You tell me it's the institution, well, you know
Boy, people have been viewing the hell out of this page lately. I guess I should say something.
Ok, first, the GSA's "Snow goddess" party was on Friday. One thing I keep forgetting is how incredibly counterproductive it is to discreetly confiscate the drinks of people who've had too much, especially when there is a table full of free drinks sitting across the room. In the end, they drink too much, I drink too much, it's...well I guess that's not so bad. Still, if this situation arises in the future, I encourage you to remind me of the futility of my efforts. Paternalism's not all it's cracked up to be.
And this Sunday I went up to Riverside
woooooooooooooooo
For a meeting, at that.
It was not quite as I expected...casual, if demanding, and with a slightly schizophrenic feel to it; first there was breakfast and acronyms and lots of informal strategizing on butcher paper and talking past one another, then came committee commiserations and lunch, and then it was like OH HEY HERE COME EIGHTY MOTIONS MOVE TO SUPPORT SENATE BILL 87rhy4ew8h IF AMENDED, SECOND, MOVE TO AMEND TO OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED, SECOND, OBJECTIONS, VOTE, VOTE, MOVE TO APPOINT SOMEBODY, VOTE MOVE VOTE MOVE VOTE, and lastly we decided, among other things, which of two voting policies to endorse, which is actually kind of interesting in the philosopher-geek sort of way that things can be sort of interesting when one is surrounded by things that aren't.
The idea is that one of the offices of the VC or somebody (that's the Vice Chancellor...I mean, I assume my readers know that "Charlie" is not providing recommendations on University policy, but it's best to be sure about these things) has recommended that we implement a 20 percent minimum voting pool requirement on university referenda, and we were trying to decide whether to go with this, or with an alternative in which a vote will meet the voter turnout requirement as long as it gets 10%+1 yes votes. Eventually we opted for the alternative, partly because it better suited our own interests, but it is also kind of strange to do it the other way, in which a measure won't pass with 19% of the students unanimously voting yes, but it will with 11% yes and 10% no. But it is also pretty strange to get past the students a referendum that only 10% of them have an opinion on, regardless of whether those 10% are united in their support. I think the problem is that anything will seem counterintuitive when one is attempting to derive majority rule from a system with more than 80% nonparticipation.
Is that interesting? It really isn't, is it.
Ok, first, the GSA's "Snow goddess" party was on Friday. One thing I keep forgetting is how incredibly counterproductive it is to discreetly confiscate the drinks of people who've had too much, especially when there is a table full of free drinks sitting across the room. In the end, they drink too much, I drink too much, it's...well I guess that's not so bad. Still, if this situation arises in the future, I encourage you to remind me of the futility of my efforts. Paternalism's not all it's cracked up to be.
And this Sunday I went up to Riverside
woooooooooooooooo
For a meeting, at that.
It was not quite as I expected...casual, if demanding, and with a slightly schizophrenic feel to it; first there was breakfast and acronyms and lots of informal strategizing on butcher paper and talking past one another, then came committee commiserations and lunch, and then it was like OH HEY HERE COME EIGHTY MOTIONS MOVE TO SUPPORT SENATE BILL 87rhy4ew8h IF AMENDED, SECOND, MOVE TO AMEND TO OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED, SECOND, OBJECTIONS, VOTE, VOTE, MOVE TO APPOINT SOMEBODY, VOTE MOVE VOTE MOVE VOTE, and lastly we decided, among other things, which of two voting policies to endorse, which is actually kind of interesting in the philosopher-geek sort of way that things can be sort of interesting when one is surrounded by things that aren't.
The idea is that one of the offices of the VC or somebody (that's the Vice Chancellor...I mean, I assume my readers know that "Charlie" is not providing recommendations on University policy, but it's best to be sure about these things) has recommended that we implement a 20 percent minimum voting pool requirement on university referenda, and we were trying to decide whether to go with this, or with an alternative in which a vote will meet the voter turnout requirement as long as it gets 10%+1 yes votes. Eventually we opted for the alternative, partly because it better suited our own interests, but it is also kind of strange to do it the other way, in which a measure won't pass with 19% of the students unanimously voting yes, but it will with 11% yes and 10% no. But it is also pretty strange to get past the students a referendum that only 10% of them have an opinion on, regardless of whether those 10% are united in their support. I think the problem is that anything will seem counterintuitive when one is attempting to derive majority rule from a system with more than 80% nonparticipation.
Is that interesting? It really isn't, is it.
posted by Evan at 9:10 PM
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