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Simple math can help scheming politicians manipulate district maps and cruise to victory. But it can also help identify and fix the problem.
Imagine fighting a war on 10 battlefields. You and your opponent each have 200 soldiers, and your aim is to win as many battles as possible. How would you deploy your troops? If you spread them out evenly, sending 20 to each battlefield, your opponent could concentrate their own troops and easily win a majority of the fights. You could try to overwhelm several locations yourself, but there's no guarantee you'll win, and you'll leave the remaining battlefields poorly defended. Devising a winning strategy isn't easy, but as long as neither side knows the other's plan in advance, it's a fair fight.
Now imagine your opponent has the power to deploy your troops as well as their own. Even if you get more troops, you can't win.
In the war of politics, this power to deploy forces comes from gerrymandering, the age-old practice of manipulating voting districts for partisan gain. By determining who votes where, politicians can tilt the odds in their favor and defeat their opponents before the battle even begins.
Anyone for a game of RISK?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @02:03AM (3 children)
If you're worried about the Mexican armed forces, then you join a "military" organization, or allocate your own damn resources to funding one.
Keep your dirty, thieving hands out of my pockets. I'd do peace-creating business with the Mexicans rather than engage in a circle-jerk of saber rattling.
Of course, if Mexican warmongering becomes worrisome even to me, then I might just join your effort. However, if you insist that I join your effort or be thrown into a cage for refusing, then I see no difference between you and those belligerent Mexicans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @09:47PM
Dude, seriously, read a history book.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Monday October 23 2017, @10:19PM (1 child)
Don't mind if I do. There's a pretty big first-mover advantage to such a business, so as soon as your bloodless anarcho-capitalist revolution happens I'll be sure to call up my friends and launch a startup.
Thanks again for letting us know you'll be unarmed and making loads of money, I'll send a squad of my boys over to your place for a contract negotiation. I'm sure you'll agree that you signed our contract voluntarily despite me negotiating from a position of superior leverage.
Relevant quotes from my company handbook (i.e., The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries [wikia.com]):
68. Negotiating from a position of strength does not mean you shouldn’t also negotiate from a position near the exits.
49. Every client is one missed payment away from becoming a target and every target is one bribe away from becoming a client.
38. What's easy for you can still be hard on your clients.
27. Don't be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.
21. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he's lucky just to be alive, and he'll figure out how to catch another one for you to take tomorrow.
19. The world is richer when you turn enemies into friends, but that's not the same as you being richer.
Most importantly:
1. Pillage, then burn.
Incidentally, if you were to follow Azuma's advice [soylentnews.org] you'd see that the mercenary companies are the ones that will take over eventually. News reports in your anarchist utopia will be replete with reports like "Pranger's Bangers liquidated [1] the leadership of the Maryland Irregulars as the Bangers continued their eastward territorial expansion. All of the M.I. clients are now covered by the Bangers for contract enforcement and fire insurance". This will continue until one group has a monopoly on enforcement.
[1] literally
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:56PM
Re-reading what I wrote, I realize that it's far too close to Poe's Law for my comfort. For the record, I can recognize a zero-sum game when I see one, and have no interest in becoming the most ruthless and bloodthirsty contract enforcer in AC's anarcho-capitalist dystopia.
I'm much more likely to survive the apocalypse of voluntary contractual agreements by making sure I have an indispensable skill that society needs [xkcd.com] regardless of who's in political control.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]