Redistricting Videogame Shows Problems in the System 322
An anonymous reader writes "This is a cool redistricting game that was launched out of the capitol building in Washington DC last week. It was created by the USC Game Innovation Lab and has been getting lots of press. It's about time someone took on a tough issue like redistricting reform using the power of the internet." It's crazy that gerrymandering is actually good fodder for a video game.
Lessons taught through the difficult curve (Score:5, Informative)
That "final environment" is impossible to complete while keeping all the incumbents in their seats.
Which is the whole point, AFAIK, one I wholeheartedly agree with.
It's too bad there's no way to download the game and mirror it elsewhere or just hold onto a copy. Little gems like this are likely to disappear after a few months.
One has to ask... (Score:5, Informative)
2. What... is gerrymandering [wikipedia.org]?
3. What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Sincerely,
--
The English-as-a-second-language population
Re:What about multi-member districts with STV? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slashdotted... (Score:1, Informative)
Redistricting vs. politics as usual (Score:5, Informative)
Remember that most states have 'winner-take-all' electoral votes, because the Republicans got with the Democrats to stop Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose party.
Re:Lessons taught through the difficult curve (Score:4, Informative)
Tried this in California already (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why try to patch a broken system? (Score:2, Informative)
It's a common fallacy to assume that the role of the electoral college was simply to overcome the shortcomings of communications methods of the time, but being common makes it no less a fallacy. The electoral college's primary purpose is specifically to ensure that even states with low populations have a say in the presidential election. The disproportionate weight of a vote cast in Montana compared to one cast in California is intentional - no matter how much the residents of the coasts may want to mock "flyover country," the founders recognized that denying "flyover country" an effective voice in government is a fantastic way to foster civil unrest.
This approach goes hand in hand with the intent to have separate states under a minimal federal government, rather than the curious inversion of the Constitution we have now.
Whether or not these are good goals is a different issue, of course.
But you're incorrect that it's the major parties which would most fight elimination of the electoral college. Rather, it's every state which has only two votes in the electoral college, since it's those states which would suffer in its absence.
Re:How would you ban gerrymandering? (Score:5, Informative)
1 - population equality,
2 - contiguity,
3 - unity of counties and cities (maintaining county lines and "nesting" house districts within senate districts and senate districts within congressional districts), and
4 - compactness.
When you look at these guidelines, you'll find it tries to do the same thing that various mathematical algorithms, which others have suggested in response to the parent post, try to do. The three proposed maps are sent to the legislature, who attempt to choose one in a simple take-it-or-leave-it vote, with contingencies if the legislature can't decide on one.
The result is that four of five congressional districts in Iowa are consistently competitive and mirror the state's overall political makeup. Compare that to about 50 of 435 congressional districts nationwide being competitive, despite the nearly even split between Democrats and Republicans.
Some Iowa politicians grumble when they have to move their home to stay within their redrawn district, but by and large everyone feels that the system is fair and equitable. Neither party considers abusing the system, because they realize how blatant it would appear, and because they know that the next time the same abuse could be revisited on them.
Re:What about multi-member districts with STV? (Score:4, Informative)
http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ [zesty.ca]
Re:a dated practice which is not needed (Score:3, Informative)
One small problem - what about the House of Representatives? These are folks that are elected by their "district" which is what this is all about.
No, there really aren't many more important issues. Because most of the real business of the government of the US is done by the House of Representatives. And getting people that would actually represent people might be a good thing.
Unfortunately, the current situation pushes things towards electing the properly connected people. So we end up with lawyers and such that have networks of friends through all levels of government.
Re:Grand Strategy Guide for Electoral Victory (Score:3, Informative)
3. There are 9 districts. Percentages republican are as follows: #1 = 90%, 2 = 80%, 3 = 70%, 4 = 60%, 5 = 50%, 6 = 40%, 7 = 30%, 8 = 20%, 9 = 10%.
Now change it as follows:
1 = 65%, 2 = 65%, 3 = 65%, 4 = 65%, 5 = 65%, 6 = 65%, 7 = 50%, 8= 5%, 9 =5%
You went from 3 certain, 3 in doubt, 3 definitely lost to 6 almost certain, one in doubt, 2 defitinely lost. Assuming a typical year, you go from an everage of 4.5 seats to an average of 6.5 seats. Two seat gain.
The only problem with this idea is that people MOVE and the data tends to be at least one year old. If you don't pay attention to trends, you gerrymandering works for about two years. If you do, you might be able to get 4 or 5 years out of it. Even then, it dies.
Re:Sure it's a game (Score:3, Informative)
"Why is that crazy? Gerrymandering, and indeed, much of politics, is a game"
Your post getting +5 is a great example of how cynicism is often mistaken for intelligence. If you remove the "+5 Cynical", your post says nothing and contributes nothing to the discussion, in fact it's silly: Politics isn't a game, it's real and affects real peoples' lives.
It depends on your definition of "game [wikipedia.org]." American football is a game, but it's real and affects people's lives. It has a major effect on the economies of large cities. So your disqualification would seem not to work here. Real-world impact of a game's outcome has no bearing on the definition of a game, whether it be a game in the traditional sense like basketball, or a game like politics or the stock market, which are games according to sociological and philosophical observation.
As far as politics goes, at least some of the participants would seem certainly to have understood it as a game in the traditional sense of the word. That is, there are winners and losers, a defined set of rules, etc. In any event, sociological analysis and game theory would, in even the most rudimentary analysis, seem to reinforce this belief. One of the more famous books that analysed sociological and psychological games was Games People Play, which among other things discussed the aspects of common social interactions which fit basic requirements for the definition of the word "game." [wikipedia.org]
It seems you have made the common error of associating frivolity with the idea of a game. In English, the concept of games has been linked, in some people's minds inextricably, with the concept of frivolity. But while play and games can be frivolous they do not have to be so and are not always seen that way by the players. This would especially be true in the case of games where there is a sense of extreme competition and real-world impact, which would seem to be the case here. It's probably true that some of the participants of this particular game view it somewhat frivolously, in the sense that they are simply having fun, without losing their sense of competition; this was the case with some of the more famous entrepeneurs of the late 19th and early 20th century as regards the game of wealth-building. But there are probably others in politics who view it as a game and treat it as such while also treating it very seriously. For them politics would be a game which they mean to win, which is incredibly competitive; this is no different from the first case, but the distinction in the second case lies in impact. For these players the cost of losing is very great because they would feel that failure to win the game of politics would mean failure in the larger game of the determinance of the fate of the human race, or at the very least their particular plitical unit (city, state, country).
I think it's important to analyse this particular case. If you think about it, even a sincere politician who believes fervently in their stated ends must realize that they will not have the chance of implementing their ideas without winning the game of politics. This would probably lead to even more extreme measures than would the contest of those who view the game frivolously. For them the game would be very much like the game of war, in which the result of the other team winning is horrible in itself to contemplate, and the repercussions of being the loser even more horrible because the winner is also winning the right to dominance in that particular case. In politics, as in war, the winner of the game determines the future of the loser, who is at his/her mercy, as is everyone the loser cares about. For someone who is sincere in their beliefs this would be completely unacceptable, and it is possible that such a person would then do anything to win, perhaps even thinhgs they might otherwise not do, like cheating.
In the case
Re:Sure it's a game (Score:3, Informative)
(anyone else think that it's about time they release the government 2.0 patch, though?)
Re:Sure it's a game (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, asking for instant change is asking for too much, and asking for eventual parity is unrealistic, and unfeasible, and probably undesirable. However, asking to change the status quo isn't asking too much, especially when the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is widening.
Making it into the middle class would be an acceptable goal, if the middle class controlled an acceptable portion of the pie. That *might* have been the case from the 50's to the 80's, but today the upper 1% control more wealth than they have at any time since the great depression, and that is what I consider unacceptable.
Oh, and BTW, asking for women to get paid the same as men in the same job yesterday isn't asking too much.
Real People (Score:3, Informative)
I like how you use a teenager living at home as your example of financial success. Now consider this story: a single mom with two kids, who earns $1500 a month. She rents a two bedroom apartment for $1200, which is pretty cheap in the rental market hereabouts. A transit pass costs $65 (she needs to actually GET to work). That leaves her $235 a month to feed her family, buy clothes and shoes and whatnot for growing children, sundries, maybe a phone line so that she can actually take telephone calls from work letting her know when her shifts are.
But, by YOUR estimation, she's just a lazy idiot, and should try to do all of that on $135, and save $100 -- the teenager with no children and no bills can do it, so why can't she?!
One of my co-workers is in almost exactly this situation -- two kids, her husband is permanently disabled and in an institution, and she has no marketable skills. She's in the position where she has to squeeze every last penny just to make ends meet.
I know it makes you feel better about yourself to believe that those who don't come out ahead in life are just lazy or have bad attitudes. My co-worker that I mentioned? She is one of the sweetest, hardest working people I've ever meet. When I was training her, I couldn't get anything done myself because she insisted on doing EVERYTHING. She's just a really driven, positive, hard-working girl who will do anything to keep her family housed, clothed, and fed. Yet it's irrelevant -- she's stuck at the subsistence level, and will never be able to rise above it (or at least not for 20 years when her kids leave home and she finally has time to go back to school or something).You can't invest a good attitude. In most cases, all it means is the difference between subsistence and death (we've had to fire more than a few people in similarly bad situations who just wouldn't do the job).
Seriously -- a teenager living at home with a job that his family got for him? What the hell kind of stupid example is that?! Why not focus on real families that are actually out there trying to make it -- people facing REAL challenges. You were homeless because you're a moron: morons constitute just a small minority of the homeless. Drug addicts constitute another small majority. It turns out that the majority of homeless people have serious neurological and psychiatric problems -- not "bad attitudes".
Hell, a hateful psycho like you probably thinks that my coworker's husband -- the one with such severe brain-damage from a stroke that he can't even take care of himself -- just has a bad attitude, and if he would try harder he'd be out there making money and getting rich.