[0964] Zoey Volunteers
└ posted on Thursday, 15 February 2018, by Novil
- Zoey: The election isn’t over yet!
- Teacher: What do you mean?
- Zoey: Sandra didn’t get the absolute majority. There must be a second round for the two of us! And I’ll win that one easily! Sandra only got the votes of her best friends. All those who didn’t vote for her will vote for me in the second round!
- Teacher: There won’t be a second round, Zoey.
- Zoey: But that’s not fair!
- Teacher: I’m very pleased that you’re volunteering to write a detailed essay on the different electoral systems. Please make sure to finish it by Friday.
- Zoey: AAAAAAH!!
@ Dorje Sylas:
See that’s wrong. That’s a punishment inflicted on them for exercising their rights not to do those things. None of the students who go along are forced to do detailed explanations of why they’re going along, because nobody has any reason to be doing anything of the sort. ‘Sure you can have that right just as soon as you give me a lengthy explanation of why you have it and want to exercise it’ is NOT them having a right, that’s treating their right as something that they have to pay for if they want to have it making it a privilege which again it isn’t, it’s a right. All a student needs to do is say ‘I don’t want to stand’ and that is IT, the ONLY response the teacher is free to give is ‘okay, that’s your right’ and nothing more. They don’t get to punish them or tell them that they have to do a thesis on it before they can have it it’s theirs automatically.
Best way to assign detention ever. I’ll have to use it some day
@ Nightmask:
Nobody has the right to behave like an asshole without repercussions.
What happened?
1. Zoe expected to win the election.
2. She didn’t.
3. Her first reaction was to say the election was skewed (the only indication for this being that she didn’t win, which is a circular argument. Incidentally, this is an insult to the teacher.)
4. Then she tried to change the rules to get the result that is the right one in her eyes. Which would make election a total failure, because redoing the election until you get the expected result is not election but thinly veiled dictatorship.
5. When this failed, she wailed like a three year old not getting their sweets.
And then, and only then, the teacher gave her the essay. It’s not even arbitrary, it gives her a chance to intellectually understand how elections work, how you cannot change the rules on the way and still be somewhat legitimate. And it also makes clear that as a teacher, you only have to take so much bullshit from your students.
CJ wrote:
Which has no relation to my post in response to someone thinking a student had to write an essay before they could exercise their right to not stand for the flag or pledge of allegiance, because they don’t. That’s what it being a right means. Whether someone thinks they’re being rude (they aren’t), disrespectful (they aren’t), or should be forced to show their patriotism (which you can’t) is irrelevant, it’s their right and NOBODY has a right to think they can punish them for it.
Meanwhile when it comes to Zoey her complaint doesn’t rise to the level punishing her with a detailed essay, a simple ‘just because you didn’t win doesn’t make it not fair, now sit back down before I require you to write a detailed essay about things,’ because the essay isn’t about her learning anything it’s about a punishment. The teacher will trashcan it unread as soon as she gets it and Zoey like any other student knows that which doesn’t help things.
That’s what happens when you annoy the powers that be, Zoey.
You should’ve just let it go.
In addition to the single candidate model that Richard Sheaves-Bein mentioned, there’s another one that could be worse.
Last past the post, but keep the write-in features of the US system.
(I actually think LPTP without write-ins could be a vast improvement over FPTP given the US political climate – FPTP encourages voting for the least bad candidate, LPTP encourages voting against the worst candidate. But, with write-ins, you end up a many-way tie between people who wrote themselves in.)
Personally I think the title “Not Fair” would have fit better.
Yup yup, in politics that eventually leads to people voting not for their favorite, but for the second worst candidate, because it’s the only way to maybe prevent the worst candidate to win. And that eventually leads to people no longer knowing which one is the second worst, like in the last election in the USA.
Boy am I glad that here in Germany we have a different system. Far from perfect, but way fairer than what the USA, Russia or China have to deal with.
While she does raise a valid point, who’s to say the same thing doesn’t also apply to her? Sure, Sandra likely got her friends’ votes, but Zoey had friends who may have voted for her too.
Besides, it’s not even sure that’s really why Sandra won; chances are some of her friends voted for someone else (perhaps even Zoey) and some of Zoey’s friends likewise. Not everyone votes based on friendship, some just pick a different candidate whom they find better suited for the position.
someguy wrote:
She musta learned that from a certain Starfleet captain who beat the no-win scenario by reprogramming the simulation…
@ Nightmask:
I found out the hard way, school is not exactly a democracy – except when the adults occasionally allow it, for example electing class representatives. If the teacher thinks you need to be taught a lesson for trying to manipulate her, you aren’t exactly in a position to object.
I also found out the hard way, while replacing another teacher to get some experience, that allowing young pupils the same autonomy as responsible adults ends in disaster. My colleagues and superiors made that clear, too; you have to enforce your authority and keep order first, then you can teach whatever subject you wanna teach.
The only exception to this rule is, of course, if the teacher is clearly abusing power and/or breaking the law.
@ Renadt:
Or having the cash to effectively compete in terms of advertising and media air-time.
Jan wrote:
That refer to another comic called Gaia http://www.sandraandwoo.com/gaia
This is why i prefer Condorcet voting.
While Zoey obviously doesn’t have pure motives here, that doesn’t mean she is wrong, at least about the election system used not being fair.
I would personally recommend approval voting. It almost always gets the same result as Condorcet voting it simulations (which admittedly can’t perfectly model human behavior), but is much much simpler to run. Just let each person vote for as many candidates as they want and count who has the most people who approve of them.
@ Edda:
While Arrow’s Theorem does say that there is no ranked voting system that doesn’t violate one of those tenets that doesn’t mean that all voting systems are created equal (not that I am saying that is what you claimed). He actually is fairly upset that his theorem is used to close debate on what system might be better.
Two other points on Arrows Theorem. First it only applies to ranked voting systems. Non ranked voting systems like Approval are outside of its scope.
Second I don’t think the dictator criteria is as important as the other criteria he lists since it says that one person should not be able to decide an election, even if he is the last person to vote an election that is split 50/50.
Edda wrote:
If 50% of the people voted for “someone universally despised” he is apparently not so universally despised as you would like. In fact, it means there are thousands of people among his voters who surely are more or at least equally intelligent as you or me. And as long as you do not ask yourself why people who are intelligent enough to see through media manipulation did not vote for your candidate, but for the one “universally despised”, you will loose again & again.
Most people are absolutely certain of why a given candidate was elected, it’s just that what they’re absolutely certain about tends to vary based on political persuasion.
Funny she only complained after she lost, all the time she thought she would win she was happy with the voting system and only complains about the weakness in the system when she lost. Even if her argument is sound shes should have made it before hand not try to change the rules after losing, shes a BAD LOSER!
Nightmask wrote:
She got the punishment she got because the joke required it. If the teacher had just warned Zoey, there would be no joke. Even if the teacher had just toned down the punishment, like requiring Zoey to just write two pages instead of a detailed essay, it would have weakened the joke.
@ Renadt:
Agreed. I live in Canada and I’d like to think we get along pretty well with the multi-party system we have.
“Not Fair!” is a child’s response which is accurately translated as “Not what I want!” When I would point that out to a classroom of 12-year-olds and tell them that the answer is “You’re right. Next question?” they would all nod, agreeing that not getting everything you want is part of life and that you should learn to cope with it. Life isn’t ‘fair’. Grow up and get used to it.
Flemkopf wrote:
America doesn’t have a two party system. We have a multi-party system dominated by two parties. There are multiple occasions of more than two parties being on the main election ballot in November and 7 presidents that were something other than Democrat, Republican, or the Democratic-Republican party that those two were birthed from.
@ Klaus:
I’m aware of that. My problem is that she stated it as an absolute certainty when it isn’t. It bothers me when people state something as an absolute certainty when there are other alternatives. This is excluding absolute facts and people who are talking about a subject that they are very knowledgeable in.
@ Feartheswans:
Actually you are wrong. America is set up for a two party system where we vote directly for our leader, meaning candidates who are on the ballot that are not nominated by either of the two major parties a basically stealing votes. If we had a parliamentary system then it would be a very different story. Small parties have much more power over what gets done since the major parties would need to curry their favor to get the majority so that they can get someone from their party in charge.
And I’ll say this now: Lincoln is the only third party candidate to become President, and that had a lot to do with what was going on at the time
Does Sandra still dream of being a Maths professor?
Looking at the poll. Heh heh, seems the fanbase has a little crush on clouds mom…
Reminds me of what they’re doing in Maine. List the people you’d vote for in order of most likely to least likely. If there’s a recount and the guy you most wanted has no chance of winning then we will change your vote for you.
Rebellion
Qaysed wrote:
We don’t *really* have a two-party system. We have a system where the two parties that exist have managed to gain so much power that the other parties have very little chance competing.
Cat wrote:
The problem you are mentioning is incorrect. We have at last count 6 major political parties, but none of them save the Democrats and the Republicans have the money to give their candidates a fair shake.
We have even had people with “no party” have a respectable run– witness Ross Perot, who was well on his way to actually being *elected* before things happened that effectively cost him the election. That was with a roll-your-own “Reform” party that he had created himself to get himself elected.
It’s also probable that, given his immense wealth, Donald Trump could have come in as a third candidate and also won the election– it was a strategic move on his part to join forces with the Republicans, thereby removing a Republican competitor in a three-way race.