Bitcoin Forum

It's a disgrace that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) which is controlled by the two monstrous parties excludes other candidates so blatantly.
I think it is important to spread the word every time you get a chance as most people do not even know the names of other candidates besides Romney and Obama. (see for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjVTBKVGDFE )

For instance go to the official "debate"'s youtube video page and tell people (post comments) that they have more than two choices, suggest that they google Gary Johnson or search for his videos on youtube. As there seems to be a lot of activity going on there, repeat it once in a while.

Another great idea that somebody suggested somewhere on youtube (and they claim that they swung many votes this way): every time you see a political comment in social networks, respond with one of Gary's short videos. (pick a relevant one from his youtube page http://www.youtube.com/user/govgaryjohnson/videos?view=0 or LP's page: http://www.youtube.com/user/LibertarianParty/videos?view=0 )

And sign this petition: http://libertarianpetition.com/

I wish the guy had a chance, but I hope more that someone kicks the current creep out.

4. Johnson's not a spoiler candidate - he's a candidate who threatens both major candidates

Based on the state polling, Johnson has taken support away from Obama in New Mexico and Colorado, while Johnson's hurt Romney in Ohio and Virginia. Assuming Johnson is only a spoiler for Romney is a myth.

There are policies Johnson has that appeals to small-government types like myself and those polices that appeal to my liberal friends who love personal freedom, privacy and support gay rights. Since most of our readers live in Kansas, Johnson will not a spoiler. Romney is 100 percent certain to win the state of Kansas.

If you are displeased Republican or a displeased Democrat, I encourage you to hop on the Johnson bandwagon. Do not let your two-party friends bully you into voting against Johnson if you believe he's the best candidate. It's not the Libertarians who let the economy crash. It's not the Libertarians who are doing their best to avoid any accountability. It's not us who accumulated a $16 trillion debt. It's the two major parties who have done those things.

5. A third-party threat is needed to shake up government

After Ross Perot won nearly 20 percent of the vote in the 1992 election, change happened believe it or not. Perot's biggest campaign issue in '92 was the debt. What happened after Perot won 20 percent in 1992? Former President Clinton and the Newt Gingrich-led Republican Congress balanced the budget for the first time in a few decades.

Clinton and Gingrich both deserve credit, but I also believe Perot raising awareness of the debt and earning a significant third-party vote forced the issue. If Johnson can win just 10 percent of the vote nation-wide, it would scare the Democrats and Republicans into straightening up a little more. And I think even a lot of Democrats and Republicans would agree that's a good thing!

After discovering Bitcoin, and being introduced to things like Tor, 3D printing, mesh networking, and other distributed projects, I've come to the conclusion that the best, and likely only way to fix this whole problem is to just make all of the politicians irrelevant. Let them pass laws about what we can browse and download, what we can buy or give money to, what we can use our web connections for, or what we can build and own. Silk Road and Pirate Bay have shown me that eventually people will just shrug their shoulders at the law and ignore it, and the politicians will be powerless to do anything about it.

you're not shook off what happened to kim dotcom?

but the more they squeeze the still more people get squeeze harder that are left inside their grasp

Those are the people who will be finally forced to get off their lazy butts and learn about things like Tor and Bitcoin.

so we have a megasecretupload site coming from kim utilizing these techniques?

Doubt it, but we do have a bunch of file storage websites switching from PayPal/VISA to Bitcoin, meaning people using them will be forced to learn about BTC.

What we need is not to tout one person to get in there but to tout a fudnamental change to the system

such as iniatiate alternative voting, watch this fantastic video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

Wow, that's an awesome explanation.  I've been saying for years that we need instant run-off voting.  I even wrote to my state representatives about it, but I got no response.

yeah i better start calling it instant runoff voting :) keep my names correct

a similar video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqblOq8BmgM

Aren't they both correct terms?  Personally, I prefer instant runoff because it's more obvious what it means from the name.

That video's not bad, but I liked the jungle animals even better. :)

Runoff voting has its own issues and is a pain to actually apply (I've been through it. Though it is only a short term pain and that shouldn't really affect adoption). Personally, I'm a big fan of approval voting. Though I really don't expect anything to change anytime soon.

explain approval voting?

It's pretty straightforward. Take all the candidates running and apply a "Yes" or "No' against their name. The one with the most "Yes"s win. It's still not perfect but it has a lot going for it and most of the objections that people have straight away usually prove not valid with a bit of thought.

i see instant runoff as having all of the benefits of that plus more

vote in order of whoever u want, but u can just leave off who u dont like or vote who you least like the lowest number

1. gary johnson
2. rand paul
3. gill stein
4. Governator
5. mitt romney
6....
7....
8....
..
.
55. turtle in a bathtub
56. Obama

And you end up with Obama (some of the time). The problems with instant runoff are well documented. It is an improvement on first-past-the-post but still ends up with poor selections in quite a large number of cases. It does tick the "one man, one vote" box which is a stumbling point for a lot of people who oppose approval voting. Approval voting does that sometimes as well but it seems as if there's always going to be problems with selecting a very few people to represent a large number. (Though it often applies in other cases such as choosing where to eat). Marting Gardner has an interesting article on it though I have only ever seen it in dead tree form.

I need you to elaborate. We're not aiming to make the system directly favor libertarians, we want people to be able to vote for who they really want to represent them

How could a yes/no system be better than complete ranking; are you thinking its too complicated for the average sheeple?

No, I mean objectively that in a good percentage of cases, it results in the selection of the candidate that not the most favored choice of all concerned. It's a perverse outcome but it's pretty well known. I think there is some good info on Wikipedia also. In particular, it has this (amongst others) to say about IRV: 

The participation criterion states that "the best way to help a candidate win must not be to abstain".[34] IRV does not meet this criterion: in some cases, the voter's preferred candidate can be best helped if the voter does not vote at all.

and

The Condorcet winner criterion states that "if a candidate would win a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must win the overall election". It is incompatible with the later-no-harm criterion, so IRV does not meet this criterion.

I'd recommend reading around the various pages on the voting systems. It's fascinating reading (if you're that way inclined) and quite possibly could produce an epiphany about the relation of the governers to the governed.

so saying that someone who was a bunch of people's second choice but not as many's first choice would be elected and violate these principles?

yeah i better start calling it instant runoff voting :) keep my names correct

a similar video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqblOq8BmgM

What if there's 3 presidents all sharing power

Ssshh. That's NBC's new sitcom.

haha, if thats true, they'll show how it wouldn't work then people wouldn't ever go for the idea

You know, after doing some research on the various systems, I think I've been convinced to support approval voting.

I've seen that instant run-off doesn't eliminate the spoiler effect, and approval voting is easier to understand and closer to what we have now.

That's what I've read.  It certainly reduces the spoiler effect, greatly, but since one candidate can knock another one to a lower level, there's still the potential for similar candidates to inadvertently sabotage each other.

I don't have a full understanding of the math involved, but that's what I read.  One of these days I need to run some simulations of my own.

You know, I wonder what effect approval voting would have on parties.  One of the functions of parties in the current system, the primaries, would be rendered unnecessary.

I'm sure it would mean that campaigns were more positive than negative since it would be more advantageous to make sure your own views and opinions got out there than to spend time and money tearing down a dozen other candidates.

approval voting woudln't help that

approval voting woudln't help that

On the matter of parties, what I was wondering is whether or not primary voting would still be necessary.  There would be no disadvantage to one party running multiple candidates.  There could be both party-wide campaigning (vote for a member of our party) and individual campaigning (vote for me specifically).  Then again, I suppose they would still need to come to some agreement about which group of candidates they endorse.

With any luck, it might loosen the hold the parties have on the candidates.