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Comment by mt-t | Hacker News Reader

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Unfortunately, until one of those parties self destructs, there is no viable alternative. Then there will be a new duopoly. The constitutionally prescribed structure of the US government and the way in which elections are determined inevitably yields this outcome due to the game theory at play. The only way out is a more proportional representation system. This would result in a dilution of the power of the only people able to enact the change, so their incentives are aligned against improving the system.

>there is no viable alternative

There is an alternative. Vote in the primaries for whatever party is dominant in your district/state. And encourage your friends to do so. Primaries tend to be thinly-attended, and the people who currently vote in them tend to be the most active (read: extreme) voices for their side. They're the reason why general elections seem to boil down to two bad choices; it's because the crazies get to pick who's on the ballot. If you're not voting in primaries, then you're ceding all that power to extremists.

That's not an alternative to the two parties. That's just voting for the other one in primaries.

FWIW, I already do this.

The parties have a lot of internal diversity within them, but partisan primaries select for the craziest views because that's who the current primary electorate is. Voting in primaries is already something in everyone's power, and doesn't require office-holders to vote in structural changes that aren't in their best interests. It's the most immediately practical way to effect change. I'm glad that you vote in primaries too; too many people don't, and seem to prefer to wallow in cynicism and inaction.

Ranked choice voting appears to be an easy solution, am I wrong?

Physically easy to implement is not the same as easy to convince republican voters to allow it to happen. Republican pushback to ranked choice voting is extreme. They cry crocodile tears of "it's too complicated" while literal children in elementary school use it just fine for class and mock elections, or they scream nonsense about "one person one vote" as if reassigning your vote to your second choice was somehow a second vote?

Basically people are able to choose 2 flavors of the same thing. Pretty much like in China Communism is the established system and people can't vote it away (nor they seem to want to), the same happens in the US with Capitalism, with the difference that dissent in the US is much much higher.

simply stage a revolution

Clearly the solution would be to stop dumping money where it doesn't need to be, like the war machines of various countries that serve no real purpose to us.

The USA benefits greatly from its international position. That position isn't borne from natural order, but from wielding the USA's strengths - including military strength. Arming allies is part of that, and it is especially smart when they fight those who threaten the USA or the USA's allies. Isolationism is a quick way to lose power so, even if all you see is budgetary accounting, the purpose of hard power should be clear to you.

Will Ukraine defeating Russia do anything to make my life better? Will Israel existing fix the gas prices?

Yes, although not in ways that are as obvious as looking at a price number. Peaceful democracies make much better economic partners than belligerent autocracies. If you're one of the millions of people living near Russia, a Ukrainian defeat would mean a much higher chance that your city gets flattened by rockets in the future.

The more that wars of aggression and nuclear threats get rewarded, the more of them the world will see, increasing the odds of larger scale violence.

Will germany conquering poland make your life any worse? Nah. Oh look, now it's france... nah it's fine you're not in france. oop, there goes england. Oop shit now I need help and all my friends are gone.

Turns out, maintaining a network of strong allies has long term positive benefits.

These are awfully similar to Russian propaganda taking points, relatively new account, reader beware.

LOL. This is an 8 month old account, but no I'm actually a KGB ultraspy warlord with golden AKs or whatever. All I want is for my country to stop pouring billions of dollars into fueling our imperialistic desires and doing the opposite of it's original job which was safeguarding our freedom and rights.

Yeah stopping a power hungry warmonger in Europe is such an imperialistic thing to do! It’s Russian propaganda, whether you’re Russian or not is irrelevant.

Solutions to US problems look so very different from outside the US. There are a lot of obvious things that can be done, with great effect. Reducing military budget is some of it, but it is far from "the solution".

The solution is more of actually figuring out what we're spending money on and who we're giving it to. When you start to realize a good portion of EBT users can afford food and use it for junk food and a sizable portion of welfare recipients do anything but live with it and that your tax dollars fuel these people, you feel an irrefutable feeling of doom.

The things you identify as problems, are completely opposite of what I see. I'm going to make a wild guess that you watch a fair bit of media owned by Murdoch. Feel free to correct me on that.

The 80s called and they want their "Welfare queen" talking points back.

Don't look where the recent California policies restricting exclusionary zoning and otherwise expanding development come from...

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