From d81632fbcc13bb779d77a6bcd1ae08508acbfcf9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Andrew Yu Article ID: 3
-In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled seven-to-two in favor of Roe's rights to abortion against a healthcare official of the state of Texas. Roe argued for abortion with ``privacy'', derived from the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. As the U.S. has a precedential judiciary system, this effectively legalizes abortion across the country.
+In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled seven-to-two in favor of Roe's rights to abortion against a healthcare official of the state of Texas. Roe argued for abortion with “privacy”, derived from the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. As the U.S. has a precedential judiciary system, this effectively legalizes abortion across the country.
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ The poor person was life, and your decision did cause their decession. But is t
-There is a subtle, but eventually significant difference between helping a person down the street and voluntary pregnency. (Involuntary pregnency is basically ``alright, here comes a person at your doorstep, you MUST help them and keep them alive'', there's not much to discuss there in my opinion.)
+There is a subtle, but eventually significant difference between helping a person down the street and voluntary pregnency. (Involuntary pregnency is basically “alright, here comes a person at your doorstep, you MUST help them and keep them alive”, there's not much to discuss there in my opinion.)
diff --git a/article/copyright.html b/article/copyright.html
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- Information unlike physical items can be copied with minimal cost, especially in the case of digital information, and thus the traditional private property argument of ``this is theft and the author loses stuff'' doesn't really apply. However, information/data that an author creates shall be under the control of the author, it's ultimately what they create and is their private information. The authors, not anyone else, should control how their information goes. (Transferring this control to another entity is ultimately using their control to share or give away the same control, so that's no different.)
+ Information unlike physical items can be copied with minimal cost, especially in the case of digital information, and thus the traditional private property argument of “this is theft and the author loses stuff” doesn't really apply. However, information/data that an author creates shall be under the control of the author, it's ultimately what they create and is their private information. The authors, not anyone else, should control how their information goes. (Transferring this control to another entity is ultimately using their control to share or give away the same control, so that's no different.)
diff --git a/article/democracy-fundamentals.html b/article/democracy-fundamentals.html
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Article ID: 4 Unless otherwise specified, ``democracy'' in this article refers to representative democracy. ``Country'' can additionally refer to other regions that have people and its own policies, such as a state, provinces in some countries, etc. Unless otherwise specified, “democracy” in this article refers to representative democracy. “Country” can additionally refer to other regions that have people and its own policies, such as a state, provinces in some countries, etc.
- We usually think of ``democracy'' as people influencing the policies of the country by electing trustworthy experts that serve their interest to make actual decisions about running the country. This type of democracy, representative democracy, has evolved from direct democracy aging back two thousand years ago as created by Athens in Greece. Representative democracy is more scalable than direct democracy and also avoids some forms of populism and uninformed decisions as its the experts in the field that are making the actual policies.
+ We usually think of “democracy” as people influencing the policies of the country by electing trustworthy experts that serve their interest to make actual decisions about running the country. This type of democracy, representative democracy, has evolved from direct democracy aging back two thousand years ago as created by Athens in Greece. Representative democracy is more scalable than direct democracy and also avoids some forms of populism and uninformed decisions as its the experts in the field that are making the actual policies.
- The Chinese term for democracy is ``民主''. The first character, ``民'', means ``people''; the second, ``主'', ascin ``主人'' means ``owner''. You could understand it as saying ``the people of the country own the country (and thus get to decide on its affairs)''. But at the same time, ``主'' as in ``自主'' means ``do things themselves'', i.e. the right not to be interfered by others while doing their own business.
+ The Chinese term for democracy is “民主”. The first character, “民”, means “people”; the second, “主”, ascin “主人” means “owner”. You could understand it as saying “the people of the country own the country (and thus get to decide on its affairs)”. But at the same time, “主” as in “自主” means “do things themselves”, i.e. the right not to be interfered by others while doing their own business.
This is, of course, not the proper definition for democracy; democracy is just saying that the general public ultimately runs the country. But we could take the time to appreciate how with democracy we usually end up with liberty and how we take personal liberty for granted.
- In any case, both democracy and liberty are important in a long-lasting prosperous system of society. Note my wording in the first paragraph, that the decisions of elected experts are for ``running the country''—I specifically mean issues that deal with either the general public (such as public health and the environment) and things that would be otherwise hard to solve personally (such as enforcement of contracts and crimes). The ``will of the people'', represented by the government, have no business doing things like banning freedom of thought or mandating people not to smoke in their private property. Only when things affect others such as smoking in public should the government, or the will of the general public, have any say. And of course, people should take responsibility for their own private deeds. It is argued that a lung cancer patient who got lung cancer by smoking excessively doesn't deserve medical insurance from taxpayers; but for cases where an illness isn't caused by a identifiable private decision factor, medical insurance and support should be given. (In practice the distinction is subtle; this is also a very controversial topic.)
+ In any case, both democracy and liberty are important in a long-lasting prosperous system of society. Note my wording in the first paragraph, that the decisions of elected experts are for “running the country”—I specifically mean issues that deal with either the general public (such as public health and the environment) and things that would be otherwise hard to solve personally (such as enforcement of contracts and crimes). The “will of the people”, represented by the government, have no business doing things like banning freedom of thought or mandating people not to smoke in their private property. Only when things affect others such as smoking in public should the government, or the will of the general public, have any say. And of course, people should take responsibility for their own private deeds. It is argued that a lung cancer patient who got lung cancer by smoking excessively doesn't deserve medical insurance from taxpayers; but for cases where an illness isn't caused by a identifiable private decision factor, medical insurance and support should be given. (In practice the distinction is subtle; this is also a very controversial topic.)
People overemphasize the importance of democracy. In fact, democracy is in my opinion less important than liberty—though in practice indeed liberty wouldn't survive for long without democracy.
- Note that abortion and similar subjects may fall into the scope of government. Some opponents of abortion believe that fetus is human life and thus abortion is murder and shall be outlawed. The ``privacy'' and ``personal liberty'' arguments don't stand up well against this as it's no longer a personal matter when another human life is supposedly on the line. I oppose the abortion bans that Republicans in the US are placing in many states for a different reason.
+ Note that abortion and similar subjects may fall into the scope of government. Some opponents of abortion believe that fetus is human life and thus abortion is murder and shall be outlawed. The “privacy” and “personal liberty” arguments don't stand up well against this as it's no longer a personal matter when another human life is supposedly on the line. I oppose the abortion bans that Republicans in the US are placing in many states for a different reason.
Modern populism (which is a poorly-defined term but does have the following general scope) gives the power of deciding everything that happens in the country to the people. This is bad in two ways. (1) The general public often make uninformed and un-thought-through decisions and are easily influenced. (2) The government, in this case directly the collective decision of the people, is stepping its feet into the personal lives of people. While it is democratic, it doesn't give people liberty, creating a tyranny of the majority, and at the same time making uninformed decisions which are better made by experts which people elect.
diff --git a/article/democracy-us.html b/article/democracy-us.html
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Article ID: 5
- When people talk about democracies, it's common to think of the US Constitution as the ``defining point of democracy''. While the US is the first modern democracy, its laws is far from perfect. In fact, it may be one of the worst of modern time! I will briefly go through the following.
+ When people talk about democracies, it's common to think of the US Constitution as the “defining point of democracy”. While the US is the first modern democracy, its laws is far from perfect. In fact, it may be one of the worst of modern time! I will briefly go through the following.
A near-ideal democracy would have a roughly linear positive correlation between the fraction of voters who support a policy and the possibility of the policy being passed in the legislature. But in the US, the line is flat at about 30%. A representative democracy wouldn't have a perfect correlation, because the general public is unable to be informed on all topics; fluctuations are normal. But a flat line means that the opinions of the people don't matter at all. This does not make sense in any type of democracy.
- According to the study, the influence of economic elites and business interest groups on politics is rather high with a rough positive correlation as opposed to the flatline for the general public, making the US an oligarchy rather than a democracy. Mass-based interest groups have discernable impact on policies, but are still trivial compared with economic elites and businesses. About three billion dollars are spent yearly by large ``politically active'' businesses to bribe politicians to pass policies for their interest. While businesses should have a say in legislation, it is unacceptable that they have superior dominance over public opinion.
+ According to the study, the influence of economic elites and business interest groups on politics is rather high with a rough positive correlation as opposed to the flatline for the general public, making the US an oligarchy rather than a democracy. Mass-based interest groups have discernable impact on policies, but are still trivial compared with economic elites and businesses. About three billion dollars are spent yearly by large “politically active” businesses to bribe politicians to pass policies for their interest. While businesses should have a say in legislation, it is unacceptable that they have superior dominance over public opinion.
Democracy: Fundamentals (Unfinished)
Democracy: The United States (Unfinished)
@@ -21,14 +21,14 @@
Corruption
-
+
The Senate
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
The Senate of the USA consists of 100 members, with 2 from each state. Two senators from California represent 39 million people while the two from Wyoming represent 500 thousand people. The founding fathers never could have imagined such a huge a difference between the population of states.
- Some people believe that the Senate helps against populism as opposed to the House. Although the number of Senators for each state do indeed not correspond to the population, this has no correlation whatsoever with preventing populism and doesn't serve an obvious purpose. It only ``helps'' by giving completely unproportional voting powers to people based on their location, period. + Some people believe that the Senate helps against populism as opposed to the House. Although the number of Senators for each state do indeed not correspond to the population, this has no correlation whatsoever with preventing populism and doesn't serve an obvious purpose. It only “helps” by giving completely unproportional voting powers to people based on their location, period.
The Senate also suffers from the fillibuster. Passing a bill in the Senate has a few steps: Firstly the Senators must agree to vote, passed at a supermajority. Then the Senators actually vote on the bill. Those who are against the bill will just disagree to vote altogether, effectively requiring all bills to have a supermajority support to pass which is nearly impossible as the two dominent political parties almost always oppose each others' bills and neither have a supermajority in the Senate. @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
- Single-winner elections in the US uses what's called ``plurality voting'', where each voter casts one vote to their favorite canidate and the canidate with the most votes win. This contributes to the partisan dualopoly (not an actual word, but it basically means ``monopoly'' but with two rather than one) as voters who support smaller parties will undergo the decision of choosing their honest favorite or one of the two big parties that most closely ressembles their favorite. As it's hard to gather votes for smaller parties, and thus there's a small chance of them actually winning the electron, many voters strategically vote for the big party in order to not be ``taken over'' by the big party that they oppose more. + Single-winner elections in the US uses what's called “plurality voting”, where each voter casts one vote to their favorite canidate and the canidate with the most votes win. This contributes to the partisan dualopoly (not an actual word, but it basically means “monopoly” but with two rather than one) as voters who support smaller parties will undergo the decision of choosing their honest favorite or one of the two big parties that most closely ressembles their favorite. As it's hard to gather votes for smaller parties, and thus there's a small chance of them actually winning the electron, many voters strategically vote for the big party in order to not be “taken over” by the big party that they oppose more.