of us flip flop often to play devil’s advocate.
That’s a lot of words to say this: shutting down logical debate because some idea is repugnant to you is not a good thing to do in general.
I’m reminded of the Leisure Suit Larry Thread here about how much society has changed since the 80s. Including a lot of comments from people my age who remember how sexist and anti-gay a lot of comedy and people were then.
We’ve made a significant amount of progress since then, and we did it because a lot of people were willing to have some difficult conversations about ideas they found repugnant.
We’ve achieved a lot of things in the last 40 years. Hell even the last 60. We didn’t do it by telling people to shut the fuck up about their ideas that we thought were gross. We did it by taking them apart and having those difficult conversations.
I fully agree with shutting down violent behavior. It’s unacceptable. But drawing a connection between a though we disagree with and an actual crime is a terrible idea. And besides that, the stupid, angry, idiots that shout hate at rallies are the ones least likely to be able to enact policy.
It’s the ones who are willing to sit down and have a rational conversation who are the ones yo need to worry about in the long run.
A mob can hate, hurt, and even kill a few people at a time. You can find those people and put them in jail. A person who can make a convincing argument for exterminating a large group of people for no reason is extremely dangerous.
Those people need to be debated by everyone, so that the flaws are exposed to the whole world for how bad they are.
Fighting a bad ide with the same bad idea is a really precarious position for all of us. And I don’t mean just the U.S., I mean for all humans.
I’ve never met someone (that I know of) who actually thinks that.
But even in that extreme case, there’s a fair amount that could be discussed. Though if I were Jewish and ran into a large crowd of people shouting this, I probably wouldn’t not choose that moment to have a conversation.
I think that’s at least part of the trust mentioned a few comments above about having a conversation needing trust as a prerequisite.
But in a situation where you are talking honestly with someone who believes all Jews should be killed, I think there is room for investigation and possibly persuasion.
For example, there’s the idea that a large group of people yelling for all of category x to be killed could one day be turned against them. There could be people saying that they, in fact, are subhuman scum and should be exterminated. So maybe not such a great social policy on those grounds.
Many people with these extreme views hold them because they were convinced at some point that all members of category x are guilty of a particularly heinous crime and should be punished for that.
This is a good time to talk about the rule of law, the presumption of innocence and just how bad it could be for all of us if these things are suspended in this one case.
It’s also an opportunity to talk about problems with the death penalty in general.
So, in reality, no. I don’t really think that the appropriate response to all Jews should be exterminated is, “You’re a terrible person, and I won’t talk to you.”
I think that falling into the trap that something’s simply can’t be debated because they are so obviously repugnant is part of the problem we have right now in a deeply and badly polarized U.S., not to mention the same divisions we are seeing elsewhere around the world.
The idea that some ideas are so awful that we simply cannot engage with them and, in fact, have a moral obligation not to is just as broken as blindly asserting that all x are bad and should be killed.
These things shift over time, and if we create a culture where we refuse to engage in certain debates because of some moral high ground, we will eventually find ourselves on the other side of that. Unless we just decide to exterminate everyone who disagrees with us because they are such awful peoples. Probably criminals, actually.
It’s not hard to find people on either side of the political fence right now who view the opposing side as scum who should at least be locked up. Perhaps even given the death penalty.
It’s less easy to find left-wing people who think this way, but it’s not that hard. There are plenty of people there who think that all Trump supporters are vile, ignorant, criminal scum who at the very least shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Hell I have both sides in my own immediate family. People who think Trump is basically Satan and that he and people who voted for him should be charged with treason. And just as many who think Hillary is a crazy child rapist and a socialist and shout be prosecuted for treason.
We are mostly well-educated and thoughtful people. And that’s just in one family where we all really love each other at the end of the day, even when we disagree, there’s a lot of trust, and some of us flip flop often to play devil’s advocate.
That’s a lot of words to say this: shutting down logical debate because some idea is repugnant to you is not a good thing to do in general.
I’m reminded of the Leisure Suit Larry Thread here about how much society has changed since the 80s. Including a lot of comments from people my age who remember how sexist and anti-gay a lot of comedy and people were then.
We’ve made a significant amount of progress since then, and we did it because a lot of people were willing to have some difficult conversations about ideas they found repugnant.
We’ve achieved a lot of things in the last 40 years. Hell even the last 60. We didn’t do it by telling people to shut the fuck up about their ideas that we thought were gross. We did it by taking them apart and having those difficult conversations.
I fully agree with shutting down violent behavior. It’s unacceptable. But drawing a connection between a though we disagree with and an actual crime is a terrible idea. And besides that, the stupid, angry, idiots that shout hate at rallies are the ones least likely to be able to enact policy.
It’s the ones who are willing to sit down and have a rational conversation who are the ones yo need to worry about in the long run.
A mob can hate, hurt, and even kill a few people at a time. You can find those people and put them in jail. A person who can make a convincing argument for exterminating a large group of people for no reason is extremely dangerous.
Those people need to be debated by everyone, so that the flaws are exposed to the whole world for how bad they are.
Fighting a bad ide with the same bad idea is a really precarious position for all of us. And I don’t mean just the U.S., I mean for all humans.
So, here's the other downside to debating the merits of the position "hey, maybe we shouldn't exterminate people because of their race or their religion" - it makes it impossible to progress.
What do you mean, black people deserve the same job opportunities as white people? We haven't even established that we shouldn't be killing them yet!
What do you mean, black people shouldn't be subject to extrajudicial killings in the streets by police officers? My friend here says that we should be rounding them up and shooting them by the dozens.
There are always going to be people who think that some disadvantaged group should be mistreated. If society constantly has to sit down and explain to them why being racist or sexist or anti-semitic or whatever is wrong, then there's no opportunity to try and make actual progress in terms of helping those disadvantaged groups. Every new person who comes in with a terrible opinion sets the discourse back to square one of "killing people is wrong", and when progress is an incremental thing, getting set back to square one repeatedly means that progress doesn't get made. At some point, you need to be able to say "No. That viewpoint is vile, and it doesn't get a place at the table. When you're willing to treat people like people, we'll entertain what you have to say, but you need to behave with a certain amount of decorum before you get to participate in actual discussion."
It's like if you had to explain to your child why smearing feces on the table and plateware isn't acceptable, and you had to do it before every meal. You don't have any time to actually sit down and eat, because every single time you do, you need to explain that no, smearing shit on the plates is wrong. Don't do that.
What do you mean, black people deserve the same job opportunities as white people? We haven't even established that we shouldn't be killing them yet!
What do you mean, black people shouldn't be subject to extrajudicial killings in the streets by police officers? My friend here says that we should be rounding them up and shooting them by the dozens.
There are always going to be people who think that some disadvantaged group should be mistreated. If society constantly has to sit down and explain to them why being racist or sexist or anti-semitic or whatever is wrong, then there's no opportunity to try and make actual progress in terms of helping those disadvantaged groups. Every new person who comes in with a terrible opinion sets the discourse back to square one of "killing people is wrong", and when progress is an incremental thing, getting set back to square one repeatedly means that progress doesn't get made. At some point, you need to be able to say "No. That viewpoint is vile, and it doesn't get a place at the table. When you're willing to treat people like people, we'll entertain what you have to say, but you need to behave with a certain amount of decorum before you get to participate in actual discussion."
It's like if you had to explain to your child why smearing feces on the table and plateware isn't acceptable, and you had to do it before every meal. You don't have any time to actually sit down and eat, because every single time you do, you need to explain that no, smearing shit on the plates is wrong. Don't do that.
The problem is that saying "No, I refuse to discuss that" isn't changing any minds. If anything I think it tends to strengthen the resolve of the individuals holding said views. When you just tell people to stop saying things, in the minds of many it's going to indirectly give weight to those views. I think if people took the time to actually talk to other people they would find that though you may disagree with their views, they tend to actually have rationale for those views. And that rationale can expose logical flaws.
To take a slightly less controversial example, I've managed to successfully discuss climate change with a good number of people that felt it was 'fake.' People that do things like effectively scream '97%, idiots!' and move on do a great disservice. This sort of dismissal or appeal to authority is a big part of why there are so many of these people. It absolutely strengthens their resolve since they feel their views cannot be countered logically. And indeed there is more to their views than the satire we created in our heads of them thinking little more than 'dur, it's a Chinese conspiracy.'
Instead when you talk about the interplay between long wavelength energy, short wavelength energy and how they both react to CO2 explaining how precisely it traps energy (and how you can even create experiments at home to show the effect), you can start to explain things in a way that very few people seem willing to do. And willing is probably the wrong word. I think it's more accurate to say that many people who do acknowledge climate change don't actually understand it on any more sophisticated level than those that deny it - and so arguments resort to vitriol instead of logic. And I think that lack of knowledge is far more transparent than most people realize. So you end up with two sides, equally uninformed, slinging mud at one another and both taking their own self assigned moral high-ground.
The point here is that refusing to discuss things or scolding adults for holding such views, does not make them go away - and I think there is a very strong argument to be made that it does quite the opposite. For the most extreme example, one needs only look to who is currently the head of our country. And in this desire to refuse to even discuss things with people, 'we' even did things such as managing to pressure Elon Musk into drawing a line and ultimately leaving the president's advisory council. And was that a good idea? He's still just as legitimate a president with just as much control. The only difference is now there's one fewer voice of logic and reason trying to encourage him to do the right thing. And while those voices may ultimately have failed to achieve anything, their absence makes such a possibility a foregone conclusion.
To take a slightly less controversial example, I've managed to successfully discuss climate change with a good number of people that felt it was 'fake.' People that do things like effectively scream '97%, idiots!' and move on do a great disservice. This sort of dismissal or appeal to authority is a big part of why there are so many of these people. It absolutely strengthens their resolve since they feel their views cannot be countered logically. And indeed there is more to their views than the satire we created in our heads of them thinking little more than 'dur, it's a Chinese conspiracy.'
Instead when you talk about the interplay between long wavelength energy, short wavelength energy and how they both react to CO2 explaining how precisely it traps energy (and how you can even create experiments at home to show the effect), you can start to explain things in a way that very few people seem willing to do. And willing is probably the wrong word. I think it's more accurate to say that many people who do acknowledge climate change don't actually understand it on any more sophisticated level than those that deny it - and so arguments resort to vitriol instead of logic. And I think that lack of knowledge is far more transparent than most people realize. So you end up with two sides, equally uninformed, slinging mud at one another and both taking their own self assigned moral high-ground.
The point here is that refusing to discuss things or scolding adults for holding such views, does not make them go away - and I think there is a very strong argument to be made that it does quite the opposite. For the most extreme example, one needs only look to who is currently the head of our country. And in this desire to refuse to even discuss things with people, 'we' even did things such as managing to pressure Elon Musk into drawing a line and ultimately leaving the president's advisory council. And was that a good idea? He's still just as legitimate a president with just as much control. The only difference is now there's one fewer voice of logic and reason trying to encourage him to do the right thing. And while those voices may ultimately have failed to achieve anything, their absence makes such a possibility a foregone conclusion.
Your less controversial example doesn't quite map, though, because climate change is something that can be tested and observed; like you said, you can construct experiments at home to help people understand it.
There's no experiment I can construct that helps people understand that black people are people too. There's no science I can point to which establishes that women should be treated the same as men. There's no journal I can cite that explains why Jews don't deserve to be rounded up and exterminated. Stuff like that is axiomatic; I can't construct a logical argument to show you that people deserve to be treated like people, it's just the case. If you think that some subgroup of humanity is less than human, I'm probably not going to be very effective at changing your mind; any counterexample I show you can be written off with "well, they're some of the ~good ones~, but it's all the others who are the problem". Change really has to come from within on this one.
And I think your extreme example of our president kind of works in my favour, as opposed to yours. Trump said and did (and continues to say and do) a lot of extremely heinous shit. We have him on video discussing how much he loves to assault women, and how they just let him do it. And instead of saying "No, that's not acceptable, full stop. This is wrong and people who do this are wrong", there was a lot of "oh well it's just boy talk, they were just chatting like boys do in the locker room, it wasn't really sexual assault because he said the women let him do it", and it turned into a debate about whether or not sexually assaulting women is wrong and whether or not bragging about sexually assaulting women is wrong. And now Trump is president, despite the fact that he habitually sexually assaulted women and is proud of the fact that he habitually sexually assaulted women. By providing a platform for logical debate of something that is heinous, the heinous action gained legitimacy and ended up being okay.
There's no experiment I can construct that helps people understand that black people are people too. There's no science I can point to which establishes that women should be treated the same as men. There's no journal I can cite that explains why Jews don't deserve to be rounded up and exterminated. Stuff like that is axiomatic; I can't construct a logical argument to show you that people deserve to be treated like people, it's just the case. If you think that some subgroup of humanity is less than human, I'm probably not going to be very effective at changing your mind; any counterexample I show you can be written off with "well, they're some of the ~good ones~, but it's all the others who are the problem". Change really has to come from within on this one.
And I think your extreme example of our president kind of works in my favour, as opposed to yours. Trump said and did (and continues to say and do) a lot of extremely heinous shit. We have him on video discussing how much he loves to assault women, and how they just let him do it. And instead of saying "No, that's not acceptable, full stop. This is wrong and people who do this are wrong", there was a lot of "oh well it's just boy talk, they were just chatting like boys do in the locker room, it wasn't really sexual assault because he said the women let him do it", and it turned into a debate about whether or not sexually assaulting women is wrong and whether or not bragging about sexually assaulting women is wrong. And now Trump is president, despite the fact that he habitually sexually assaulted women and is proud of the fact that he habitually sexually assaulted women. By providing a platform for logical debate of something that is heinous, the heinous action gained legitimacy and ended up being okay.
While trust can be helpful, I don't see that trust is in any way a "prerequisite."
One can apply the principle of charity, without developing trust with another.
One can strive for objectivity, without trust.
One can allow that they might be wrong, without trust.
One can be aware of their biological responses to their own thoughts and feelings, and the consequences these have, without trusting another.
Edit: Trust may (?) be a sufficient condition, but is not a necessary condition.
One can apply the principle of charity, without developing trust with another.
One can strive for objectivity, without trust.
One can allow that they might be wrong, without trust.
One can be aware of their biological responses to their own thoughts and feelings, and the consequences these have, without trusting another.
Edit: Trust may (?) be a sufficient condition, but is not a necessary condition.
This is tricky because there are lots of people who "ask questions" just to avoid admitting that they are a bigot.
If you are genuinely seeking new information, great! But you should do your homework first, which includes finding the right person to ask the question to.
If you are genuinely seeking new information, great! But you should do your homework first, which includes finding the right person to ask the question to.
> This is tricky because there are lots of people who "ask questions" just to avoid admitting that they are a bigot.
I am confused on how this would work in practice. What kinds of questions do you propose these bigoted people are asking?
I am confused on how this would work in practice. What kinds of questions do you propose these bigoted people are asking?
"Why should I pay into social welfare programs when I've worked so hard to get where I am?"
Implies people who have to take on welfare as sustenance haven't worked hard enough, and so are undeserving of any help, are therefore inferior and an unjust drain on resources ... and you can take that down the road a little while depending on context ...
edit: Tucker Carlson on Fox News does this very often.
Implies people who have to take on welfare as sustenance haven't worked hard enough, and so are undeserving of any help, are therefore inferior and an unjust drain on resources ... and you can take that down the road a little while depending on context ...
edit: Tucker Carlson on Fox News does this very often.
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Does "bigoted" really apply to a disdain for perceived laziness?
The bigotry is not the disdain for laziness, which is just plain nastiness and a fundamental lack of empathy and human understanding. The bigotry comes first, in the perception of laziness itself. Who is perceived to be lazy? Hard working working-class whites, or lazy working-class blacks living on the dole?
Why do you assume that comment is about African Americans?
See: Lee Atwater - https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-inf...
In particular, paragraph 2
In particular, paragraph 2
Lenin believed “The goal of Socialism is Communism.”, thus all socialists are really communists in disguise is some equally flawed logic from the other side of the aisle. Just because one person on a side of a political spectrum was horrible doesn't mean you get to throw all of those ideas out with the bathwater.
I think you missed my point. You asked why he would assume it was African-Americans as the subject of the proposed example of a bigoted question. That link is to a direct example of why, and emblematic of a larger pattern.
"What about this guy" doesn't really help here.
Are you arguing that it's a bad example, or asking in good faith why it is a good example?
"What about this guy" doesn't really help here.
Are you arguing that it's a bad example, or asking in good faith why it is a good example?
In this very thread I was accused of asking one of these "bigoted questions". I hold no hatred towards any race of people nor am I a big fan of the GOP. I am certainly not a operative of the GOP attempting to swing votes for them. So I just don't understand how this is remotely related to be honest. Quite frankly this all seems like an attempt to limit speech by a political ideology that seems to crumble when debated.
Because it is, always, every time it's brought up, every time it's stated. Sometimes people are clever and hide their racism in a few layers of "look at this lazy white person! I don't like him either!" but dig for a minute or so and you'll always find the truth. Occasionally it can be about other minorities, which you are correct to point out -- Hispanic Americans, etc.
But my two hypothetical quotes were simply examples of the attitude that is so common, not explicitly trying to accurately characterize the parent or GP.
But my two hypothetical quotes were simply examples of the attitude that is so common, not explicitly trying to accurately characterize the parent or GP.
I think that is a characterization that you have likely often heard repeated in the media and thus I can't fault you for but statistically speaking white native born Americans make up the majority of food stamp (and most other similar programs are the same) recipients. I take issue with these programs personally because I believe they do more to suppress wages then they do to increase quality of life for people. Perhaps some misguided racists would make claims like you have asserted but frankly those claims don't even make any sense and thus in my opinion can be dismissed.
The prevailing thought and media narrative can never be dismissed, no matter its factual basis or lack thereof. If it is not identified explicitly and challenged, it anchors the starting point of all discussion and thereby sets the bounds for it.
That’s not bigotry, that’s a disdain for human rights. The point of welfare is to ensure people have access to basic human rights like housing, food, health care, education. The whole thing about human rights is that you don’t have to do anything to deserve them and can do nothing to lose them. They are rights, not privileges.
I’m pretty sure there is not nearly enough consensus on this to just casually assert it.
Loaded ones, eg:
"Why should I pay for taxes to support single mothers just so black men don't have to pay child support?"
Now, I think we should still encourage them to ask those kinds of questions, because I believe in an open and liberal society and that the best reaction to poor thinking is to address it directly, that the answer to speech I don't like is more speech. But it's pretty easy for some really racist opinions about others to hide behind questions like that.
Of course, there are also some uncomfortable truths in those questions which cause us to silence them, such as -- "Are the disparaties we see in racial groups purely the effect of lingering racial bias, or is there a modern cultural component that happens to align with racial groups and perpetuates the inequality?" (And in this case -- the more general, is there a disparity in the fatherhood rates that correlates with racial grouping?)
Ed: I think the people downvoting proved someone upthread's point -- I literally provided an example I've heard of such a question and got downvoted for providing facts to a discussion.
"Why should I pay for taxes to support single mothers just so black men don't have to pay child support?"
Now, I think we should still encourage them to ask those kinds of questions, because I believe in an open and liberal society and that the best reaction to poor thinking is to address it directly, that the answer to speech I don't like is more speech. But it's pretty easy for some really racist opinions about others to hide behind questions like that.
Of course, there are also some uncomfortable truths in those questions which cause us to silence them, such as -- "Are the disparaties we see in racial groups purely the effect of lingering racial bias, or is there a modern cultural component that happens to align with racial groups and perpetuates the inequality?" (And in this case -- the more general, is there a disparity in the fatherhood rates that correlates with racial grouping?)
Ed: I think the people downvoting proved someone upthread's point -- I literally provided an example I've heard of such a question and got downvoted for providing facts to a discussion.
I appreciate the answer despite the down votes you have received. It seems we are talking about questions that have a false premise as welfare programs do not eliminate a fathers requirement to pay child support if I am understanding you correctly. That seems to have less to do with bigotry specifically and more to do with a poor understanding of a situation.
We could (and I have) had whole discussions unpacking the thinking around that quote. There are multiple levels of racism (and other -isms), misunderstanding, and legitimate concerns that could be being expressed. Assuming that it's just "a false premise" (though, there's many false or questionable factual premises -- eg, program targets mothers not single parents; most single mothers have children with black fathers; support programs have anything to do with child support) without really investiating what else it might mean is too dismissive -- it's shouting "tree!" then being proud without ever seeing that there might be a forest.
I takes time, effort, and empathy to try and unpack the real meaning behind questions like that -- effort that we don't invest when we allow ourselves the shortcut of just calling them "racist" to end the conversation.
I don't think we can move forward as a society -- and are even regressing -- because we've stopped unpacking what the other person is trying to say and started short-circuiting that process of human interaction with thought terminating cliches. It sincerely scares me how many people derive great joy in that kind of unthinking censorship.
I takes time, effort, and empathy to try and unpack the real meaning behind questions like that -- effort that we don't invest when we allow ourselves the shortcut of just calling them "racist" to end the conversation.
I don't think we can move forward as a society -- and are even regressing -- because we've stopped unpacking what the other person is trying to say and started short-circuiting that process of human interaction with thought terminating cliches. It sincerely scares me how many people derive great joy in that kind of unthinking censorship.
I disagree. We shouldn't encourage those questions from being asked, especially when the only reason they are being asked is to demonstrate someone's bigotry, and spread that bigotry and attempt to make it more mainstream. If you honestly want to ask a question like that, do so in the second manner you showed.
Has that method successfully prevented bigots from collaborating, growing, and exerting political influences -- say in elections over the past year?
I'm not saying we give them a megaphone, but if bigotry is prevalent (and it seems to be), then the best antidote is to expose it and address that directly.
Why?
Simple. Bigots are bigots for reasons -- even if they're not (in our esteem) good ones. You can't address the symptom (bigotry) without addressing the cause (those reasons).
Your method only leads to wounds festering under bandages, and not the exposure and cleansing we need for healing.
I'm not saying we give them a megaphone, but if bigotry is prevalent (and it seems to be), then the best antidote is to expose it and address that directly.
Why?
Simple. Bigots are bigots for reasons -- even if they're not (in our esteem) good ones. You can't address the symptom (bigotry) without addressing the cause (those reasons).
Your method only leads to wounds festering under bandages, and not the exposure and cleansing we need for healing.
At the same time, what you're suggesting encourages the constant dumping on marginalized people with those "questions". Constantly being assailed like that takes its toll, and can lead to those people withdrawing from social media, removing their point of view from the discourse, and emboldening that of the bigots.
> Constantly being assailed like that takes its toll, and can lead to those people withdrawing from social media, removing their point of view from the discourse, and emboldening that of the bigots.
From my understanding of social media, it hasn't been workable trying to stop outright racist comments being hurled at those marginalized people -- so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea. That's the kind of squeamish bargaining done by people without the stomach to tackle complex or hard topics: "Can't we all just get along without it being messy!"
Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that?
This is, for the moment, setting aside that we could work with technology to do better at time/place of those questions and filtering so the stream isn't overwhelming for (or even involuntarily sent to) any particular marginalized person. And so at a technical level, you're solving the problem in an inefficient way (trying to legislate human nature versus changing how we route text online).
From my understanding of social media, it hasn't been workable trying to stop outright racist comments being hurled at those marginalized people -- so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea. That's the kind of squeamish bargaining done by people without the stomach to tackle complex or hard topics: "Can't we all just get along without it being messy!"
Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that?
This is, for the moment, setting aside that we could work with technology to do better at time/place of those questions and filtering so the stream isn't overwhelming for (or even involuntarily sent to) any particular marginalized person. And so at a technical level, you're solving the problem in an inefficient way (trying to legislate human nature versus changing how we route text online).
"From my understanding of social media, it hasn't been workable trying to stop outright racist comments being hurled at those marginalized people"
More so that it just hasn't been tried.
"so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea."
What do you mean by "addressing the cause"? Taking the leading question seriously? That clearly hasn't worked. The answers to those things are out there. The people repeating these questions are not interested in answers. They just want to get their bigotry out there to try and make it seem mainstream.
"Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that?"
But your answer is like, "Let's amputate the leg!" When the infection is nowhere near the leg.
More so that it just hasn't been tried.
"so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea."
What do you mean by "addressing the cause"? Taking the leading question seriously? That clearly hasn't worked. The answers to those things are out there. The people repeating these questions are not interested in answers. They just want to get their bigotry out there to try and make it seem mainstream.
"Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that?"
But your answer is like, "Let's amputate the leg!" When the infection is nowhere near the leg.
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>cbhl: This is tricky because there are lots of people who "ask questions" just to avoid admitting that they are a bigot.
>>KekDemaga: I am confused on how this would work in practice. What kinds of questions do you propose these bigoted people are asking?
Crazy to watch a near-literal explosion in this arguably off-topic sub-discussion "just" asking for concrete examples of loaded questions. Am I the only one hearing the imaginary yet ear-splittingly-loud whooshing sound (going "over their head") as people are gearing up and jumping in here? What an amazing demonstration of the power of words as HN users can't resist reacting to examples of inflamatory questions even when they are specifically requested and provided (some even with disclaimers) _as examples_!
As an aside, it is almost impossible for me to even begin to differentiate between the naive/geniune vs. trolls vs. devils advocates vs. others (hope that covers most of the bases) at all levels of this sub-thread.
>>KekDemaga: I am confused on how this would work in practice. What kinds of questions do you propose these bigoted people are asking?
Crazy to watch a near-literal explosion in this arguably off-topic sub-discussion "just" asking for concrete examples of loaded questions. Am I the only one hearing the imaginary yet ear-splittingly-loud whooshing sound (going "over their head") as people are gearing up and jumping in here? What an amazing demonstration of the power of words as HN users can't resist reacting to examples of inflamatory questions even when they are specifically requested and provided (some even with disclaimers) _as examples_!
As an aside, it is almost impossible for me to even begin to differentiate between the naive/geniune vs. trolls vs. devils advocates vs. others (hope that covers most of the bases) at all levels of this sub-thread.
"Why do blacks even have a problem with the police? If they stop breaking laws, wouldn't they stop getting harassed/killed?"
That would be a totally legitimate question, if we lived in a colour-blind world. Or in a world where institutional racism has not been well-documented for decades. Or a world where driving while black was not a reason to get pulled over. We don't, though.
Or, the Canadian equivalent:
"Why are natives complaining about the government, when they don't pay any taxes?"
That would be a totally legitimate question, if we lived in a world where native people did not pay taxes. We don't, though.
That would be a totally legitimate question, if we lived in a colour-blind world. Or in a world where institutional racism has not been well-documented for decades. Or a world where driving while black was not a reason to get pulled over. We don't, though.
Or, the Canadian equivalent:
"Why are natives complaining about the government, when they don't pay any taxes?"
That would be a totally legitimate question, if we lived in a world where native people did not pay taxes. We don't, though.
> "Why do blacks even have a problem with the police? If they stop breaking laws, wouldn't they stop getting harassed/killed?"
That actually sounds like quite an important question to ask. And difficult to phrase without sounding racist, which makes it even more important to ask.
If you assume someone is more racist than average just because they ask such a question, you are the bigot.
That actually sounds like quite an important question to ask. And difficult to phrase without sounding racist, which makes it even more important to ask.
If you assume someone is more racist than average just because they ask such a question, you are the bigot.
"Why do blacks even have a problem with the police" is an excellent question. The correct answer is "because the police disproportionately arrest them far more for behaving the same way as whites" and "because the police often murder them on the street in cold blood and face no repercussions" and "because the police are known to explicitly harbor white nationalist sympathizers and explicitly make racist comments publicly, in official internal communications, and informally in person". And finally "because the police as an institution in the US is primarily a force designed to protect property, and at its inception property was black slaves; traditionally, the US police are a psuedo-military force whose primary reason for existing was to chase runaway slaves".
If your follow up to "Why do blacks even have a problem with the police?" is "all they have to do is stop commiting crimes!" then it is the second statement that is explicitly racist. With the second statement you make the claim that the fault of police abuse lies in the abused, not the abusers, and that black people have no reason to mistrust the police except for the obvious fact that they are criminals.
If your follow up to "Why do blacks even have a problem with the police?" is "all they have to do is stop commiting crimes!" then it is the second statement that is explicitly racist. With the second statement you make the claim that the fault of police abuse lies in the abused, not the abusers, and that black people have no reason to mistrust the police except for the obvious fact that they are criminals.
"Why did native Americans have a problem with settlers? If they had just stopped killing people..."
The racist part is that the question assumes there is no precursor, or unstated factors.
The racist part is that the question assumes there is no precursor, or unstated factors.
Social and Developmental History of the United States goes largely ignored by choice and hidden by agenda. It is a shame people do not examine this country's history more, and know that certain dynamics have been in place for decades, and that only a heartfelt change of attitude on the societal level will have any lasting impact in ameliorating the divide.
if you are a bigot then your range of questions and the people to put them to would be inherently limited.
"What kinds of questions do you propose these bigoted people are asking?"
Watch the Glenn Beck show from the Obama years. He was a master of it.
However, if you're saying things which are indistinguishable from "malicious input", don't be surprised if you're flagged as malicious.
> what's so frustrating about discussing a topic these days
> you get labeled a bigot
You've just said in your own post that if a topic or the way it's discussed upsets someone, that's their problem. So the fact that you find this stuff frustrating is your problem, no?
> what's so frustrating about discussing a topic these days
> you get labeled a bigot
You've just said in your own post that if a topic or the way it's discussed upsets someone, that's their problem. So the fact that you find this stuff frustrating is your problem, no?
It's hard to be devils advocate without being mistaken for a devil.
Especially given that the number of supposed devil's advocates who are pretty clearly devils.
When exactly has the devil needed an advocate? From what I've seen, he tends to be perfectly capable of defending himself.
The Devil’s Advocate is the term used by people who make an argument against a stance they actually support.
It’s something you do when preparing an argument for a debate. It’s an attempt to understand and defend an argument or point of view from the opposing side.
It’s a thing that has a couple of benefits.
1. You can prepare against counter-arguments better if you try to understand something different from what you think is true or correct.
2. You can use a devil’s advocate to refine your own point of view if you’re willing to have some level of sympathy with the with a person who disagrees with you.
It’s a common device, and very useful. Your thoughts about your logic are probably not perfectly logical and probably not totally correct. So if someone engages you from the point of view of the devil, it’s like someone who agrees with you testing your logic and reasoning
It’s something you do when preparing an argument for a debate. It’s an attempt to understand and defend an argument or point of view from the opposing side.
It’s a thing that has a couple of benefits.
1. You can prepare against counter-arguments better if you try to understand something different from what you think is true or correct.
2. You can use a devil’s advocate to refine your own point of view if you’re willing to have some level of sympathy with the with a person who disagrees with you.
It’s a common device, and very useful. Your thoughts about your logic are probably not perfectly logical and probably not totally correct. So if someone engages you from the point of view of the devil, it’s like someone who agrees with you testing your logic and reasoning
The devil's advocate ("advocatus diaboli") is the person who is in charge of arguing _against_ making someone a Saint of the Catholic Church.
Well sure but I'm not using such frustration to shut down conversation or label offenders with politically or socially charged language intended to attack their character (I didn't call everyone a fascist, for example). My point would be the same if I replaced frustration with "it's intellectually dishonest" (the root of my frustration). Although I don't prefer them, I don't think it's possible to ignore all anecdotal points in a discussion. And it's also possible to present and explore an anecdote that runs contrary to your logical stance.
> Anyone should be allowed to question and explore a topic without having to issue trigger warnings or generally be expected to manage the "visceral" response their questions might evoke from a bystander observing the discussion or even the participants.
That's a non-sequitur.
The author is a researcher responding to statements he read/heard from a justice who isn't an expert in that particular field. His main point is the premises underlying the justice's questions reveal a misconception, quite apart from the justice's intent. He's also addressing a general audience in a newspaper, not the Supreme Court, so his intent to clarify misconceptions without regard to the Supreme Court justice's method of inquiry is perfectly reasonable.
Furthermore, each argument the author puts forward is not a "visceral response", but instead is supported by links to research. The only thing that could conceivably be different if the quoted justice were, say, Ginsburg, is the author writing a clause opining that she was probably playing devil's advocate.
But to shoehorn "trigger warnings", "identity politics", and false labels of bigotry into that discussion is as silly as talking about how the Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.
That's a non-sequitur.
The author is a researcher responding to statements he read/heard from a justice who isn't an expert in that particular field. His main point is the premises underlying the justice's questions reveal a misconception, quite apart from the justice's intent. He's also addressing a general audience in a newspaper, not the Supreme Court, so his intent to clarify misconceptions without regard to the Supreme Court justice's method of inquiry is perfectly reasonable.
Furthermore, each argument the author puts forward is not a "visceral response", but instead is supported by links to research. The only thing that could conceivably be different if the quoted justice were, say, Ginsburg, is the author writing a clause opining that she was probably playing devil's advocate.
But to shoehorn "trigger warnings", "identity politics", and false labels of bigotry into that discussion is as silly as talking about how the Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.
I'm supporting the parent comment not responding to the article. Sorry if that's not clear.
I thought the parent commenter was describing a conflict between the interests of the court and the interests of the researcher. That may be a very narrow subset of the more egregious problems you mentioned, but it's a narrow subset that doesn't share most of the dangers of ideological echo chambers. If Eric McGhee and Justice Alito sat shared a train ride, I have no doubt they'd leave knowing more about each other's field than when they started. Replace them with two HN commenters who started out calling each other a bigot and an SJW, respectively, and I doubt they'd learn anything.
> reducing that exploration to a proxy for your worldview and consequently making character judgements or finding a way to get offended to the point where the identity politics card gets played
The problem with the internet is that you only get one comment to say who you are and what you believe. No one knows what else you think about the world, no one knows if you're trolling or for real, and no one can see you as a flesh-and-blood person with a perspective distinct from others unless they go out of their way to. They just see a string of text in among a bunch of other strings of text and react to it.
The problem with the internet is that you only get one comment to say who you are and what you believe. No one knows what else you think about the world, no one knows if you're trolling or for real, and no one can see you as a flesh-and-blood person with a perspective distinct from others unless they go out of their way to. They just see a string of text in among a bunch of other strings of text and react to it.
Why do "identity-politics"-politics people drag "identity-politics" into every conversation?
Historically, it seemed to me that many teachers (at all levels) took pains to prepare students to handle disagreement in a healthy way.
More recently, it seems that our culture has changed, and that students are being not just indulged, but even encouraged to respond in the unfortunate manner that you describe.
More recently, it seems that our culture has changed, and that students are being not just indulged, but even encouraged to respond in the unfortunate manner that you describe.
This is sort of a silly argument.
While the average/composite justice might ask devil's advocate questions, most the coverage of this issue is also taking into account the individual personalities and histories of the folks asking the questions.
So, it means something different if Justice Ginsburg asks a question vs Justice Roberts.
In the age of Trump, I think it's far more dangerous to assume politicians and judges don't really mean what they say, than for this author to vigorously defend his work and opinion.
Having read the article, it's clear that Alito represented a fundamental misunderstanding of the author's research. It would be irresponsible for him not to respond and clarify.
While the average/composite justice might ask devil's advocate questions, most the coverage of this issue is also taking into account the individual personalities and histories of the folks asking the questions.
So, it means something different if Justice Ginsburg asks a question vs Justice Roberts.
In the age of Trump, I think it's far more dangerous to assume politicians and judges don't really mean what they say, than for this author to vigorously defend his work and opinion.
Having read the article, it's clear that Alito represented a fundamental misunderstanding of the author's research. It would be irresponsible for him not to respond and clarify.
Probably it’s the job of whoever he was asking to correct him, not he himself?
lol this username.
On examination of the evidence, the motive for a questioning supreme court justice is leaning to supporting the other side.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-justice-kennedys-s...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-justice-kennedys-s...
It's a surprisingly modest lean:
> That data shows that Kennedy is no different from the rest of the court: You don’t want to be on the receiving end of his questions. When Kennedy votes for the respondent (which would be the Wisconsin Democrats, in this case) he directs 93.3 words to them (57.5 percent of his speech). When he votes against the respondent, he directs 102.0 words to them (61.1 percent of his speech).
> That data shows that Kennedy is no different from the rest of the court: You don’t want to be on the receiving end of his questions. When Kennedy votes for the respondent (which would be the Wisconsin Democrats, in this case) he directs 93.3 words to them (57.5 percent of his speech). When he votes against the respondent, he directs 102.0 words to them (61.1 percent of his speech).
I was chose lean instead of favor purposefully! But Kennedy's zero/all the words ratio for this case may tip his hand.
> Historically, he directed zero words toward the party he went on to vote for 272 times, out of 1,022 cases in this data set. He directed zero words toward the party he wound up voting against only 177 times.
So about a 60%-40% split when he has zero words. It does look like he is leaning in favor of the Wisconsin Democrats, but still far from a sure thing.
So about a 60%-40% split when he has zero words. It does look like he is leaning in favor of the Wisconsin Democrats, but still far from a sure thing.
Yep, I wasn't suggesting your summary was inaccurate. I just found it really interesting and wanted to share.
The questions a justice asks can often be an indication of where they stand on an issue. It's a way for them to tell the other justices their beliefs. If Alito is spouting off misleading or incorrect facts, then this person should feel compelled to defend their work.
That's true for the statements justices make, not the questions. The two appear together in oral arguments
That's not necessarily true. Justices most certainly ask questions they may personally not need clarifying on in order to plant the question in their colleagues' mind. Oral argument , historically and currently, is still an arena for Justices to share opinions and try to influence one another.
The problem is that a supreme court justice, Samuel Alito, with a conservative agenda, is cherry-picking older papers that relied on research from 1970-1990, before partisan gerrymandering really picked up steam, and using that to try and muddle the waters.
Supreme court justices are supposed to be impartial - this is why the statue of justice has a blindfold on. It's frankly abhorrent that we have such partisan hacks in this role.
Supreme court justices are supposed to be impartial - this is why the statue of justice has a blindfold on. It's frankly abhorrent that we have such partisan hacks in this role.
Having one's work discussed by the supreme court is pretty incredible. It might just be a way to continue the conversation and raise awareness of what is undoubtedly a pretty obscure subject, that you've dedicated a significant part of your life to.
In that respect, "there were some misconceptions" seems to be the link-bait, white washed with integrity and civility.
In that respect, "there were some misconceptions" seems to be the link-bait, white washed with integrity and civility.
It becomes an issue if the justice writes this misunderstanding of the research into their opinion. I think the researcher is merely trying to get their story out ahead of that possibility, just in case.
The same happens often when you report something to top management. I have been in meetings where the top guys took something I wrote and drew the totally wrong conclusions without me having the opportunity to clarify.
It can be frustrating but i guess that's how hierarchical organizations work.
It can be frustrating but i guess that's how hierarchical organizations work.
I never understand why at large proportional voting systems are never even considered. Even without gerrymandering, district based plurality elections are an extremely flawed system. Imagine we have a perfectly well distributed state - 35% democrat, 30% republican, 20% libertarian, 15% green. And we draw up perfectly fair lines for our 10 representatives. And this state now has their election. What any person would rationally expect would be about 3.5 democratic representatives, 3 republican representatives, 2 libertarian representatives, and about 1.5 green representatives. Instead we get 100% democratic representatives as they get a plurality of votes in each district. 35% of the support, no gerrymandering whatsoever, and 100% of the seats. I don't see how anybody can find this system defensible, let alone desirable.
And this is even more true now a days where geographic vicinity to a representative doesn't really mean much of anything. In the times these laws were drawn up good chunks of the population would have known their representatives personally, or at worst have a very minimal number of degrees of separation. So there would be some good argument for having geographically close representatives. In today's society we're very disconnected from our representatives, physically and metaphorically. There's no intimacy between constituent, so much as we can even be considered constituents anymore, and representative. They're simply the person we send our letters to and whom gets to respond with focus tested form letters.
And this is even more true now a days where geographic vicinity to a representative doesn't really mean much of anything. In the times these laws were drawn up good chunks of the population would have known their representatives personally, or at worst have a very minimal number of degrees of separation. So there would be some good argument for having geographically close representatives. In today's society we're very disconnected from our representatives, physically and metaphorically. There's no intimacy between constituent, so much as we can even be considered constituents anymore, and representative. They're simply the person we send our letters to and whom gets to respond with focus tested form letters.
Several US states have in fact had a various times at-large representatives (most notably Hawaii and New Mexico since the time they were admitted into the Union). In 1967, the Single-Member Districting Mandate (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/2c) was passed to mandate geographically based single-member districts. One reason it was passed was because of fears that southern states would use at-large districts to dilute the black vote. The other is that at the time, Indiana was under court-order to elect all 11 of its representatives at-large unless it could come up with a satisifactory districting plan. This was an attempt by Congress to claw back some power from the judiciary after the 1962 Baker case declaring the one-person/one-vote principle that districts must be of roughly equal population. I think that it is an interesting debate and definitely doesn't get talked about enough (or at all!) in school.
Interesting. I had always thought that moving to a proportional system would require a Constitutional amendment, which seems like a virtually impossible bar to clear, but if that law is constitutional, would Congress also be able to mandate that all states elect their representatives at-large using proportional representation?
This is very interesting. Why was it thought that at-large districts would dilute the black vote? Blacks were a minority in every southern state, I believe, so naively one would think that they would stand to benefit from at-large districts and suffer from gerrymandering. The only way I can think this might not happen is if the plan were to only have a very small number of the representatives (like one) be at-large, but presumably the relevant proposal should be to have all representatives be elected on an at-large basis (?)
This is because an at-large system isn't the same as a proportional representation system. In an at-large system, 51 percent of voters can still control 100 percent of the seats. This is because each voter gets one vote per seat. For example, if a hypothetical state had 5 Representatives elected on at at-large basis, and 51% of the state favored one party, they could win 51% of the vote for each seat, and win every seat.
It may be true that no state had a Black majority in the 1960s, but several states did have a Black majority until the 20th century. From Wikipedia:
Three Southern states had populations that were majority black: Louisiana (until about 1890), South Carolina (until the 1920s) and Mississippi (from the 1830s to the 1930s).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_minority
Three Southern states had populations that were majority black: Louisiana (until about 1890), South Carolina (until the 1920s) and Mississippi (from the 1830s to the 1930s).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_minority
Germany has a very clever system of electing representatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany#Vo...
1. You vote both for an individual in your district and for a party.
2. Individuals win via a plurality of their district, like in the US
3. The rest of the Bundestag is filled up from party lists so that as much as possible the final proportion of parties matches proportion of party votes.
Applying it to your example and doubling the representative count, there would be 10 directly elected Democratic representatives. The rest would be distributed proportionately among Republican, Libertarian, and Green.
In practice you don't actually get the directly elected seats all coming from one party, so in reality you end up with a roughly 35%/30%/20%/15% breakdown in the end.
That way you can have some direct representation of your region, which I'd assert has some utility, without sacrificing proportional "accuracy".
(I'm skipping a couple subtleties here, but that's the gist as I understand it.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany#Vo...
1. You vote both for an individual in your district and for a party.
2. Individuals win via a plurality of their district, like in the US
3. The rest of the Bundestag is filled up from party lists so that as much as possible the final proportion of parties matches proportion of party votes.
Applying it to your example and doubling the representative count, there would be 10 directly elected Democratic representatives. The rest would be distributed proportionately among Republican, Libertarian, and Green.
In practice you don't actually get the directly elected seats all coming from one party, so in reality you end up with a roughly 35%/30%/20%/15% breakdown in the end.
That way you can have some direct representation of your region, which I'd assert has some utility, without sacrificing proportional "accuracy".
(I'm skipping a couple subtleties here, but that's the gist as I understand it.)
Doesn't this create a two tier system where the directly elected representatives hold a proper mandate and those on the party list are relegated to the back seats of power?
On the flip side, having each representative tied to a particular locality makes sense from a service delivery standpoint. If there are potholes in your street, you contact the city council member from your district. And if they aren't responsive to your needs, you vote for a replacement. I think it's a mistake to think that locality doesn't matter just because of improvements in transportation and communication.
At the risk of devolving the thread into political flamebait, the issue isn't geographic vicinity or physical and metaphorical disconnect. It's a financial disconnect: the money funding representatives comes outside the constituency. All of the other issues you described stem from that.
See: The refusal of representatives to hold town halls. They literally don't represent their constituents anymore.
See: The refusal of representatives to hold town halls. They literally don't represent their constituents anymore.
This is a different issue. No reason we can't also fix gerrymandering. Also, while outside money certainly is an issue, there is still research showing the limited effectiveness of money in politics. It only goes so far, whereas siloing opposing voters can be at least as effective, and more permanent.
Agreed. There's been some movement towards better voting systems, but proportional voting seems consistently to be bottom of the barrel of priorities.
http://www.fairvote.org/ - Promotes IRV, and I think they were in favor of proportional representation, but I can't seem to find the pages now (go figure).
http://www.equal.vote/ - Promotes a customized score voting system, which seems more solid than IRV from my reading, but no mention of proportional representation.
It's too bad, really, I'd be hugely in favor if something like this came up in a CA statewide ballot/proposition.
http://www.fairvote.org/ - Promotes IRV, and I think they were in favor of proportional representation, but I can't seem to find the pages now (go figure).
http://www.equal.vote/ - Promotes a customized score voting system, which seems more solid than IRV from my reading, but no mention of proportional representation.
It's too bad, really, I'd be hugely in favor if something like this came up in a CA statewide ballot/proposition.
Proportional representation is definitely a big part of FairVote's agenda. They have a bill in Congress right now around electing members of Congress from multi-member districts using STV -- of which IRV is the single-winner variant. It is called the Fair Representation Act:
http://www.fairvote.org/the_fair_representation_act_has_been...
http://www.fairvote.org/the_fair_representation_act_has_been...
All it takes is an amendment to a state constitution to change how one of the houses of its legislature is elected. Sounds lovely. Can even do this by direct democracy ballot initiative in a handful of states, let's do it!
This is simply not true. The us constitution demands geographical representation of the House. State constitutions can not change this only us constitutional amendment can.
Edit: After rereading the parent again I think he might be talking about the state house not us house.
Edit: After rereading the parent again I think he might be talking about the state house not us house.
Actually, it is an act of Congress that mandates single-member geographical districts (1967 Single-Member District Mandate). Several states over the years have had at-large districts, and it has been a debate since at least the 1842 Apportionment Act. The debate has gone from one focused on federalism (states should decide how to elect reps) to equal protection (black people should get not get drowned out by racist southern states. flip side, gerrymandering is easy to do, hard to prevent). Nothing in the US Constitution prevents at-large House reps.
There is only a requirement that the voters of the state elect members of the US House. How that is done is not specified.
That it is subject to regulation by Congress is specified in the Constitution, and Congress has acted under that power and mandated single-member, geographic districts.
until the Justice Department gets involved and insures minority candidates have adequate chances based on the Voting Rights Act. This creates a problem where one party is effectively eliminated from a district while the opposite party may be weakened outside of it.
It's not the Constitution but rather a federal law that was passed in 1967. FairVote's Fair Representation Act, which was introduced in Congress this year, seeks to change that for example.
Geographical representation means that Congress critters have direct responsibility to a well defined set of constituents. So you can't make up for closing a factory on one side of the state by making new friends on the other side of the state.
Furthermore, you have to decide which reps stay on when an election reduces the number of reps. Who makes that choice? In parliamentary systems, the party does. But in the US, elections are (mostly for the worse, imho) ultimately about the individual representative: voters have a chance to say 'THIS guy is an asshole' and vote him out, instead of giving the party discretion as to whether to drop the entrenched asshole or kick out the newcomer...
Furthermore, you have to decide which reps stay on when an election reduces the number of reps. Who makes that choice? In parliamentary systems, the party does. But in the US, elections are (mostly for the worse, imho) ultimately about the individual representative: voters have a chance to say 'THIS guy is an asshole' and vote him out, instead of giving the party discretion as to whether to drop the entrenched asshole or kick out the newcomer...
You wouldn't decide that at the next election?
> I never understand why at large proportional voting systems are never even considered.
Party-list proportional systems reduce the accountability of individual representatives to the general electorate, transferring that accountability to those setting the party list.
You can get much better proportionality than single member districts provide without abandoning direct accountability (e.g., by using STV or a similar system in districts of, say, 5 representatives.)
Party-list proportional systems reduce the accountability of individual representatives to the general electorate, transferring that accountability to those setting the party list.
You can get much better proportionality than single member districts provide without abandoning direct accountability (e.g., by using STV or a similar system in districts of, say, 5 representatives.)
Districts are popular when they work because local concerns may be divergent from state concerns, particularly in localities where the politics are at odds with the state as a whole, such as (conservative) eastern Oregon or (liberal) Atlanta, Georgia. While Oregon or Georgia might elect a contrarian representative in a PR election, such representative might not be as satisfying of a choice to residents of those districts.
I think the easiest "trial run" for proportional voting in the US is using two-winner elections (preferably Schulze but maybe traditional STV) to elect Senators, because this doesn't require any changes in representation. Unfortunately this is subject to game-theoretic problems because it tends to make the Senatorial output of a state less polarized (California might have one Republican and one Democrat instead of two Democrats), which could result in a political swing towards those states without proportional Senators (Wyoming might still elect two Republicans with FPTP).
I think the easiest "trial run" for proportional voting in the US is using two-winner elections (preferably Schulze but maybe traditional STV) to elect Senators, because this doesn't require any changes in representation. Unfortunately this is subject to game-theoretic problems because it tends to make the Senatorial output of a state less polarized (California might have one Republican and one Democrat instead of two Democrats), which could result in a political swing towards those states without proportional Senators (Wyoming might still elect two Republicans with FPTP).
> I think the easiest "trial run" for proportional voting in the US is using two-winner elections (preferably Schulze but maybe traditional STV) to elect Senators
The easiest trial run would be at the state level. Making each states Senators part of the same class instead of being from two of the three separate classes would require a Constitutional Amendment, since it would change the terms of some sitting Senators to something longer or shorter than the Constitutional 6-year terms.
It also (presuming Senate terms aren't changed besides what is necessary for transition) would mean each state would have six years between elections for the Senate rather than alternating 2- and 4-year intervals.
> Unfortunately this is subject to game-theoretic problems because it tends to make the Senatorial output of a state less polarized (California might have one Republican and one Democrat instead of two Democrats), which could result in a political swing towards those states without proportional Senators (Wyoming might still elect two Republicans with FPTP).
This can be mitigated by increasing the number of Senators per state; even 3/state would probably make it a non-issue, it would make 2/1 splits common initially, so you wouldn't have most states even with the others 2/0.
The easiest trial run would be at the state level. Making each states Senators part of the same class instead of being from two of the three separate classes would require a Constitutional Amendment, since it would change the terms of some sitting Senators to something longer or shorter than the Constitutional 6-year terms.
It also (presuming Senate terms aren't changed besides what is necessary for transition) would mean each state would have six years between elections for the Senate rather than alternating 2- and 4-year intervals.
> Unfortunately this is subject to game-theoretic problems because it tends to make the Senatorial output of a state less polarized (California might have one Republican and one Democrat instead of two Democrats), which could result in a political swing towards those states without proportional Senators (Wyoming might still elect two Republicans with FPTP).
This can be mitigated by increasing the number of Senators per state; even 3/state would probably make it a non-issue, it would make 2/1 splits common initially, so you wouldn't have most states even with the others 2/0.
Indeed. This is what FairVote has been fighting for in the past 5+ years, and it's already making some progress:
http://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation
http://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation
Sounds like a great way for a state to make itself politically irrelevant at the national level.
Most states already are irrelevant. Your vote in US elections don't count unless you live in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Wisconsin.
No, it counts, it's just those states have recently been competitive. But being competitive or not is just the aggregate effect of individual votes; and which states are competitive or dominated by one party or the other changes over time, sometimes quite rapidly. (Some of us can remember when, in Presidential elections, California was viewed as a Republican presidential lock.)
That's only true of the presidential election. Senators in states other than those can often go either way, and in the House it's pretty much district-by-district whether your vote matters.
Maine and Nebraska use a proportional vote so it matters there in some districts. Also Arizona, New Mexico, Missouri, and Georgia are usually battleground states.
Maine and Nebraska assign the votes corresponding to House seats to winners in each Congressional District, they do not use a proportional system.
Maybe I'm way off-base here, but I find it highly unlikely that Samuel Alito is going to rule in favor of reining in gerrymanders regardless of what he reads, and it seems much more likely that this is post-hoc reasoning on his part.
I don't think I agree with the author's characterization of Justice Alito's questions. The transcript is here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr....
The first quote comes from page 61-62:
> JUSTICE ALITO: You paint a very dire picture about gerrymandering and its effects, but I was struck by something in the seminal article by your expert, Mr. McGhee, and he says there, "I show that the effects of party control on bias are small and decay rapidly, suggesting that redistricting is at best a blunt tool for promoting partisan interests."
The author edits out the italicized portion, but that's probably what Justice Alito was focused on.
The second point is addressed at pages 42-44. Justice Alito states:
> And then a year later you bring this suit and you say: There it is, that is the constitutional standard. It's been finally - after 200 years, it's been finally discovered in this paper by a young researcher, who concludes in the end -- this is the end of his paper -- after saying symmetry and responsiveness have shown to be -- looked to be inappropriate, "The measure I have offered here, relative wasted votes, is arguably" - arguably -- "a more valid and flexible measure of -- of partisan -- of partisan gerrymandering."
> Now, is this -- is this the time for us to jump into this? Has there been a great body of scholarship that has tested this efficiency gap? It's full of questions.
The author's response misses the point. Law is not science. It iterates, but it's not free to change the rule every year to get incrementally better results. What's at stake in this case is nothing less than peoples' right to self determination. Both on the side of each person's vote counting fairly and equally, but also on the side of elected, sovereign state governments being permitted to run their elections without undue federal meddling.
It's one thing to say that this standard is better than what's come before. But that's not what the Justices care about. They want a rule they can carve into stone and leave in place for decades if not centuries hence.
I happen to think that the Supreme Court should affirm the district court's invalidation of Wisconsin's redistricting plan. But Justice Alito was asking questions that needed to be asked.
The first quote comes from page 61-62:
> JUSTICE ALITO: You paint a very dire picture about gerrymandering and its effects, but I was struck by something in the seminal article by your expert, Mr. McGhee, and he says there, "I show that the effects of party control on bias are small and decay rapidly, suggesting that redistricting is at best a blunt tool for promoting partisan interests."
The author edits out the italicized portion, but that's probably what Justice Alito was focused on.
The second point is addressed at pages 42-44. Justice Alito states:
> And then a year later you bring this suit and you say: There it is, that is the constitutional standard. It's been finally - after 200 years, it's been finally discovered in this paper by a young researcher, who concludes in the end -- this is the end of his paper -- after saying symmetry and responsiveness have shown to be -- looked to be inappropriate, "The measure I have offered here, relative wasted votes, is arguably" - arguably -- "a more valid and flexible measure of -- of partisan -- of partisan gerrymandering."
> Now, is this -- is this the time for us to jump into this? Has there been a great body of scholarship that has tested this efficiency gap? It's full of questions.
The author's response misses the point. Law is not science. It iterates, but it's not free to change the rule every year to get incrementally better results. What's at stake in this case is nothing less than peoples' right to self determination. Both on the side of each person's vote counting fairly and equally, but also on the side of elected, sovereign state governments being permitted to run their elections without undue federal meddling.
It's one thing to say that this standard is better than what's come before. But that's not what the Justices care about. They want a rule they can carve into stone and leave in place for decades if not centuries hence.
I happen to think that the Supreme Court should affirm the district court's invalidation of Wisconsin's redistricting plan. But Justice Alito was asking questions that needed to be asked.
Regarding the "small and decays rapidly" bit, it appears that, at best, Alito didn't know what he was talking about: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fake-news-comes-to-t...
Right. And the commenter that you're replying to coincidentally left the next paragraph off of the WaPo article:
> The paper referenced by Alito drew on data from the 1970s through the 1990s. At that point, the impact of gerrymandering was, in fact, relatively small. I have since extended the analysis with more recent data, and the results indicate that the effect of gerrymandering is now much larger. In fact, the size and scale of partisan gerrymandering has accelerated rapidly in just the last two redistricting cycles, as voters have become more committed to their parties and the tools for drawing gerrymanders have become more sophisticated.
> The paper referenced by Alito drew on data from the 1970s through the 1990s. At that point, the impact of gerrymandering was, in fact, relatively small. I have since extended the analysis with more recent data, and the results indicate that the effect of gerrymandering is now much larger. In fact, the size and scale of partisan gerrymandering has accelerated rapidly in just the last two redistricting cycles, as voters have become more committed to their parties and the tools for drawing gerrymanders have become more sophisticated.
Perhaps it would help you to look at who appealed to the Supreme Court. If you want to defend "sovereign state governments being permitted to run their elections without undue federal meddling" you should look at the decision of the highest court in the state of Wisconsin. Which argument actually represents the voice of the state?
This is problematic since Wisconsin's Supreme Court is deeply corrupt largely due to the same forces that this case is examining.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-the-supreme-cou...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-the-supreme-cou...
As the author has mischaracterized Alito's intent, you have similarly mischaracterized the stakes. The peoples self-determination is the subject of the case, but it is not under any sort of existential threat from it. Not even close.
Math Professor Fighting Gerrymandering with Geometry | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13713252 (Feb 2017)
What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case? | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14751953 (Jul 2017)
Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group – Tufts University | http://sites.tufts.edu/gerrymandr/
a need for expert witnesses who understand the mathematical concepts applicable to gerrymandering. To meet that need, she’s spearheaded the creation of a five-day summer program at Tufts [the first in a series of regional trainings] that aims to train mathematicians to do just that [...] over 900 people have indicated their interest by signing up for a mailing list
http://tufts.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=3529c170e5d9b7...
(re-post of mailing list link)
edit: To be clear, I don't have a pony in this race; I just believe the info and opportunity is important and may reach members of its intended audience here. The July article dug into the reasoning behind the efficiency gap and pursuit of mathematical models:
> The efficiency gap is an elegant way to quantify the extent of partisan gerrymandering. But more than that is needed to win a case. The challenged plan must also be more biased than other maps, inconsistent with the state’s spatial patterns, and durable in its effects. And these elements can only be established by additional studies.
Another HN user shared a higher-level summary I will try to TL;DR here:
> paulmd: SCOTUS turns based on which side of the bed Kennedy wakes up on (on most issues). [...] mathematicians heard [Kennedy might be open to striking gerrymandering down] And now the court cases are working their way back up to SCOTUS, only with the academic models that Kennedy has indicated he wants. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753909
What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case? | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14751953 (Jul 2017)
Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group – Tufts University | http://sites.tufts.edu/gerrymandr/
a need for expert witnesses who understand the mathematical concepts applicable to gerrymandering. To meet that need, she’s spearheaded the creation of a five-day summer program at Tufts [the first in a series of regional trainings] that aims to train mathematicians to do just that [...] over 900 people have indicated their interest by signing up for a mailing list
http://tufts.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=3529c170e5d9b7...
(re-post of mailing list link)
edit: To be clear, I don't have a pony in this race; I just believe the info and opportunity is important and may reach members of its intended audience here. The July article dug into the reasoning behind the efficiency gap and pursuit of mathematical models:
> The efficiency gap is an elegant way to quantify the extent of partisan gerrymandering. But more than that is needed to win a case. The challenged plan must also be more biased than other maps, inconsistent with the state’s spatial patterns, and durable in its effects. And these elements can only be established by additional studies.
Another HN user shared a higher-level summary I will try to TL;DR here:
> paulmd: SCOTUS turns based on which side of the bed Kennedy wakes up on (on most issues). [...] mathematicians heard [Kennedy might be open to striking gerrymandering down] And now the court cases are working their way back up to SCOTUS, only with the academic models that Kennedy has indicated he wants. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753909
Weird geometry is at best a flawed heuristic for gerrymandering. There are good reasons for oddly shaped districts (coastlines, natural features, "logical" constituencies in an odd layout, etc. . . .)
Some of the geometric approaches gloss around this stuff but none do what the efficiency gap does: actually identify unfair "wasted" votes.
The exciting thing about efficiency gap is exactly how unambiguous it is which makes it GREAT for basing a law on.
Some of the geometric approaches gloss around this stuff but none do what the efficiency gap does: actually identify unfair "wasted" votes.
The exciting thing about efficiency gap is exactly how unambiguous it is which makes it GREAT for basing a law on.
Why does this project need research mathematicians to study simple statistical problems that have known solutions.
It seems that they are recruiting "mathematicians just to provide an aura of authority to their work, in the one field where results can always speak for themselves.
Thanks for posting this. The efficiency gap completely ignores geometry.
But why consider geometry itself to be important? Isn't geometry a mere proxy for something else that's desirable?
My own suspicion is this: that districting is an act of partitioning the social graph. The weights of this graph are not necessarily "who socializes with who" but rather "to what extent do these people share common interests". It is not necessarily the case that regions characterized by people of common interests will be shaped in ways that we can express easy geometric criteria for.
My own suspicion is this: that districting is an act of partitioning the social graph. The weights of this graph are not necessarily "who socializes with who" but rather "to what extent do these people share common interests". It is not necessarily the case that regions characterized by people of common interests will be shaped in ways that we can express easy geometric criteria for.
Geography does matter within the Constitution. But also consider a counter example using a third party: California, which has 53 representatives. If 5% of the population votes third party, then there is an efficiency gap (since 2 - 3 representatives should be from that party), but to fix this gap would require some very strange districts.
You could argue that this gap isn't very important, but to come to this conclusion you would have to use some metric other than the efficiency gap.
You could argue that this gap isn't very important, but to come to this conclusion you would have to use some metric other than the efficiency gap.
There's almost always an efficiency gap. To judge whether an efficiency gap is disqualifying for a map depends on what other maps might be drawn- is this efficiency gap unusual given how the voters are distributed?
> To judge whether an efficiency gap is disqualifying for a map depends on what other maps might be drawn
This is false. Efficiency has been applied by the Supreme Court to mean precise mathematical equality, rather than an approximate or relative metric [0]. For instance, if the populations of two districts is not exactly equal according to the most recent census data, then the district must be explicitly justified.
Quote [1]:
> But in Kirkpatrick v. Preisler,288 a sharply divided Court announced the rule that a State must make a “good-faith effort to achieve precise mathematical equality.”289 Therefore, “[u]nless population variances among congressional districts are shown to have resulted despite such [good-faith] effort [to achieve precise mathematical equality], the State must justify each variance, no matter how small.”
We would expect that the Supreme Court would apply the same mathematical exactness to the efficiency gap, should they find the efficiency gap a valid measure of gerrymandering.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesberry_v._Sanders
[1] http://law.onecle.com/constitution/article-1/05-congressiona...
This is false. Efficiency has been applied by the Supreme Court to mean precise mathematical equality, rather than an approximate or relative metric [0]. For instance, if the populations of two districts is not exactly equal according to the most recent census data, then the district must be explicitly justified.
Quote [1]:
> But in Kirkpatrick v. Preisler,288 a sharply divided Court announced the rule that a State must make a “good-faith effort to achieve precise mathematical equality.”289 Therefore, “[u]nless population variances among congressional districts are shown to have resulted despite such [good-faith] effort [to achieve precise mathematical equality], the State must justify each variance, no matter how small.”
We would expect that the Supreme Court would apply the same mathematical exactness to the efficiency gap, should they find the efficiency gap a valid measure of gerrymandering.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesberry_v._Sanders
[1] http://law.onecle.com/constitution/article-1/05-congressiona...
I don't understand how your first cite says what you say it says. Neither the word "efficiency" nor the notion of [voter] efficiency appear in your link. Do you just mean that SCOTUS has in some cases striven for mathematical precision and this leads you to extrapolate that they will think any non-zero efficiency gap disqualifies a map?
In the population of districts case, there was an objective measurement: the difference in population of two districts.
Then, the defendents made a subjective argument that they were "close enough". However, the Supreme Court doesn't like to replace an objective measurement (population) with a subjective one ("close enough"ness).
So, in this case we have an objective measurement -- voter efficiency -- and a subjective one -- "what do other maps look like". If we can sometimes reject the objective measurement in favor of the subjective one, then it's not really ready to be applied as the standard by our highest court.
Then, the defendents made a subjective argument that they were "close enough". However, the Supreme Court doesn't like to replace an objective measurement (population) with a subjective one ("close enough"ness).
So, in this case we have an objective measurement -- voter efficiency -- and a subjective one -- "what do other maps look like". If we can sometimes reject the objective measurement in favor of the subjective one, then it's not really ready to be applied as the standard by our highest court.
[deleted]
In this era, the whole idea of having many small winner take all districts is the problem. Gerrymandering is small by comparison and removing gerrymandering won’t result in much change.
The solution is to moved to STV and expanding the size of districts to elect 3 to 5 representatives instead.
The solution is to moved to STV and expanding the size of districts to elect 3 to 5 representatives instead.
In this particular case in Wisconsin it was so egregious that the idea that gerrymandering as exploited here wouldn't make a difference is ludicrous.
How would you answer Sotomayor's question?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...
How would you answer Sotomayor's question?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...
My answer would obviously be there is none. You may have misread my comment as some defense of Gerrymandering when clearly it isn't. Gerrymandering is a byproduct of a broken concept: having tiny little districts in a world where people live in one, work in another, eat lunch in a different district, visit their parents in a fourth district, etc. This made sense 200 years ago, but not today. And any fix to Gerrymandering doesn't overall make a dent in the problem of fair representation.
My counter-question might be something like:
"Could you tell me what difference fixing these individual cases of Gerrymandering would make to outcomes across our congress as a whole over the past 20 years? What helps our democracy more, fixing the technical problem of gerrymandering but not improving representation, or removing the technical feasibility of gerrymandering to exist and so doing provide a fix to the problem of representation?"
My counter-question might be something like:
"Could you tell me what difference fixing these individual cases of Gerrymandering would make to outcomes across our congress as a whole over the past 20 years? What helps our democracy more, fixing the technical problem of gerrymandering but not improving representation, or removing the technical feasibility of gerrymandering to exist and so doing provide a fix to the problem of representation?"
I can agree that First Past the Post is suboptimal. I can also believe that we must improve the current system until First Past the Post is replaced, which might be never in the United States and certainly going to be a difficult state by state issue. The leap from the First Past the Post to STV seems insurmountable in the face of how hard the GOP is clinging to power with voter disenfranchisement with the same old tricks of hurdles to voters of color along with this 2010 50 state strategy that led to the extreme gerrymandering. (Having the Democrats be incompetent enough to have the GOP loudly proclaim their strategy in the editorial page of the New York Times pre election and still not react is another issue.)
STV has its uses but larger multi rep constituencies 1 breaks the relationship between voter and politician and 2 allows extremist parties to act as king makers see the DUP in the UK and much more so in Europe
The DUP as king makers in the UK has nothing to do with STV; in fact it is an example of king makers with no STV. There are no STV or multi rep constituencies in British general elections. (In Northern Ireland, STV is used for local elections, but that's something else.)
Large Multi representative constituencies do even with STV eg UKIP getting MEP's but Not MP's
Is there any reason to not remove gerrymandering?
This is a complicated question, because it isn't defining what the alternative is.
Redistricting is the process of setting the boundaries of districts. This has to be done for two principle reasons:
1. To adjust for population changes over time. This is undisputed.
2. It can be argued that this also makes sense to group together areas that have similar concerns -- in an extreme example, separating primarily agricultural districts from primarily urban districts. This is relatively uncontroversial.
Gerrymandering is a term that describes a third reason:
3. Redistricting with the intent of producing a bias towards a particular party. This is pretty uncontroversially considered bad.
It's difficult to prove that this is happening; that's what this whole case is about, or at least a subset of it. Namely, to establish the "efficiency gap" as a metric on a state-wide basis for saying whether the redistricting is trying to do #3 in the guise of doing #2.
Many proposed solutions to the redistricting problem attempt to take some basic heuristic and apply it in an objective way, but although it's possible to solve #1 pretty easily, solving #2 is inherently subjective and that's where the wiggle room for #3 is created.
Redistricting is the process of setting the boundaries of districts. This has to be done for two principle reasons:
1. To adjust for population changes over time. This is undisputed.
2. It can be argued that this also makes sense to group together areas that have similar concerns -- in an extreme example, separating primarily agricultural districts from primarily urban districts. This is relatively uncontroversial.
Gerrymandering is a term that describes a third reason:
3. Redistricting with the intent of producing a bias towards a particular party. This is pretty uncontroversially considered bad.
It's difficult to prove that this is happening; that's what this whole case is about, or at least a subset of it. Namely, to establish the "efficiency gap" as a metric on a state-wide basis for saying whether the redistricting is trying to do #3 in the guise of doing #2.
Many proposed solutions to the redistricting problem attempt to take some basic heuristic and apply it in an objective way, but although it's possible to solve #1 pretty easily, solving #2 is inherently subjective and that's where the wiggle room for #3 is created.
> It can be argued that this also makes sense to group together areas that have similar concerns -- in an extreme example, separating primarily agricultural districts from primarily urban districts. This is relatively uncontroversial.
If geography is the most important concern to voters, then surely voters would be able to handle grouping themselves according to geography in at-large elections with proportional representation. There could even be an explicit urban party and rural party if that is what matters most to voters.
If geography is the most important concern to voters, then surely voters would be able to handle grouping themselves according to geography in at-large elections with proportional representation. There could even be an explicit urban party and rural party if that is what matters most to voters.
Thank you for this explanation. I have a basic understanding of the good and bad of gerrymandering, and this really cleared it all up.
#2 seems like it could be incredibly controversial depending on the criteria. The example you give, agricultural vs urban, is sometimes just code for conservative vs liberal.
Lack of an apolitical alternative.
In the US, maybe. The UK uses a non-partisan Electoral Commission which has basically eliminated gerrymandering as a factor in UK politics.
There are residual disputes about recent Conservative changes to the criteria given to the Commission in setting boundaries, but even so this is way less egregious than the problems in the US.
There are residual disputes about recent Conservative changes to the criteria given to the Commission in setting boundaries, but even so this is way less egregious than the problems in the US.
Republicans used their state-level gains from the Obama backlash in 2010 to implement extreme gerrymandering and capture Congress for a decade. But now that Democrats are set to gain from a Trump backlash leading up to the 2020 census all of a sudden there's a lot of movement to neutralize gerrymandering nationwide. I'm probably seeing conspiracy theories where there are none, but conservatives have always played a much better strategical long game working the refs, so to speak, to maintain power. Starting with the national-level gerrymandering from the 19th century where we ended up with bullshit states like Wyoming that permanently tip the scales in their favor.
I was skeptical at the claims of extreme gerrymandering, but it really is shocking. E.g., this rendering of Wisconsin from 2008-2012:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
In 2008, Republicans had 44% of the votes and 47% of the seats. In 2012, they had 47% of the votes and 61% of the seats.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
In 2008, Republicans had 44% of the votes and 47% of the seats. In 2012, they had 47% of the votes and 61% of the seats.
The movement to neutralize gerrymandering isn't coming from the Republicans so I don't think there is a conspiracy here
Bullshit states? What is that? Is that just a state that does not constantly vote the way you would prefer?
Wyoming is a low population that gets 3.6 as much voting power per capita as California. Parent should have included Vermont alongside Wyoming for partisan balance, though.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w...
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w...
Tiny states that were created specifically to gain conservative senators.
I find it really interesting that there's no political will in the US to create a non-partisan body like the UK's Boundary commissions in the US. Even if just for congressional districting, it would be a huge improvement over the current state of affairs. (I get that the US is huge, and in general there is a tendency to delegate these sorts of things to states for various reasons both political and practical, but it would seem to be a a straightforward if not easy solution to this issue.)
There is at a state level - see how California moved to non-partisan primaries (jungle primaries) and non-partisan redistricting board.
The party in power (Democrats) agreed to this several years ago despite being the majority. The result ended up being that they got a subsequent supermajority, because I guess CA is really progressive/liberal in aggregate.
The party in power (Democrats) agreed to this several years ago despite being the majority. The result ended up being that they got a subsequent supermajority, because I guess CA is really progressive/liberal in aggregate.
> The party in power (Democrats) agreed to this several years ago
No, they were both adopted by citizen initiative, and the California Democratic Party opposed both (the Republican Party supported the redistricting one, all six of California’s ballot-qualified parties opposed the jungle primary, which got put on the ballot as part of a deal to pass a budget back when the supermajority budget requirement made holding the budget hostage a regular occurrence.)
No, they were both adopted by citizen initiative, and the California Democratic Party opposed both (the Republican Party supported the redistricting one, all six of California’s ballot-qualified parties opposed the jungle primary, which got put on the ballot as part of a deal to pass a budget back when the supermajority budget requirement made holding the budget hostage a regular occurrence.)
The party in power gets to set the districts which then keep them in power, so from a purely self-interested perspective such a thing would enjoy support mostly from people in no position to implement it.
Most states have a system for citizen initiatives, though.
I am not super hip to every state's politics but from what I have seen in Massachusetts ballot measures seem more like "strong suggestions."
Districting is left to the States, so it would have to be a State thing. That said, California does have such a commission for setting districts. Given that most of the state legislators were upset at their results, and that they ended up having incumbents have to go against one another, I think they did a decent job.
> I find it really interesting that there's no political will in the US to create a non-partisan body like the UK's Boundary commissions in the US.
Several US states have bodies like that (nonpartisan, of course, doesn't mean the members and the people setting criteria don't have political preferences that influence what they do, and there is no non-distorting way to assign single-member districts.)
The US as a whole does not because the US is a federal and not unitary state, and there is little appetite for transferring the detailed regulation of elections to the federal government.
Several US states have bodies like that (nonpartisan, of course, doesn't mean the members and the people setting criteria don't have political preferences that influence what they do, and there is no non-distorting way to assign single-member districts.)
The US as a whole does not because the US is a federal and not unitary state, and there is little appetite for transferring the detailed regulation of elections to the federal government.
The efficiency gap is calculated by taking the number of net wasted votes and dividing it by the number of total votes. Every vote for a losing party in a district is wasted, as is every vote for the winning party over 50% + 1.
This metric was very convincing to me until I noticed one thing: if a district election is split 75%-25%, then it seems that the net wasted votes is 0. But a state where every district is split 75-25 is clearly heavily gerrymandered! Am I missing something?
This metric was very convincing to me until I noticed one thing: if a district election is split 75%-25%, then it seems that the net wasted votes is 0. But a state where every district is split 75-25 is clearly heavily gerrymandered! Am I missing something?
I don't think you're understanding the calculation correctly. If a district election is 75-25, then the wasted votes is 24 (75 minus the 51 required to win). I believe the computation of net wasted votes comes from looking across several districts.
Here's an example from another article:
>Suppose, for example, that a state has five districts with 100 voters each, and two parties, Party A and Party B. Suppose also that Party A wins four of the seats 53 to 47, and Party B wins one of them 85 to 15. Then in each of the four seats that Party A wins, it has 2 surplus votes (53 minus the 51 needed to win), and Party B has 47 lost votes. And in the lone district that Party A loses, it has 15 lost votes, and Party B has 34 surplus votes (85 minus the 51 needed to win). In sum, Party A wastes 23 votes and Party B wastes 222 votes. Subtracting one figure from the other and dividing by the 500 votes cast produces an efficiency gap of 40 percent in Party A’s favor.
https://newrepublic.com/article/118534/gerrymandering-effici...
Here's an example from another article:
>Suppose, for example, that a state has five districts with 100 voters each, and two parties, Party A and Party B. Suppose also that Party A wins four of the seats 53 to 47, and Party B wins one of them 85 to 15. Then in each of the four seats that Party A wins, it has 2 surplus votes (53 minus the 51 needed to win), and Party B has 47 lost votes. And in the lone district that Party A loses, it has 15 lost votes, and Party B has 34 surplus votes (85 minus the 51 needed to win). In sum, Party A wastes 23 votes and Party B wastes 222 votes. Subtracting one figure from the other and dividing by the 500 votes cast produces an efficiency gap of 40 percent in Party A’s favor.
https://newrepublic.com/article/118534/gerrymandering-effici...
He is saying, if you could gerrymanderer every district at 75-25 the gap would be 0 even though it would be likely that couldn't happen without being heavily gerrymandered.
I think all districts being 75-25 is not really possible based on how communities grow and group together socially and economically.
I think all districts being 75-25 is not really possible based on how communities grow and group together socially and economically.
But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. If you have 10 districts and split them into 5 that are 51-49 and 5 that are 49-51 or if you split them into 5 that are 75-25 and 5 that are 25-75, you have 5 representatives from each party either way. The point of the gap is to distinguish between cases like this (where districts are designed to lump together people of a similar part) from examples of packing and cracking used to give one party an advantage.
> But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage.
Partisan advantage is far from the only reason for gerrymandering; protecting incumbents and dividing particular communities of interest (whether ethnic or otherwise) that don't necessarily align more with either party to effectively silence them are among two of the more common uses.
A recent wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering by Republicans is what has made it a national discussion right now, but it's not the only (or even historically the main) problem with gerrymandering.
Which is simple to solve: stop having single-member, first-past-the-post districts for legislative bodies.
Partisan advantage is far from the only reason for gerrymandering; protecting incumbents and dividing particular communities of interest (whether ethnic or otherwise) that don't necessarily align more with either party to effectively silence them are among two of the more common uses.
A recent wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering by Republicans is what has made it a national discussion right now, but it's not the only (or even historically the main) problem with gerrymandering.
Which is simple to solve: stop having single-member, first-past-the-post districts for legislative bodies.
If every district is 75-25, then the issue is that one party is getting 25% of the votes but 0% of the seats. All of their votes have been split across all districts, keeping them from winning any one.
Sorry I was a bit unclear. If every district is decided by 50% but some are 75-25 one way and some are 25-75 the other way, the efficiency gap is 0. If all of them are 75-25 the same way, there will be a large efficiency gap.
One way for that to happen is if party support is evenly spread throughout the region; then however you draw the districts the result will be the same.
In that sort of situation it doesn't seem to be reasonable to call what's going on "gerrymandering"; I think the finger of blame should be pointed (if anywhere) at the system of single-member-constituency plurality voting.
In that sort of situation it doesn't seem to be reasonable to call what's going on "gerrymandering"; I think the finger of blame should be pointed (if anywhere) at the system of single-member-constituency plurality voting.
Our voting system is definitely an issue, but if we want to use the efficiency gap as a metric of gerrymandering then I think this is a big problem. As it stands, the efficiency gap treats a 75-25 split as a "perfect election", which means that it's actually a measure of how far elections are from this ideal. So if we start using the efficiency gap, then there will be a huge incentive for states to draw lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible, which is obviously not what we want. It could even further polarize the country.
Consider a state with twelve districts: six 75-25 A-B, six 75-25 B-A. Votes are even, seats are even; the state isn't gerrymandered.
So it isn't the case that a state where every district is split 75-25 is necessarily heavily gerrymandered.
On the other hand, if all twelve districts are 75-25 A-B then it seems like B has three fewer seats than it deserves, which does suggest that that definition of an efficiency gap is missing something.
So it isn't the case that a state where every district is split 75-25 is necessarily heavily gerrymandered.
On the other hand, if all twelve districts are 75-25 A-B then it seems like B has three fewer seats than it deserves, which does suggest that that definition of an efficiency gap is missing something.
Yeah, it seems like the metric can't tell the difference between the two situations...
It's not a district level measure. It is a measure of how a district plan affects the statewide outcome.
The worked example in the definition section of the paper lays it out pretty clearly:
http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
If you take 3 districts, with 2 going to A and 1 going to B, 300 votes at 75-25 would be split into 175 and 125. That's a reasonable outcome, the majority took 2 seats, the minority gets approximately proportional representation.
Compare to 300 votes going 51-49 (the most extreme efficiency gap). The ~1/2 minority gets 0 representation (153 vs 147 for that election).
The worked example in the definition section of the paper lays it out pretty clearly:
http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
If you take 3 districts, with 2 going to A and 1 going to B, 300 votes at 75-25 would be split into 175 and 125. That's a reasonable outcome, the majority took 2 seats, the minority gets approximately proportional representation.
Compare to 300 votes going 51-49 (the most extreme efficiency gap). The ~1/2 minority gets 0 representation (153 vs 147 for that election).
What you are saying is true. However, it is probably hard to find a real example of being to divide a state (e.g.) into X groups that all have that 75-25 mix. Normally, the city vs country or ethnic groupings will leave certain areas in opposite mixes.
The gerrymandering that usually happens is that the group in charge wants to win 3/4 of the X seats at a small percentage like 60-40 and lose 1/4 of the X seats by a huge margin like 90-10. This would give them a huge seat advantage since they own most of the seats. In this case, the gap would be huge proving deliberate gerrymandering.
The gerrymandering that usually happens is that the group in charge wants to win 3/4 of the X seats at a small percentage like 60-40 and lose 1/4 of the X seats by a huge margin like 90-10. This would give them a huge seat advantage since they own most of the seats. In this case, the gap would be huge proving deliberate gerrymandering.
It doesn't matter if it's unlikely, the point is that the efficiency gap is being proposed as a measure of partisan gerrymandering, but it clearly does not do what it claims because it thinks a state with all districts split 75-25 is fair. But it's not: one party is getting 25% of the votes but 0% of the seats.
I'm agreeing with you that a case like this isn't being fairly measured by this gap. I'm not trolling but the likeliness does play into it. This case is not much of a concern if it has never happened in any state in US history, e.g. I think there are other things that can be done to make it even harder to create all 75-25 like saying all districts must have a size or density or .... that is within a standard deviation (or two?) of the mean. I don't know what the right math is offhand but something like this adds another constraint.
My point is that there's clearly something missing if a 75-25 split is measured as 0 net wasted votes. That means that the efficiency gap treats 75-25 as the "perfect election", and is actually measuring how far any given district election is from that "ideal".
Even worse, that means that if we actually use the efficiency gap to measure gerrymandering, then there is a strong incentive for parties to draw district lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible!
Even worse, that means that if we actually use the efficiency gap to measure gerrymandering, then there is a strong incentive for parties to draw district lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible!
[deleted]
Also interested to hear.
The efficiency gap fails to guarantee or even optimize compactness, yet many gerrymandered districts are "thin slices" or strange shapes. (one simple defition of compactness is the ratio of perimeter^2/area)
What the author fails to do is explain why the efficiency gap is better than district compactness. If they are used together, then in what way are the two measures weighted? If not, why should we pick efficiency over compactness?
It should seem obvious that these two methods would result in different districts, but which mwthod to use is more a matter of personal values than objectivity.
What the author fails to do is explain why the efficiency gap is better than district compactness. If they are used together, then in what way are the two measures weighted? If not, why should we pick efficiency over compactness?
It should seem obvious that these two methods would result in different districts, but which mwthod to use is more a matter of personal values than objectivity.
That's because compactness doesn't actually tell you anything about unfair voting, demographics, party representation, etc. . . . A district can be shaped like a busted IUD and still be perfectly fair and that's precisely why the efficiency gap is so much better at identifying gerrymandered districts. The gap shows the percentage of wasted votes, which is pretty much all that matters.
The efficiency gap is just a measure of the actual effect of gerrymandering in an election, it doesn't say anything about how to draw a district for future elections.
Compactness tells us nothing about the effects of gerrymandering. Less compact districts correlate with more gerrymandering but that doesn't tell us whether that gerrymandering was effective. Compactness could be a useful tool to limit the effects of gerrymandering when drawing districts.
Compactness tells us nothing about the effects of gerrymandering. Less compact districts correlate with more gerrymandering but that doesn't tell us whether that gerrymandering was effective. Compactness could be a useful tool to limit the effects of gerrymandering when drawing districts.
Here's a solution.
https://youtu.be/kUS9uvYyn3A
https://youtu.be/kUS9uvYyn3A
It's exceedingly common for Supreme Court justices to ask controversial questions they think/know others will have, regardless of their own opinions - many times you will see them ask questions or dig in to areas that are in direct contrast to their leanings.
The reasons for this are two-fold. First, these are Supreme Court Justices; their opinions become law, and they have a responsibility to understand both sides on an argument. Second, they understand that it's best for the court and the country if controversial/questionable things are brought up and addressed in session rather than debated endlessly after their decisions are issued.
In short, don't read too much in to what questions the justices ask, or what aspects of a case they question...