Watching either show isn't required. You don't think there's lots of people, maybe the majority, who would enjoy "up-voting" and "down-voting" everyone they meet or even just see on TV, for one thing or another? Especially if they believed that if someone got enough "down-votes" for whatever reason, there would be actual punishment involved?

I suspect you never saw the Roman Coliseum "games" either, but do you conclude from that, that they never happened? Or couldn't happen again?

I guess it's the difference between sitting at home punching a button vs driving to a polling place, standing in line, etc. to make a vote. Though I also suspect that they make the latter difficult on purpose by putting elections on workdays, etc.

That's been an argument for a long time. But if elections were on weekends there would be complaints about "But we wanted to go to the beach!" or whatever. So there's no way to "win." And since polling places are open late, "workdays" doesn't really apply either. Those who work nights can vote from 8am to 5pm, and those who work days can vote after 5. Or, ask for a longer lunch break maybe at a different time of day, or vote by mail or whatever.

But that said, I could easily argue that voting is too easy. Way too many people vote without having much of a clue, just because they think they should or something. It's also far too easy for people to vote more than once, including college students who might vote wherever their home is plus wherever their school is, and for people to vote who don't have the legal right to vote, such as felons, illegal immigrants (especially in states with "motor voter" and other forms of automatic registration that don't check for legal status)...

@Knixon said:

That's been an argument for a long time. But if elections were on weekends there would be complaints about "But we wanted to go to the beach!" or whatever.

Because everyone lives near the beach.

No, putting voting days on weekends would undoubtedly lead to more people voting since more people would be off of work, which is why certain politicians who benefit from low turnout are against it.

But that said, I could easily argue that voting is too easy. Way too many people vote without having much of a clue, just because they think they should or something. It's also far too easy for people to vote more than once, including college students who might vote wherever their home is plus wherever their school is, and for people to vote who don't have the legal right to vote, such as felons, illegal immigrants (especially in states with "motor voter" and other forms of automatic registration that don't check for legal status)...

Proof? Those are all debunked right-wing talking points. It's funny how illegal voting is always blamed on groups that lean left yet Democrats have lost over 1,000 seats and the majority of state legislators and governorships while conservatives are currently in control of all branches of government and narrowly won the last presidential election by a matter of 70,000 votes across 3 states the left usual wins, but yet are never accused of cheating.

If my district is gerrymandered in order to help the party I don't agree with why should I bother to vote? If my vote can be overruled by superdelegates why should I bother to vote? If both candidates running are in the pocket of big money donors and will serve them instead of workers like me why should I bother voting?

Personally, even at the risk of uninformed people voting, I think the more people voting and the easier voting can be made to achieve that goal is better than fewer people voting. That would make it a lot harder for elections to be stolen and for any voter tampering to be much more apparent.

One possibility, of course, is that Democrats just didn't cheat enough to win, recently. Because they didn't think they needed to. Because they were sure Hillary had it locked up, etc. Turns out they were wrong. Elections to come might tell a different story.

As has been noted elsewhere for similar reasons, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." The single main reason why illegal voting isn't the scandal it should be, is because it's rarely if ever looked for. Or even looked AT when evidence hits people right in the face. What do you think, people who voted illegally are going to get on TV and announce it? (Although a few have actually been that stupid, yet still are rarely prosecuted even when they publicly confess.) And yet every election season, hundreds if not thousands of registration confirmations in any given state/county/etc come back "addressee unknown," people register to vote from addresses that have no buildings or were torn down years or decades ago or that don't exist at all...

But if those returned confirmations are just round-filed, well, what do you know? Ta-da! No proof of illegal voting! Because the proof has been thrown out or shredded or whatever. If there's no mechanism in place to look into the existing evidence, that doesn't mean the evidence doesn't exist. It just means that people don't want to look at it, for whatever reason.

And that's just the start of it. Many areas don't check voter rolls against death records... (Hence the fame of places like Chicago for voting from the grave...)

You shouldn't assume that "people" are actually voting. Not real people anyway, and not just once. That's the main point to the phony registrations etc. They could be a few people or leaders of various groups each registering multiple times from made-up addresses where the confirmation will come back "undeliverable" but since nobody checks and nobody seems to care and there's no consequences for doing it, they do whatever they feel like they need to do in order to (try to) win. And if they still don't win even with X amount of fake voters, well, that just means they need to do more fake registrations and illegal votes next time.

And making voting easier by not checking addresses etc is one of the things that MAKES tampering EASIER. Along with things like groups who collect absentee/mail-in ballots and could be filling them out and sending them in without the actual registered voter being involved... If you want to make tampering less likely, you want to make sure the people who register to vote are real people who actually live at a real address, and that they only register and vote once (each election).

P.S.: super-delegates were a Democrat Party thing to make sure Hillary got the nomination.

@znexyish said:

@Knixon said:

The bit about Lysella changing things by telling the world they could do better? It's hard to imagine a bigger fail in a "mob rule" situation than telling the mob they shouldn't rule. If she did attempt to follow through, she'd very likely be the next "correction."

I thought that too, if someone in the mob sees her not pressing her button they might not like it and her. Now f the Orville returns in a few years they might find that Lysella told another person not to vote and that person told another and so on she might start a slow revolution.

Then they return in a hundred years to find a statue of Lysella with some drunk person urinating on it and no one does a thing.

Well there could still be laws against drunk-and-disorderly. But you don't get brain-zapped into zombiehood for it.

Not nearly as scary as handing the country over to the incompetent loser of the last election, because a 230-year-old law said so.

That would be the Constitution, not a law. Its there for a good reason, with which you are free to disagree with. However, if we just go around ignoring laws because we don't like a particular outcome we might as well live in an anarchy, or the world of "Majority Rule."

And before we get the inevitable chorus of my being a Trump nut, I didn't vote for him and wouldn't vote to re-elect him.

"That would be the Constitution, not a law."

The Constitution is frequently called the "law of the land", so why not say so?

"However, if we just go around ignoring laws because..."

I wasn't talking about ignoring a law, I was talking about acknowledging its disastrous effects. I think the Constitution should be amended to take it out.

@CharlesTheBold said:

"That would be the Constitution, not a law."

The Constitution is frequently called the "law of the land", so why not say so?

A significant difference is that other laws are passed, changed, repealed etc just by congressional action. Changing the constitution is a far more difficult process, and for good reason.

"However, if we just go around ignoring laws because..."

I wasn't talking about ignoring a law, I was talking about acknowledging its disastrous effects. I think the Constitution should be amended to take it out.

That of course would never happen, precisely for the reason I just gave. Amending the constitution would require agreement from the lower-population states to dilute their influence, which they would never agree to. And why should they? Why would you, if you were in the same position? Would you agree to have everything you do, run roughshod over by a few large concentrations of (mostly liberal) people on the coasts? Which of course is one of the reasons it was set up that way to start with.

I was replying to the guy who said I was using the wrong terminology.

And Knixon answered your comment just as I would have if I had seen it first. The Constitution is more than just a law as it cannot be easily changed by Congress. It was designed that way and for good reason.

And the Electoral College is unlikely to ever be repealed because it allows the less populous states to have an equal share of influence with the more populous states. Again, the Constitution was designed that way, again with good reason.

I thought this was a pretty good episode, with a interesting concept, maybe slightly outside the TNG template The Orville seems to be following but I've just watched this:-
https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/42009-black-mirror/season/3/episode/1

and now I'm thinking it's obviously a pretty blatant rip off. Yes, it's hardly a unique idea but it seems a little close to the air date of this to be re-cycling the concept in another sci-fi show...

@Costumers said:

And Knixon answered your comment just as I would have if I had seen it first. The Constitution is more than just a law as it cannot be easily changed by Congress. It was designed that way and for good reason.

And the Electoral College is unlikely to ever be repealed because it allows the less populous states to have an equal share of influence with the more populous states. Again, the Constitution was designed that way, again with good reason.

People forget, and are no longer taught at least in public schools, that the states were meant to be far more independent than they have become. It would probably be a good idea to return to more of that, including things that some people with their own agenda oppose, such as eliminating the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes. That has the effect of making people in low-tax states subsidize those in places like NY and PRC (People's Republic of California).

@Bananaghost said:

Great episode, and a clear spoof to our own society today, where the social media are the judge, courtroom and jury in exactly same way as on this "earth two" - this is how our own earth could be in a very near future, the parliament of the street rules, and that's scary like hell.

I came away with the same thought. American society is way too influenced by social media.

It has even found its way into the highest office in the land. Not to mention the impact it has on the way some Americans go about making critical decisions that affects us all.

So sorry to break it to you but...we've already crossed over to "scary like hell".

I just finished watching Into the Fold episode. That too was well done.