That advantage has been systemically taken off the board though. The 2010 gerrymandering alone removes the advantage. But you can also toss in things like voter id (aka suppression) laws as well. Here is the Governor of Pennsylvania admitting that voter id laws will help Romney win his state: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOT1bRYdK8

But it can't go on forever, eventually demographic changes will force the Republicans to change. Change their messaging at the very least, but eventually their policies.

Waiting for the public to take a greater interest in politics, or expecting more people to become better informed, is something you'll wait your whole life for and never see.

Promoting end user behavior change is far less effective than putting systems in place to 'force' change.

That is why when a city wants to increase recycling, they don't beg their citizens to recycle more. No, they put a program in place that makes it either easier to recycle, or harder not to recycle.

Instant run off voting is a system that would help I think.

I bet more people would have voted for Bernie if they could have also voted for Hillary. Hedging their bets.

There are systems that would help reduce or remove the effects of Gerrymandering. Heck, getting rid of the Electoral College with zero other changes would have meant Al Gore instead of George Bush and Hillary instead of Trump.

The problem is convincing politicians and news agencies to undo the systems that keep the hyper-partisanship alive. It is their bread and butter. That is why I encourage friends and family to vote for politicians who want things like instant run off voting, or campaign finance reform. Solve the problems at the source instead of trying to fight the resulting problems.

I've just started assuming that people that hold on to those ideas are not real people. They are shills for the fossil fuel industry or something similar.

How else do you explain a site for nerds, having a large percent of users who apparently cannot do a simple google query?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ROI+on+solar+panels+2017

Ever watch that show the Last Alaskan's? The people on that show often talk about freedom, living off the land, being sustainable and close to nature. And they are.

However, if 300 million American's tried that, there would be zero caribou/deer left, no trees left to burn, etc.

Cities support the majority of the world's population because they are order's of magnitude more efficient at resource use than everyone having their own 40 acres and a mule.

If you happen to have found work that is outside a big city, out in the country some place, or in a smaller town, and can afford a house, good for you. But it won't work for the majority.

Making cities more livable should be our focus. And just like planning a layout in Factorio or Civ-type games, it takes a lot of thought and resources. And often a lot of re-building and experimentation. Which can be expensive.

"Either live with it or move to a less populated area."

I was watching that show "The Last Alaskans". Very often those people living in the middle of no where claim their lifestyle is extra sustainable. Living off the land, not burning any fossil fuels, heating with wood they cut down themselves, 'harvesting' your own meat and crops, etc..

If 300 million Americans all started hunting for all their meat, there would be no wild game left very quickly. Ditto for lumber/firewood.

Cramming into the 'anthill' really is the most efficient way to live. The problem is some cities are much better at ant management then others. And infrastructure is slow to change and expensive. It doesn't help when the Federal Government has decided to politicize things like infrastructure. It used to be a bi-partisan thing that bridges, highways, helping cities re-make themselves, was good for everyone.

Your link did not work. Is it this vid? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44

Have you tried recently? Every time I search for a movie, google shows the RT score, imdb, and amazon score, and they all pretty much align.

The Man from Earth - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/

Extremely original story line, low budget, pretty much takes place in one room, and is just people talking.

If your assertion is correct, that native citizens won't do the field work because it pays too little, then wouldn't the answer to that problem be to ensure that we have a fair minimum wage in all industries?

It just takes one "super scary" attack or other incident, and martial law and other things could be granted by congress. Remember, this the congress that puts "cause jesus said so" types in charge of science committees....

When large percentages of the population are willing to believe blatant lies, even lies that are very easy to disprove with a simple google search, the populace is primed to allow pretty much anything, if their "strong man" authoritarian leader commands it.

You make his tactics seem more complex than they actually are.

The basic methodology is to confuse the public to the point where they do not know what is true or false. At that point, an election is essentially issue-free and fact-free, and comes down to charisma and who the public trusts. It also overwhelms the fact checkers.

I saw a short video on this tactic. I just tried to find it and couldn't. But basically, this method is the primary method that one of Putin's top advisors implemented, and it has been extremely successful.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216502/

1. Meat needs to become more expensive in my opinion. If you care about the environment and human health.
2. Quality does not go down. The opposite. I'd put up any of the free-range organic beef I buy against any feedlot beef any day of the year. 100% guarantee that the expensive beef I buy is much better quality than any of the corn-fed feedlot beef.

Was your farm a large scale cattle/pig feedlot? Because those are typically run a lot differently than smaller family farms. For instance, cattle in feedlots are often given feed with antibiotics in it, as a disease prevention measure.

For example:
http://www.hubbardfeeds.com/product/chlorotetracycline-ctc-crumbles

I grew up on a farm as well, and have been around agriculture through relatives most my life. I know from experience that not many farmers follow labels very closely. Not finishing a full course of antibiotics, etc.. Just like some dumb parents do to their kids, giving them a single antibiotic pill from the cupboard from time to time when they get a cold.

Person to person, yeah, not much risk.
But patient to nurse/doctor's hands/gloves/clothes, to the next patient, is a problem.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/16/cre-superbug/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/superbug-appears-spreading-stealthily-u-s-hospitals-study-finds/

I was trying to find a documentary I watched about this, but couldn't. It was a big, very prominent cutting edge hospital. Like a Mayo clinic or something. And they had a superbug spreading around the hospital, and it took them a surprisingly long time to figure out how to contain. And in the end, I don't think they every really knew why it stopped or started spreading. Many people died.

The cost of automation is going down. Eventually, it will reach near zero. That is the entire point about universal basic income discussions. Some day, maybe 20 years, 50 years, 1000 years from now, the cost of energy and automation will approach zero.