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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, @06:33AM
Socialism itself is not a problem[1]. The problem is most proponents (including the Engels, Marx and the Che supporters) of Communism etc suggest or even recommend violence as part of the implementation plans.
When leaders are chosen with violence instead of votes, don't be surprised that leaders with the most violence win. And once they do, it's a lot harder to get rid of them, most won't step down peacefully when they are no longer wanted... And it's not surprising those leaders still tend to use violence to achieve their goals... :)
Make it the standard to choose your leaders with votes. You may still get crap leaders but at least they will be leaders a larger proportion of the people deserve. And when enough people don't want them you get a peaceful revolution because the new leaders have more votes, instead of waiting for new leaders to have more violence than the old leaders. Or for the old leaders to miraculously step down or for you to get lucky with a more benevolent successor...
[1] Seems to work ok in Scandinavian countries- they overdid it at certain periods but they seem to have a decent balance now (which might be upset if they take too many immigrants for them to assimilate and "brainwash" to accept the "Nordic ways").