Zagorath

Zagorath, 1 year ago

The video itself is really good. I didn’t agree with everything he said (the Triple Union, while not good, is still just so obviously way better than putting the Aboriginal flag in the canton), but certainly with most of it. The Great Southern Flag is a noble effort, but it just feels too…fidgety…to me. Too much going on. Too many small pieces. The use of 5 separate colours, the very small kangaroo, 3 different kinds of stars (5-pointed Epsilon star, four 8-pointed main Southern Cross stars, and the 7-pointed Federation Star), and the solid cross connecting the stars.

Honestly, I genuinely like the Golden Wattle. I like that it keeps the Federation Star within the negative space. I think wattles are a great symbol that we should reach for more often.

The video briefly touched on the shades of colours (in the blue of the Unity Flag), but didn’t touch on what I think makes them a significant design feature for Australian flags to play with. If you do a tour of Parliament House, there’s a good chance the tour guide will explain why the two chambers are the colours they are. Red for the Senate, after the UK’s House of Lords, and green for the House of Representatives/Commons. But unlike the very vibrant shades Westminster uses, Australia’s colours are chosen to suggest natural earthy tones of the outback. The green of a eucalyptus, and the ochre red of the dirt. I don’t know if that’s a design choice our flag should copy or not. But it’s worth thinking about.

Zagorath, 1 year ago

Just some extra detail that I think you might have been missing about the German electoral system. #1 spot doesn’t refer to the leader of the party as this comment sort of seems to imply.

Germany uses a voting system called Mixed-Member Proportional. In it, you vote for your local candidate exactly the same as you would in America or the UK—using first past the post. But then you also vote for your favourite party. And there are additional seats in the Bundestag (congress) that are not tied to a particular region, but are instead used to “top up” the total of the Bundestag so that its party representation is proportional to the wishes of the voters. So if 10% of voters want the Greens and 20% want SPD, then 20% of the seats will be SPD and 10% will be Greens. If a party wins more seats in local elections than it is owed proportionally, it gets no additional people. If it wins fewer local elections than its national party vote percentage, it gets topped up using its party list. The #1 spot on that list will be the first person elected under this system, unless they also won their local race, in which case it goes to #2 instead, etc.

MMP is a really good electoral system, and honestly it’s probably the one I would advocate for and would encourage Americans and Brits to advocate for in their respective countries. Though I would replace the party lists entirely with a “nearest loser” to eliminate the problem @LwL describes. I’d also prefer IRV be used for the local part of the election, though that might be overly complicating it for some. Having those proportional top-ups means third parties not just can earn a place (which is what IRV by itself does), it actually guarantees that they will earn a place, if any sizeable number of people want them to. No more Nader ruining it for Gore; instead, Nader’s party will actually have representatives elected.

So looking back at the example they described about Germany, if we ignore local seats for the sake of simplicity, if the Greens are owed 1 seat, that seat will always be a woman. If they’re owed 2 seats, they’ll have a woman and a man. Owed 3 seats and they’ll have two women and a man. Etc.

Hope that helps.

Zagorath, 1 year ago

Out of interest, how do you pronounce “sudo” (the command) and “lib” (the directory)?