Gongol.com Archives: June 2025
June 18, 2025
With the New York City mayoral primary election just around the corner, it's interesting to watch how people respond to the incentives and triangulations that go into a method like ranked-choice voting. This is only the second time a ranked-choice ballot will be used in New York, so there's still a lot of fresh strategizing underway. ■ Any time something other than a conventional first-past-the-post, winner-take-all election gets underway, a predictable cadre of people get worked up about how this or that method of counting votes is the One True Way. They are right that there are shortcomings to whatever the incumbent system might have been; they are wrong to believe that theirs is ideal. The reality is that no method of vote-counting satisfies everyone completely. ■ That's the essence of the democratic deal: We enter it knowing that it's imperfect and that nothing is going to completely satisfy everyone. The key is to broadly distribute the dissatisfaction -- better that 100% of us get 60% of what we want than an outcome wherein 60% of the people get everything and the rest get nothing. Compromise is factored into the system by design. ■ There are both good and bad in alternate methods of vote-counting. But we shouldn't imagine that the "how" of vote counting is the only thing that matters. So does the "who" -- the basic allocation of votes. ■ We mostly decide representation by defined geographical spaces: Wards, precincts, Congressional districts and the like. But there would be nothing inherently undemocratic about divvying up representation by, say, occupation. If seats in a legislature were still allocated proportionally to population, but drawn by job types rather than geographical borders, outcomes would probably be different. ■ The outcomes of that different approach might be better or worse than what we get from allocating by geography. But if the representation were still truly proportional to population (with retirees voting for one set of seats, students another, service-sector workers in another, and so on), then the process would still be democratic in nature. Some outcomes would probably improve, some would probably become worse. ■ In theory, the more diverse the methods of allocating representation going into different legislative houses, the greater should be the ability of that legislative system to filter out really bad ideas. ■ For some of us, at least, that property would be appealing -- in the words of Calvin Coolidge, "It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones." Above all, though, knowing and acknowledging that democracy is designed to leave people less than fully satisfied -- that it really cannot work any other way -- is the first step towards avoiding the fantasy that any one way of counting (or allocating) votes is the only "right" way.
How about some vegetable innovation?
A meme circulating on social media cracks, "Potatoes give us French fries, chips, and vodka. It's like the other vegetables aren't even trying." Funny, yes -- and it's well worth acknowledging that the potato punches far above its weight, nutritionally, when it isn't drowned in oil or buried in salt. ■ But the truth revealed by the wisecrack is that we really haven't done enough to crack the code to making vegetables more widely appealing. If we are to trust the "My Plate" messaging that replaced the traditional "food pyramid", then vegetables should occupy more than a quarter of the normal person's diet, at least by volume. ■ For most people, loads of steamed broccoli just aren't going to do the trick. So what is the answer? To some extent, the simple availability (or lack thereof) of quality fresh vegetables will bias the outcomes of routine eating. Food deserts are real, and there may be policy choices that could help relieve them. ■ Some of the answer also belongs to the research done to make existing vegetables either marginally more appealing or to find new methods of preparation and delivery. Aside from Popeye, not many people are racing to put more canned spinach down their gullets -- at least not without masking it with so much sour cream as to render it nearly undetectable. ■ But if Brussels sprouts can be bred to make them much tastier than they were a generation ago, certainly other vegetables can be improved through science, too. New vegetables could even be invented and varieties diversified. Of all the forms of "innovation" that seem to have captured the world's attention, maybe some of that energy should be directed at our foodstuffs. ■ These kinds of steps require research that may not always have obvious private-sector payoffs, even though the social benefits can be considerable. If outcomes like reducing meat consumption are desirable goals, then some worthy investments could stand to be made less in browbeating people about their current choices and more in inducing more demand for the alternatives taking up real estate on the plate.
TV stations on the chopping block
After reversing course on a phenomenally stupid plan to lay off the local meteorology team and parting ways with an anchor who had been a station fixture for 51 years, the owners of KWWL-TV in Waterloo, Iowa, have given up and put the "For Sale" sign on the station. ■ Allen Media Group has only held the station for four years, but the plans to sell are being spun as a means "to significantly reduce our debt". KWWL was one of seven stations in a $380 million sale at that time, and it's part of a 25-station clearance sale this time, so it's not clear exactly how the station is individually valued. ■ But for a station in a top-100 US market with a population somewhere between 750,000 and 1,000,000, it seems like a lot of unproductive turmoil. The on-air shakeups earlier in the year, followed now by a station sale, gives the impression that perhaps the future is even unsteadier than it is already perceived. ■ America stitches together a patchwork of media markets, in which local ownership was quasi-mandated because large group ownership was prohibited not that long ago. It's not clear that the kinds of disruptions going on at KWWL and elsewhere would be any better if local ownership were more prevalent. But it also isn't clear that large-group ownership has been of any real use to the quality of the broadcast product. ■ Metaphorically, at least, broadcast and print news outlets are the campfires around which a community gathers to tell the stories of the day. And if some serious effort doesn't go into finding an economically sustainable way of continuing to "gather" in old or newer ways, the extent of the trouble is going to be much more than just a few local celebrities who find themselves ousted.
A wave of technologists is leaving us
With the passing of Bill Atkinson, the Apple Computer technologist whose credits include the popular application of the hyperlink, the number of surviving technologists who can fairly be said to have witnessed the personal computer revolution first-hand has dwindled yet again. ■ There is a time in the history of every technology when important pioneers are still to be found -- until it is over, often with little fanfare. There was a time when pioneers of aviation were still around -- Orville Wright lived to see the invention of jet engines, and Charles Lindbergh saw a man land on the Moon. But then they were around no more. ■ Considering the profound consequences and inescapable extent of the spread of personal computing devices, society should be conscious of trying to capture the stories and the explanations of the people who launched the digital world. Some have written down their tales in autobiographies with names like "Idea Man" and "Source Code". These are good to have around, but autobiographies are often much better at myth-building than at giving readers durable advice. ■ Before they are all gone, it would be very good to capture more of the technology pioneers' explanations about how they made their choices along the way. Books about "how" and "why", more than just "who" and "when", give us context about the hastily-constructed digital universe we now occupy. But we are running out of time to get those written down. While there may be future David McCulloughs waiting to retrace their steps and reconstruct those decision trees, we ought not to wait for them and should instead nudge the surviving pioneers to document their work now, while they can still be found.
We should show more love for accounting
It is to our debit that we do not.
