English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

16:02

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah the whole system favours the winner very strongly.

But there is also another, more insidious, long-term effect.

Because people vote strategically, smaller parties have an extra disadvantage. This results in instability for small parties: they are often and quickly wiped out.

So they are less able to grow and establish themselves as serious players than if elections were proportional.

So in the long term, you get fewer parties.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

There are two problems: popular vote is split by riding, leading to uneven distribution of representatives (at least we don't have the problem of Gerrymandering like in the US). First-past-the-post ballots mean people vote strategically instead of for whoever they really want, because they don't want to take a chance getting the guy they don't want.

Cerberus

The big ones become stabler and stabler.

Yeah.

So the long-term effect is most visible in the country that has the most brutal winner-take all system: in America there are only two parties left.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

We have another problem too: rural people keep voting Conservative.

Cerberus

That is a universal problem.

Not solved by proportionality.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's amazing, when you look at the map: Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are almost all Conservative blue, except for one or two ridings in cities each.

Cerberus

16:06

If Canada switched to the American system right now, there would still be more than two parties for a while. It takes decades, but then all other parties will have atrophied. And then it will seem as though there never was any support at all for third parties, because nobody voted for them at all; but the cause is the slow flattening of the system.

The most interesting cases are England and France, in my opinion, where you have a huge third party that gets almost zero seats.

UKIP and the Front National.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Our system is similar to the American system. They have districts, lots of candidates run, the one with the plurality of votes wins, the party with the most seats forms the government.

Cerberus

The point is that your districts are much smaller than the American states.

Which mitigates the problem somewhat.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They have a few major differences: 1. They elect the governors and presidents directly. 2. Their campaign laws are looser, which leads to more money being spent propping up the two main parties. 3. They have way more states... here, it's easy for a third-party to arise provincially. If that party succeeds, it spreads. That's how the NDP got started.

Cerberus

Nooo not directly, their president. That is the worst aspect of it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well... the electoral college complicates things, but really there are only ever two contenders running anyway.

Cerberus

16:11

That is my point above: it's not really "anyway", it only seems that way.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But that's nothing to do with parties, and everything to do with first-past-the-post instead of, say, ranked ballots.

and like I said, we already have FPTP here.

Cerberus

The fact that there are only two is the result of a long time of having such a strong winner-take-all system, which results in only two parties becoming important in the whole country.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Their system is very similar to ours.

Cerberus

4 mins ago, by Cerberus

The point is that your districts are much smaller than the American states.

That, and the fact that they elect their president.

Only one person wins 100% of the executive power, kind of.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, plus the even HAVE a president, which is something we don't have, our PM's duties and powers are quite different.

Cerberus

16:13

The winner takes all, so third parties become less important. Everybody always focuses on the winner and the almost-winner, never on the rest.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Exactly.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But the system for electing congresscritters and members of parliament is basically the same. I don't see how the number of people in a district/riding matters much. It's the same problem, just on a bigger scale.

Anyway. I don't see the US system changing any time soon. But the Liberals have promised electoral reform. So.... here's hoping.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, suppose the districts were made as small as a single house.

And each house could elect its representative.

Then parliament would reflect the popular vote very closely.

Because people living in the same house are very likely to have similar political opinions.

If you take a neighbourhood, you will also see fairly uniform voting.

Expensive neighbourhoods with gardens and children vote liberal/conservative.

Poor neighbourhoods vote socialist if they have lots of immigrants, otherwise they will often vote right-wing populist.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

none of our districts is as small as that.

Cerberus

Educated urban people, the good city neighbourhoods with many childless young people, vote liberal/socialist. Etc.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I know. But the smaller, the more accurate the representation, in general.

If the entire country were 1 district for 1 candidate, then 49% of the votes may be binned.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus well, not exactly binned. if there's only one post then there's only one post. Should there be as many presidents as there are political parties?

Cerberus

16:25

If the country is split into four districts, then it is unlikely for each of the four candidates to get only 51% each, so it is unlikely that 49% of the votes are thrown away across the country. It is more likely that one candidate should get 51% in his district, another 55%, another 60%, and the fourth 65%, something like that.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I'm not saying "should": it is necessarily so. You can't do anything with any votes that aren't for the winner, so it doesn't matter what those people voted, in a manner of speaking.

See what I mean?

Actually, scratch those percentages: they can be way lower than 51%, of course.

But still the percentage average for the winning candidates will be higher in smaller districts than in larger districts, if the national population stays the same.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, like I said. we still elect parties based on FPTP districts, just like the US. We have the same problems as they do. Our system naturally leans towards being two-party.

Cerberus

Agreed.

Turkey has a 10% threshold for parliament.

And districts.

So imagine how hard it is there.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

What do you mean?

Cerberus

If you get 9.9% of the seats, you get zero seats.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

wow

harsh

Cerberus

16:32

And seats are elected first past the post in a district, as far as I know.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

so I guess you can't be independent

Cerberus

That is the exception.

Luckily, you can be elected below 10% if you are listed as independent.

I don't know what the exact rules are to make sure you are truly independent.

The Kurds used to run as independents.

This year was their first party run, and they won 13%.

But Erdogan refused to seriously consider forming a government with them, so he had new elections announced.

Which will take place in November, I believe.

If the Kurds don't make 10% this time, they will be unrepresented in parliament, and Erdogan may get his absolute majority back.

That will mean big trouble.

Already the semi-terrorist Kurdish groups have begun attacking the government.

But the moderate Turks still support a peaceful approach, through parliament.

But if they are no longer in parliament...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

hm.

Robusto

17:27

room topic changed to English Language & Usage: They don't know who they are, either. [we-are-the-world]

Johan Larsson

17:39

6

@Cerb ^

Cerberus

17:52

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Quite so.

@JohanLarsson Perfect!!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

so my Nexus 5X just arrived.

only, I think I need a USB-C cable before I can unlock its bootloader and the only one it ships with is USB-C at both ends.

Cerberus

Ohh you have ordered a 5X! Did I know that?

I think we talked about it when it was announced, or didn't we?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I don't recall, precisely

I think we did.

Cerberus

That is annoying. So you need a converter plug.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm sure I mentioned that my N5 was going to be given to my wife.

Cerberus

17:55

But congrats on the unlocking plan!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yeah I'm going to buy a bunch of USB-USBC cables

well, I always unlock

since unlock forces wiping

Cerberus

Switching to a new standard is always annoying.

I thought you didn't unlock your N5?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I've unlocked every Nexus I've ever owned.

Cerberus

At least not when you got it?

Oh, good.

Or you didn't root it, then?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I just don't necessarily root it right away

my N5 is currently unrooted because I was waiting for the N5X

and when I give it to my wife it will be unrooted

Cerberus

17:56

Why?

What if there is a nice Xposed module for her?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

There's no way she'll be browsing Xposed modules looking for one, and I likely won't either.

The only thing I use root for, currently, is a firewall, to prevent data overages.

Cerberus

See, that is one use already.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

she doesn't have data, so, no need

Cerberus

Why not use the built-in data limit, by the way?

Oh.

Maybe she wants to go back to the Kitkat silence mode?

Etc.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the built-in limit just stops you from blowing your bill. The firewall stops flickr and youtube from working on data, thus preventing the overage situation in the first place.

Cerberus

17:59

Ah OK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

She'll be fine on Marshmallow

it's like Kitkat, ish.

Cerberus

So you have turned off data for Flickr and Youtube altogether?:

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yes

I only have 500MB data /month

Cerberus

Why not restrict background data for those apps?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's not "background" data that's the problem

it's foreground data.

Cerberus

18:00

Then just freeze/uninstall them?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

What? No, I use those apps, but only on wifi.

Cerberus

Ah okay, then you need the Firewall, as you say.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

one time I opened up Flickr while walking down the street. In minutes it had used up almost 300MB data.

I have no idea what it was doing.

I wish Android had a feature to deny apps mobile data.

then I wouldn't need a firewall.

So it turns out I need a new SIM. boo.

Cerberus

I agree.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What would be even better is a feature to set a data limit per app.

I have been searching the Interwebs for years, but such a function still does not appear to exist.

Not even an Xposed module.

2

Q: How can I set a data cap per application?

In Android, you can see how many data each application has used. You can also forbid an application from using data by hand. And you can set an automatic data cap for the entire system. But is there a way to automatically cap how much a certain application can use? An example scenario is how Cya...

Mitch

18:23

Not to disparage years of pedagogy but trying to find the passive to "Ram went to school' is idiotic.

Wait.. that is disparaging. OK I apologize for being disparaging.

Wait... that's not much of an apology.

Wait... no, no waiting...that's it.

0

Q: Passive for "Ram goes to school"

This is one timeless problem that every school boy in India has scratched his head over. What would be the passive for 'Ram goes to school' ? PS: Every students first guess is "The school was gotten to by Ram"

passive-voice active-voice

terdon

19:04

@Mitch The school was rammed, obviously.

Cerberus

19:37

Hah.

By a terrorist lorry?

tchrist

So Abram rose and took the ram....

Cerberus

19:52

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How would you describe Trudeau's French, his accent?

I find him easier to understand than this presenter who is talking to him.

Although I find French from the hexagone the easiest.

SmokeDetector

20:11

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: Where did the word “quim” come from? by rraleigh on english.stackexchange.com

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

20:31

@Cerberus I don't really know it to hear it. I watch very little TV.

Johan Larsson

22:25

@Cerb what is pattern in greek or latin?

Cerberus

22:58

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You don't know it well enough to hear it?

Justin Trudeau à Tout le Monde en Parle, 11 Oct 2015 ♣ 18mn

►

So it depends on context. Paradeigma, or tupos, or idea...

In Latin, probably exemplum.

Why?

terdon

23:27

@Cerberus Is the presenter Canadian? That's a really weird accent. I'd have pegged Trudeau as a very proficient pineapple (or annanas, as the case may be), but I don't know the Quebecois accent. He's certainly easier to understand than the presenter anyway.

Cerberus

@terdon I really don't know the presenter, but I'm sure he will be Québécois.

terdon

It sounds very strange to my ears. Here are these people whose French is much better than mine but whose accents are "worse" :)

Cerberus

@terdon I agree, the Canadian accent is odd.

But Trudeau went to a French school in Montréal; I'm sure his accent is as good as it gets in Canada.

Or it should be.

Robusto

0

Q: Unlike vs. Unalike

In my writings, one of the sentences I was using was as following: The cellos suddenly exploded in confidence as their sound illuminated the room (unlike the previous exaggerated, long, and drawn out music). Based on my research using Dictionary.com Unlike means the following: Unlike adjectiv...

meaning grammar

Why do the worst writers imaginable find their way here?

2

terdon

23:42

@Cerberus Oh, I'm sure it is too. It just sounds like an American speaking excellent French to me, but I'm not a native, nor anywhere close to it.

Cerberus

@terdon It sounds the same to me.

Although I have never ever heard an American or an Englishman with anything close to a decent accent even when pronouncing a single French word.

Of all English speakers, only (non-native-Francophone) Canadians have a passable French accent.

And it is the other way around too, usually: Frenchmen have a bad English accent.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…