> J. David Blackstone wrote:
>>
>> When they drafted the U.S. constitution, there was
>> a huge debate over whether to base congressional representation on
>> population per state or make each state equal. Both sides had a good
>> claim to the other being unfair; giving a smaller state (Rhode Island,
>> or Mac users) equal say with a larger one can seem unfair to the
>> larger segment, and I think in this case it would be. ("No,
>> seriously, guys, I think we should move the epoch to 1904.")
>
> I agree with jdb. One equivalent vote per person opens the possibility
> that some company in Redmond could assign 250 of its employees to
> "go vote in that Perl thing and make it ours".
Ouch. Didn't even think of that.
> In fact, I'd be uncomfortable thinking that my vote counted as much as,
> say, Ilya's.
Yeah, me too. That's why I prefer the current technical meritocracy
to this other proposal, even though I think it could work.
> Also, I'd point out a weakness in the presidential analogy for Larry.
> The President of the U.S. can only veto; any legislation he ignores
> passes by default. Also, the President cannot introduce legislation.
> Rather, Larry is like a king; and we are his ministers, courtiers, and
> noblemen. We can argue til we're blue, debate, resolve, and vote; but
> in the end, it's Larry who makes the decision.
Yes, although Larry is kind of like a king after the signing of the
Magna Carta. There's no divine right, here; if Larry decides we're
going to eliminate dollar signs for scalars and optimize the core for
a C<use Python;> module, most of us will jump ship. (Though not
without tears of regret.)
I feel compelled at this point to repeat a cliche: "Those who do not
know history are doomed to repeat it."
jdb
