When I recommended the books I mentioned previously, I hoped the books
would provide food for thought. The authors each present facts to
support their conjectures.
Joe
On 10/5/12 8:44 PM, Sarbajit Roy wrote:
Only 1 in 200 men are descended from Genghis Khan.
http://www.cell.com/AJHG/retrieve/pii/S0002929707605874
I am not.
Your premise about "splitting the vote" is fallacious.
1) Nothing you, Joe or this mailing list does is going to affect the
outcome on Nov 6.
2) A "vote" by its very definition incorporates a "split"
3) It seems that 40% of the voting US population doesn't fall into the
hard-headed camp (they identify themselves as Independents)
[http://www.webcitation.org/690ibz8mi]
and for them TV debates would have more impact than the discussions at
FRIAM <sigh>
4) Mitt Romney apparently picked up 4 percent of the Independent vote
after the first TV debate.
5) In advanced democracies, the swing/independent voters vote for
CHANGE .. the anti-incumbency effect. Whereas in the US it seems that
the Independent voters are the
timid ones who prefer the known evil to the unknown one.
6) Based on this [http://www.webcitation.org/690ibz8mi] it seems that
more Democrats would vote for Romney than Republicans for Obama.
On 10/6/12, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote:
Sarbajit wrote...
http://www.quora.com/Are-all-the-US-Presidents-related-to-each-other
It seems that except for Martin Buren, all the US Presidents are
descended
from evil King John.
They are all also probably descended from Genghis Khan as well... but
then, so are you and I!
By coincidence, I've a friend in Santa Fe who is descended from Van
Buren... King John or not, the blood there is still rather cyanotic...
I understand Joe's implication about "splitting the vote" and I'm not
interested in helping the candidate with the most inflexible,
hard-headed supporters (those less likely to be split), but rather, as
he implies a change in structure where we can vote for who we *really*
while also voting for *the lesser of other evils*.
I'm more interested in how the debate (the general debate among all of
us, not the televised one between anointed candidates) is shaped.
Politics is at best, a "necessary evil". Leadership and discussion in
the building of a dynamic, progressive culture is what I seek, not
statesmanship or nation building, much less grandstanding,
fearmongering, special-interest-leveraging, etc. (also Mom and Apple
Pie while I'm at it...)
- Steve
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
--
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
-- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1913.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
