I got curious and started digging through the Social Security Administration's baby name database.
They registered 3,305,259 baby names during 2020. E.g. there were 17,547 babies named Olivia and 19,690 babies named Liam. They also record these babies as F or M so we know that Olivia was 17,535 F to 12 M and Liam was 19,659 M to 31 F.
2018 US CO2 emissions:
1.2 trillion tons CO2 from transportation fuel (gasoline/diesel)
1.2 trillion tons CO2 from coal for electricity
0.6 trillion tons CO2 from natural gas for electricity
(And more, but those are the biggest identifiable chunks that stand out, the biggest usage sectors of oil, coal, and gas.)
So, electrifying cars and trucks would be cool and we should do that too, but making the power grid sustainable is something we can do with big policy hammers.
sources:
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/petroleum.pdf
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/natural_gas.pdf
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/coal.pdf
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references
Below is an automatically laid out ballot, a ballot that was printed, marked, scanned, and then realigned to match the original, and the bubbles found in the image. This is all possible through open source software I've written in 2020.
https://github.com/brianolson/ballotstudio
https://github.com/brianolson/ballotscan
It's mostly Go code with some Python for PDF rendering because I found a handy library for that. There's a TODO list with things like:
A ballot initiative in Alaska passed in November 2020 changing their election system (and adding a bunch of campaign finance watchdog measures). The new system is a top-four primary (vote for 1, top four go on) followed by a four-way Instant Runoff Vote (IRV) general election. IRV is known flawed and a pick-one vote with more than four choices isn’t good either.
They also included vote-suppressing language where if a voter ranks more than one choice at the same rank their vote is disqualified if that tie becomes their top vote (if you cast a tie for 2nd but your 1st wins, you’re fine, but if your 1st doesn’t win your vote is gone) ([1] p.9 section 15.15.350.e.1). This is unnecessary. It would be trivial to cast a half-vote for each choice of the tie, or to temporarily set aside the tie-ranked ballot which could come back if half of the tie-rank got disqualified in an IRV round.
2022 should show us the system in action.
[1] 2020 Alaska Better Elections Initiative http://www.elections.alaska.gov/petitions/19AKBE/19AKBE-TheBill.pdf
There are Dems in the world
and Republicans
Greens, Libertarians, and then
Those who pick no party at all, and
let's hear from a-all of them
I'm an American
And have been since the day I was born
but lots of folks make their home here
they're keeping the melting-pot warm
You don't have to be a six-footer
You don't have to have a great brain
You don't have to have any clothes on
Americans count all the same
Because
Every vote is sacred
Every vote is great
When we all are vot-ing
we make our shared fate
[children's choir reprise]
Every vote is sacred
Every vote is great
When we all are vot-ing
we make our shared fate
[girl]
Women haven't always
been granted the right
now that we can we should
vote like it's your fight
[children]
Every vote is wanted
Every vote is good
Every vote is needed
from your neighborhood
[mum]
pundits on the TV
talk but do not know
it's up to you to say
how the vote will go
[misc]
Every vote is sacred
Every vote is great
When we all are vot-ing
we make our shared fate
Every vote is useful
Every vote is fine
We need everybody's
Mine!
and mine!
and mine!
Every vote is wanted
Every vote is good
Every vote is needed
from your neighborhoooooood!
How often do condorcet cycles happen? Probably less than 1 election in 1000.
I used two voter models to simulate elections.
Unifom random preference model: Each voter gets a preference [0.0..1.0) for each each choice.
Spatial normal random model: Voters and choices exist in N-dimensional space and are distributed on the same normal distribution. Voters prefer choices based on closeness in space.
Both models produce some sort of close election where any choice has the same probability of wining. I think intuitively the uniform random model is less like reality. Real voters don't have independent variables for their preference for different choices but actually choices are likely correlated: Someone voting for a far-left choice is more likely to have a moderate-left choice as their second choice.
I manually ran a handful of trials this morning and got some first immediate patterns.
The uniform random model resulted in 20-30% of votes going to condorcet cycle resolution.
The spatial model resulted in 1 in 1000 or fewer votes going to condorcet cycle resolution.
Simulated election had 1000 or 10000 voters, 5 or 7 choices, and 2 to 7 dimensions. Dimensionality had no consistent effect on likelihood of cycle.
Next work could be to regularize the search on a few parameters and plot the results, but right now I feel pretty good based on the spatial model that I can say that condorcet cycles should be rare. These are artificially close elections. Normal elections will be even less likely to have a cycle.
Test program source:
https://github.com/brianolson/voteutil/blob/master/go/cyclething/cyclething.go
I'm voting for MA Question 2 Ranked Choice Voting. There's more than one kind of Ranked Choice Voting, and it matters, and "Instant Runoff Voting" is just about the worst, but it might help Massachusetts break out of some ways it's stuck in its Democratic Party machine lock-in on local politics. I don't want Charlie Baker or Scott Brown, I want something else and RCV gives us more of a chance. Right now in 2020 we're facing a US Senator election where the real race was in the primary and the general election is a really likely win for the incumbent Democrat Ed Markey (who I think is doing a fine job). But I don't love the D party and don't want to be stuck with it and don't want people on the other side feeling stuck with the R party. Ranked Choice Voting gives us a potential way of stepping outside the two party system, and locally and nationally the two parties are an increasingly vitriolic rotting mess. So, Yes on MA-2 RCV, let's try it, and maybe make it better soon?
