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11
DnD Central / Re: US Election enquiry a farce?
Last post by ersi -
Only black+poor areas have too few polling stations. It should be well known by now that in America the overpopulated polling stations are part of the overall disenfranchisement plan. Did you know that in Georgia it is illegal to distribute water to people in queue?

I say it should be well known because famous gerrymandering itself points to the peculiar American political principle: Politicians choose their voters, not vice versa. In harmony with this principle, Trump has ramped up the gerrymandering wars and is going to stifle mail-in ballots in precisely targeted ZIP codes that are known for voting Democrat. His own province of residence, Florida, will have no changes when it comes to mail-in voting, because they reliably vote Republican. Moreover, Trump himself always votes by mail.

Other topics raised by Trump in the name of good old voter disenfranchisement are voter registration and identification, known to affect precisely black+poor areas again. Trump is right now federalising voter lists, putting voter eligibility checking under his own control - and he of course will check only voters from undesirable ZIP codes.  Historical methods of voter disenfranchisement include literacy tests and poll tax.
Quote from: Frenzie – on
...the wonders of representative representation.
By the way, the wonders are such that Americans have no clue what it means to have a representative representation. In discussions among Americans that I have seen, they come up with all sorts of ideas to make the "system" representative, but they consistently build it around the assumption of a two-party system and they never for love of God touch the role of the president. They never address the most acute problem they have right now - unchecked presidency - and it never occurs to them to introduce proportional elections. 

12
DnD Central / Re: US Election enquiry a farce?
Last post by Frenzie -
I said that "In the Benelux voting districts are a manner of practicality" because fairness is a given.[1] I was hardly talking about the US in explaining how things work here.  :irked:

But it's obvious something about either their guidelines or their implementation is grossly deficient compared to ours because if they had enough polling stations they wouldn't have lines going for blocks and blocks. Atlanta for example infamously has over 8000 per polling station. I believe the districts themselves contain a few hundred thousand voters.
1 Compared to the United States, in any case, through the wonders of representative representation.↵
13
DnD Central / Re: US Election enquiry a farce?
Last post by ersi -
Quote from: Frenzie – on
A "voting district" is the organism that organizes the physical act of voting and all that entails. There are no geographical restrictions in which candidates you can vote for.

It matters because surely you remember the gigantic voting lines in America?
I see. So in your neighbourhood there's just one voting station per voting district? Not so here. Every voting district has as many voting stations/locations as needed to serve the voters who can be expected show up in person on the election day in that district. And as such there's no re-districting to accommodate population movements, but there can be re-scheduling of voting locations. Normally, every (public) school house and "culture house" is a voting location and some more places if need be.

Anyway, given the shape and size of American voting districts, you didn't think that those districts in America have just one voting station/location, did you?
14
DnD Central / Re: US Election enquiry a farce?
Last post by Frenzie -
Quote from: ersi – on
What does it matter if a voting district serves too many people? It probably does in some federal system, but in a unitary multi-party parliamentary democracy politicians don't serve the people of their respective voting districts anyway. The candidates select their voting districts based on wherever they have the greatest chance of collecting most votes - the number of votes serves the party.
A "voting district" is the organism that organizes the physical act of voting and all that entails. There are no geographical restrictions in which candidates you can vote for.

It matters because surely you remember the gigantic voting lines in America? They shouldn't serve too many people because otherwise that would happen. In that case you need more districts. Hence the guideline of about a thousand voters per district.
15
DnD Central / Re: US Election enquiry a farce?
Last post by ersi -
Quote from: Frenzie – on
A voting district [...] should strive to be neither too far away for its voters nor serve too many people, which would cause lines.
What does it matter if a voting district serves too many people? It probably does in some federal system, but in a unitary multi-party parliamentary democracy politicians don't serve the people of their respective voting districts anyway. The candidates select their voting districts based on wherever they have the greatest chance of collecting most votes - the number of votes serves the party.

Of course, legally the candidates are allowed to run only in the district of their primary residence, but they have some form of residence in all districts and they select whichever is most opportune to make primary for next elections. It admittedly is a form of gerrymandering again (and in USA it goes on in addition to redistricting), but at least it's entirely the political candidate's job to go through these motions, instead of for the voter to wonder what kind of district he is going to wake up this time around. Isn't this residence lottery happening in Benelux?
16
DnD Central / Re: US Election enquiry a farce?
Last post by Frenzie -
Quote from: ersi – on
Third, stop re-districting. Simply let the administrative county borders serve as districts.
In the Benelux voting districts are a manner of practicality. A voting district is primarily if not entirely about where you go to vote, so it should strive to be neither too far away for its voters nor serve too many people, which would cause lines. In practice that means a guideline of about a thousand per district but I don't think there are minima or maxima. In practical terms, a village with 1600 inhabitants isn't going to add a second voting district just because it's a little past the 1000 voter guideline. Voting districts are logical subdivisions of municipalities.

In the United States, because of their hilariously bad first past the post system, it's important that districts have populations as equal as possible. The problem would disappear entirely if voting were simply proportional.
17
DnD Central / Re: US Election enquiry a farce?
Last post by ersi -
Gerrymandering Is Bad for Cities. Here’s How to Fix It.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYvycBCfHwo

CityNerd is of course not fixing anything here. He just gerrymanders based on his own preferences. Here are some hallmarks of gerrymandering that he retains:
- Presupposing urban versus rural political divide and making it central to redistricting
- Assuming that two parties are forever and that the districting must reflect it
- Aiming to capture a given political alignment within every district

Here's how to really fix gerrymandering. First, make no assumptions about the political preferences of the population in a given place and do not use it as a basis of anything. Second, make no assumptions about the party structure in the country. In fact, to encourage proper multi-party democracy with a shifting political landscape, introduce proportional elections in each district. Third, stop re-districting. Simply let the administrative county borders serve as districts.
18
Hobbies & Entertainment / Re: Films and Books
Last post by Frenzie -
Quote from: jax – on
Not known how many are rare.
Though it is known that they prioritize "less common" books. Of course for the most part less common isn't the same thing as rare but it does give you pause.

Incidentally, this article was just published about Zoom Books.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/08/21/nederlandstalige-tweedehands-boeken-zijn-een-goudmijn-voor-ai-bedrijven-dit-is-een-vorm-van-barbarisme-a4934839?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=clipboard&utm_campaign=share&utm_term=share-modal&gift_token=4934839~1788091134~XJUytp0IEeKfgABQVoV_mg~Mx6Z9GzH2sFpeY-w7M3YEfVXAFm_uXrDHNSx-3evV5A

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/07/31/800-000-nederlandstalige-boeken-zoom-books-de-slegte-om-ai-te-tr/
19
Hobbies & Entertainment / Re: Films and Books
Last post by jax -
Quote from: Frenzie – on
In principle destructive scanning can be a perfectly normal part of mass digitization. But those internal planning documents do make it sound like they're not taking any of the typical precautions, since otherwise they could just say they only do it to mass market paperbacks while non-destructively scanning or otherwise processing rare books.

There's even a well-known big tech analog that already works that way: Google Books.

There is a volunteer predecessor, Project Gutenberg, that began all the way back in 1971. Also a Nordic one, Projekt Runeberg (1992). There is a scale difference. Gutenberg has digitized about 79,000 books, Runeberg about 7000, Google Books 25+ million books. That said, both Wikisource and Internet Archive both sit on a massive library of digitized books and texts. Wikisource has 10 million articles, while Internet Archive has 20 million texts (and over a trillion web captures), of which 2 million books. Wikisource and Internet Archive don't necessarily digitize themselves, majority are donations.

Anthropic has supposedly destroyed one or two million books. Not known how many are rare. There is a private archive of 1 copy of each book.