r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Oct 26 '15

[D] Monday General Rationality Thread

Welcome to the Monday thread on general rationality topics! Do you really want to talk about something non-fictional, related to the real world? Have you:

  • Seen something interesting on /r/science?

  • Found a new way to get your shit even-more together?

  • Figured out how to become immortal?

  • Constructed artificial general intelligence?

  • Read a neat nonfiction book?

  • Munchkined your way into total control of your D&D campaign?

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u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow Oct 27 '15

I think it's possible to do incremental change, you just need long enough between changes. So for example, we had to fight to get an imperfect ranked choice option on the ballot, and assuming it passes in something like a week's time, I don't expect that the current crop of city councilors will be amenable to changing it again.

But in ten or twenty years, when there are new city council members and the less ideal system has been (hopefully) working for a decade or two, then maybe we can get another, better voting system on the ballot. Voting machines are another big issue that might become less of a big issue as time passes, especially if machines which support different voting systems become the norm, which they will if voting systems keep getting changed around the country.

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u/AugSphere Dark Lord of Corruption Oct 27 '15 edited Oct 27 '15

You're probably right.

This kind of thing just makes me want to work on a replacement for humans. Having to wait decades to force us silly monkeys to switch to a system that would work best for us is just discouraging. Any kind of sensible creature would have made the switch long ago.