I absolutely love that you need to read a list of axioms with Greek symbols in their descriptions to make an informed vote in Iceland. Sets a minimum bar of education to vote, which is reasonable.
Nah, just vote for the party you like the most. The nerds at the elections office take care of the math themselves. "Better" than US/UK/Canada where you have to consider a primary system or multiple elections or "Liberal Democrats win here" signs to not split the vote.
It does underline the comparative disadvantage of America’s uneducated population: something like this wouldn’t get through because most of the population is too stupid to grok it. We’re foreclosed from an entire domain of solutions because idiots won’t or can’t tough through understanding them.
The United States has one of the best education systems in the world, as proxied by the PISA test. US Asians have better results than anywhere but Singapore, Macau and Taiwan. US whites have better results than every majority white country besides Estonia and Switzerland. US Hispanics do better than every Hispanic country bar Spain. US Blacks outscore Jamaica, the only majority Black Country in the OECD and many European and South American countries.
I guarantee you the average Icelander does not understand how votes are distributed among parties. They trust the people who do it though.
That’s for the entire US population. If you look at the US population without even attempting to correct for demographic factors the US looks unimpressive at all ages.
This is true, this is an inherently more complex system. Personally I prefer the French two-round system as a balance between complexity and proportionality -- America sorta has this with primaries, although them being months in advance and the districts being gerrymandered to hell doesn't help.
I think you’re both underestimating the education of immigrants and overestimating the abilities of your neighbors.
A lot of bad shit hides in the averages. Some US states have poor or no standards, or allow kids to bypass standards through various means.
Unless they got remedial education in the military or something, the average high school graduate from a poorly performing place is much less capable than a Mexican or Filipino graduate.
You brought up “racism” when you cracked about gp somehow displaying anti-American racism.
Suggesting uneducated immigrants are a major problem is a common trope of racist discussion even if the word “race” is not specifically used. Especially in the context of a system that is currently trying to kick out immigrants who have voluntarily entered our educational system.
And our population is among the most educated in relation to which countries? Half the country is below a 6th grade reading level. A quarter is below a 3rd grade level. Abysmal for a developed country.
It’s inappropriate to compare the US education level to countries that have historically struggled economically and politically, especially when their struggles have been only exacerbated by self-serving US interference. And when enforced illiteracy is often used as a weapon to keep people down. Granted, GP made the first mistake there it seems, and you responded in kind. (Though I’m not sure because he is specifically comparing the lower percentiles. I haven’t seen data on that.)
But more to the point, you’ve previously claimed that your passion for these topics is due to a belief that ethnic identity and DEI is a threat to your children and to the American individualist culture. Yet, here you are bashing immigrants when neither ethnic identity, DEI, nor American individualism are being discussed.
> Suggesting uneducated immigrants are a major problem
@JumpCrisscross said uneducated Americans are a problem. If that’s true, then immigration must really be a problem, because most of it is from countries with much worse education. If you think “uneducated” people are a problem, then own that. Don’t hide behind this “punch up versus punch down” bullshit where it’s okay to call Americans uneducated but not people who are objectively more uneducated than Americans.
Look at the PISA scores I posted up thread. The U.S. performs around the same as Sweden. It’s not hanging with the very top, but it does fine compared to big western countries. And it vastly outperforms every Latin American country.
Uneducated immigrants are a far smaller group than uneducated natives. Believing that they are nonetheless the bigger problem is a sign of a racist perspective, albeit not a guarantee of one, perhaps it’s simply anti-immigration.
Additionally most immigrants don’t vote, so it doesn’t account for the current circus. When they do vote, they’ve become citizens by passing a test that many native Americans couldn’t pass.
Uneducation is a problem in general. Doesn’t matter who it is, immigrant or native. But uneducation is fixable problem if we as a society/culture wanted to fix it. We are currently working towards the exact opposite goal and doing it faster than ever.
PISA is not the only measurement. And it is not used by many countries, particularly Asian countries. It isn’t hard to look up other stats on US reading levels.
And again, comparing education levels outside of a historical context of politics and economics is not helpful, to say the least. And it says nothing about an individual’s ability or willingness to become educated once the opportunity presents itself, especially if they’ve already self-selected by making the effort to enter an environment that offers said opportunity. That should be obvious to a person who values and desires to protect American individualism, as you claim to be.
> Uneducated immigrants are a far smaller group than uneducated natives.
Work out the score distributions implied by the national PISA scores and you’ll see this isn’t true. Countries like El Salvador and Guatemala are more than a standard deviation below the U.S., meaning the average person from those countries would be in the bottom 10% of the U.S. scores. And the immigrants from those countries are less educated than average. So immigrants are going to be quite a disproportionate share of the bottom 10% of the U.S. education-wise.
> Believing that they are nonetheless the bigger problem is a sign of a racist perspective, albeit not a guarantee of one, perhaps it’s simply anti-immigration.
Just use your brain without trying to label everything. If you think uneducated people are a social problem, then it logically follows that it’s a problem to have low-skill immigration from places with more uneducated populations. And contrary to your point above, you don’t actually have to care about whatever historical circumstances caused them to be less educated. That doesn’t change the effect on American society.
> PISA is not the only measurement. And it is not used by many countries, particularly Asian countries. It isn’t hard to look up other stats on US reading levels
PISA is the most commonly used test for international comparisons.
Like I said, the problems hide in the averages. You don’t interview average high school graduates to work your shitty job in nowhereville - you’re talking to the 25th percentile for the most part. The 25th percentile Florida, Oklahoma or Arizona 8th grader performs 30% worse that his peer in New York or Massachusetts. I can assure you that NY and MA aren’t some paradise of educational achievement.
The people able to gtfo an emigrate from many places are usually the smarter people. The 75th percentile Filipino probably went to a Catholic school and had a better education than many US districts.
I’m sorry this upsets you, and I assure you I share your anger and disgust.
Hong Kong used to have a proportional voting system. The pro-China camp is often very efficient, sometimes winning a seat with half the votes compared to another candidate
The axioms just state what criteria the Swiss system (but not the Icelandic) obeys. You don't need to know them in order to vote in Iceland any more than you need to know that first past the post fails the Condorcet criterion in order to vote in the US.
I have voted my entire adult life in a similar system but never knew how the sausage was made. I have complete confidence in it despite not knowing exactly how it works.
