Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday October 22 2017, @07:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the safe-borders dept.

From Quanta Magazine:

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?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @11:47AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @11:47AM (#586283)

    People laughed when the "radicals" spoke of "a culture that respects the democratic Will of the People." Yet, here we are.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 23 2017, @11:57AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 23 2017, @11:57AM (#586287) Journal

    Those readicals needed to make heads roll. Crowned heads.
    Good luck beheading multinational corporations - the ones, theoretically the closest, but actually the very first enemies of your dream.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford