u/Wally_Wrong

https://app.betterchoicesohio.org/vote/63Bbif

I'm experimenting with Better Choices for Democracy's Top 3 Head-to-Head polling app, and on a lark I decided to make it about Condorcet methods: Top 3 Head-to-Head itself, Top 4/5 Ranked Pairs, and a catch-all option for other Condorcet methods like Schulze, Tideman's Alternative, Condorcet-IRV hybrids, and any others I may be missing. If you choose other, please explain in the comments, because I really want to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Poll closes at 12:00 AM Saturday.

I have an interest in polls and elections, and apparently the latest thing in polling among the kiddos these days is Sortr. It works giving you a choice between two options on a list, then repeating the process with every possible combination of items on the list. From there, it uses a pairwise counting method of some kind (the site doesn't say exactly how it works) to translate those matchups into a ranking from most to least favorite. *If* I'm understanding correctly, the overall winner will be the Condorcet winner, a sort of "true" majority winner.

I decided to give it a whirl using Nine Inch Nails' studio albums plus the EPs *Broken*, *Not the Actual Events*, and *Add Violence*. If you take the poll, you will be presented with two albums. Choose which one of the two is your favorite (no equals; it has to be one or the other, unfortunately). This will repeat until every possible combination has been tested. Once all the math has been done, it'll be aggregated into a community ranking that will, in theory, show a "true" majority opinion of NIN's best work. The more voters, the merrier.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. Be careful; it might take a while to go through it all due to how pairwise matchups work.

I found this poll on r/polls that requires the respondent to choose from one of six preference orders of three dating candidates. If this were an election, the preference order with the most votes would win.

https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/1sorpy3/from_most_likely_to_least_likely_in_what_order/

Would a ballot of this type be Condorcet-compliant? If so, would it be a valid alternative to voting each pairwise matchup individually as proposed in https://www.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/comments/1tacszu/what_is_consensus_voting_legislator_wants_to/ (which allows voters to mark down Condorcet cycles on their ballot) in situations where ranked ballots are not allowed?

Many of the people I can discuss politics and economics with lean pretty right-wing, and one of their most consistent positions is that returning to the gold standard is the only correct way to fix the US's economic woes, as well as the only correct monetary base in general. I am *extremely* skeptical of this, but I don't know enough about modern-day economics to make any coherent counterargument.

I (probably wrongly) assume that returning to the gold standard or basing the US dollar on any commodity would result in sudden unprecedented deflation and/or unpredictable value changes, and anything sudden and unprecedented in economics is a Very Bad Thing. I have read about the occasional banking crises that happened while the US *was* on the gold standard, but I'm not sure if or how to compare them to our current situation.

I don't intend to change their minds, but at the very least I want to base my position on something more than gut instinct and preconceived notions.

It's midterm election season in the US, which means the attack ads are coming on. I live in the most consistently conservative congressional district in Indiana, so all of the ads are for Republican candidates. My own positions are syncretic; liberal in some ways, conservative in others, left-wing in others, etc., and they tend to shift around. The best way to describe myself is "anti-authoritarian"; against fascism, against communism, and against reactionism, as the old social democratic slogan goes. In addition, I'm on the autism spectrum, and both politics and religion--especially the more extreme or strange positions--are special interests. But when I see or hear certain triggers, my positions completely flip and I start mulling over fascist, communist, reactionary, and even anarchist or nihilist positions, sometimes several at once (even if they're contradictory!). It's almost like I have a political equivalent of dissociative identity disorder. Considering the immediate circumstances, I'll focus on the fascist and reactionary sides for now.

When a conservative attack ad comes on or I read a conservative think piece (especially if it's from a Christian standpoint), I go full-on clerical fascist. For example, when a Fox News report my arch-conservative grandmother had on started talking about trans people, I said "Trans degenerates are subhuman" or something to that effect. I immediately regretted saying it, but it happened. But that's a minor incident.

On another occasion, I was reading an article on a pro-life website associated with my church body, and one of the articles very unsubtly supported the death penalty for LGBTQIA+ and abortion. That was the only article on the website that stated such positions. Every other article described them as sinful but forgivable, which is closer to my actual position. But in that moment, I imagined myself bombing an abortion clinic, and for a few hours, I stewed on a plan to form or join some sort of Christian nationalist movement and "purify" the world. I didn't say anything about it, but I seethed internally.

While I can at least regulate what sort of articles I can read on my own time, I don't think I have the right to tell someone else to stop watching or listening to something just because it triggers me. Their TV/radio, their rules. Even if I do have that right, I don't want to start a political argument that would either A) out me as not-conservative to my very conservative associates or B) flip my "fascist switch" and freak everyone out. I talked with my pastor once about the matter, but it was a long time ago and I don't have a pastor I can regularly talk to. Reading the Bible can help, but I have to be very careful which parts I read, because some portions trigger me too.

How should I approach other people (friends, therapists, etc.) about these issues without coming off as "whiny woke" or "Christian-National-Bolshevik psycho"?