So disappointed that no meteorologist said: “a meteor probably”.

Well I was not even focused on the USA in my reasoning of why in Mexico it is a bad thing to extend the democratic process to the election judicial branch of government or generally every decision to the public.

The USA has issues in their democratic elections, gerrymandering in certain states being one, the electoral college giving most or all the electoral votes to the winner and not a portion in relation to votes, propaganda being openly discussed on “entertainment” news channels. Then there is even lobbying that is allowed, politicians being able to buy and sell stock based on insider information, paid speaking events.

And the ruling by elites will in any system be an issue, even oppression by the majority can be an issue, that is usually why you have a good constitution, that lays the foundation of how government should work, the different spheres and how it should protect the most vulnerable in society. It has mechanisms to protect against an interest group gaining power to basically twist the system to their will and finally the last resort is the democratic vote of the people to ensure accountability.

After these mechanisms have failed there is no pretty answer on how to easily get back to a fair system. In my country South Africa, where we had a system that disenfranchised the majority of the population, I am glad that we had a bloodless coup d’etat and now we have one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, but even that wasn’t enough again from a connected small majority from almost ruling the country. Luckily in our last election, in the first time in 30 years the ruling party lost their majority and now we have a 10+ party coalition ruling majority government, and in my opinion things are going good, but we know how fragile our democracy is and try to be as engaged as citizens can be.

Agree, but there are many flavours of it. For example we began the discussion on how Mexico extended their democracy to now include the judicial branch of government, others can be how they vote, for example electoral college in USA, ranked choice voting in some European countries like France or my country, South Africa, we have proportional representation and cannot even vote for our president

This example was exactly the issue Socrates had with democracy actually, saying that a demagogue would be elected as a president or leaders of government the majority of the time. His solution was just as vague, so let’s just say there is no perfect system yet. All have their benefits and drawbacks.

Look it is messy, my feeling is you vote or don’t vote for a party based on their policy and track record, but after elections they have the will of the people to act, so they should then focus on the technical issues of government by being guided by their election promises, policy and the country’s constitution to ensure that minorities aren’t discriminated against for example.

This example was exactly the issue Socrates had with democracy actually, saying that a demagogue would be elected as a president or leaders of government the majority of the time. His solution was just as vague, so let’s just say there is no perfect system yet. All have their benefits and drawbacks.

Look it is messy, my feeling is you vote or don’t vote for a party based on their policy and track record, but after elections they have the will of the people to act, so they should then focus on the technical issues of government by being guided by their election promises, policy and the country’s constitution to ensure that minorities aren’t discriminated against for example.

My opinion is, not based on Mexico, that the public is uninformed in the majority of decisions. Basically delegating power to the common person, especially technical decisions to the public will mean the most popular choice will win mostly, not the best choice. That is basically populism in a nutshell. Imagine you had to choose in this example a food policymaker, the one is the charismatic Willy Wonka that will say he wants everyone to eat sweets all the time, he wants you to eat whatever you want to eat, give you choices by subsidising all the sweets, worse he will attack Dr. Grouch, because he wants to tell you what to eat, force additional taxes on sweets to try and guide people to eat more gross vegetables, in fact basically force you, the poorest to have no choice but to eat these “healthy” foods. And unfortunately Dr. Grouch will agree, he wants you to eat "healthy food because in a couple of years you and your children will reap the benefits.

Well it’s too far for Netanyahu to turn around now. He is being rewarded politically and I feel like he has already put all his chips into the destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, no matter the collateral. The sad truth is that October the 7th basically was a golden ticket for Netanyahu politically.

It’s worse than that, everything oil is set up like a domino mexican standoff. If the oil terminal from Iran gets destroyed, basically they destroy the other’s oil infrastructure that is very vulnerable, and basically then there is not nearly enough oil globally and then the gears running the world infrastructure starts breaking down. Will be a climate activist’s wet dream since up to 20% of global oil stops trading

Well America and the EU are probably Ukraine’s biggest backers, economically and military aid wise. Thus we have a proxy war again and it is East vs West.

As a South African, I was unaware of this marvelous train. I really hope change happens so that such a train is not necessary in the future.

But for now and the foreseeable future may this amazing initiative have a wonderful future

You are right actually, reform is better, and as a society we should be able to use prison time to make offenders better members of society.

But as an individual, for personal reasons, I despise any sexual acts of violence, so my previous message was written in anger. Even though I know the right answer is compassion and reason, I still wish them harm, unfortunately.

But I know I have hate I have to work on, but this is less about me and what I wish. It is about this poor lady getting justice however the French courts decides

Hope all of them get ousted as the guys gang raping an unconscious 70 year old lady. I really feel the other prisoners would really like to share their feelings on the matter

Fucking disgusting piece of shit, she only found out after police arrested him for spying on women in change rooms with a spy pen that has a camera. Once the searched their home were the photos of the multiple rapes on his wife discovered. He has been drugging her by mixing it in her food. Some of the 72 men, like ten of them have been doing this multiple times.

Throw the book at them, make an example out of each of them to send a message. One of the co accused even said along the lines of “she is his wife to do with as he please”.

Send them to the worst prisons, and for fuck sakes make sure this victim sues everything from all these fuckers so that she will be looked after and can recover and if possible heal from this horrible ordeal. I am not sure if it was a small favour that she does not remember those assaults.

Well manipulation of people is my example with Venezuela with guns and corruption. but it is a small country. What about a 150 million or more country, what would be easier, manipulation of paper votes across the country involving a lot, and I mean a lot, of people using ballot stuffing and count rigging or getting a small hacking group years in advance to plan and execute a voting machine manipulation without anyone noticing

Electronic voting will never be safe. A combination of electronic and physical systems might be the best. Like putting in your vote on a screen but also have a punched card that can be physically verified by the voter before submitting the card as well. Thus there is an easy electronic count and a physical card that cannot be easily hacked if there is a need for a recount.

But there are many ways to skin a cat, and even physical votes like in Venezuela can still be overturned if you have the corrupt men and men with weapons if you argue.

You mean returning to historically Finish borders, or whatever revisionist reasoning Russia used in 2022

We will finally be able to tell, for the most part, who vaccinated and who didn’t based on their appearance of scar tissue

Sometimes the oppressed becomes the oppressors, take us whites in South Africa, after being put in concentration camps in the Anglo Boer war, which Nazis took inspiration from, became oppressors afterwards to protect Afrikaner interest. Now we realise the injustice of perpetuating injustices. Israel and Palestine really remind me of being oppressed, claiming to protect your people afterwards but letting other people suffer and becoming an oppressor.

You’d think that South Africans, unless we’re talking about the white ones here, wouldn’t be like this.

You specified whites, as if would be understandable that they in South Africa would be xenophobic