AliSaket

Not too long in the future:

The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.

Also from 1984 by George Orwell

If Data and witnesses or in other words verifiable reality "disagree", there's a word for that. It's called "lying". A word that should have been used a lot more often, because they've been doing so from the beginning. From 40 beheaded babies in ovens to now claiming there is no starving, they've been lying and lying and lying, without being called out by so-called journalists or leaders, so they lie again.

All the while the world can see what's happening in this best documented in history, televised in 4K genocide. We should not forget, who kept denying this atrocity for so long. The western world seemingly forgave the media for lying the West into a war with Iraq 22 years ago and forgot. Now the so-called free press are proving to be as disgraceful today. No one should take any word they say seriously, if they blatantly go with the lies. Remember them. We have to hold them accountable.

P.S. There's a broader point about not holding people accountable (e.g. Obama not wanting to prosecute the Bush administration) leading to today's situation in the first place, but that's a story in and of itself.

Compared to just five years ago, they have been more risky during this and last season. We've seen more standing starts for example and just a few weeks ago in Silverstone we saw a crash at Copse corner (Hadjar rear-ended Antonelli) because visibility was so bad. At Spa, after multiple fatal accidents at the same corner over recent years, yes absolutely they'd rather err on the side of caution.

Well... let's see whether that intensity is raceable. If not, they won't start they race for a while, since there is more of this rain coming after that from W-NW.

Edit: This is exciting. No sign of delaying the start. Rain will wind down a bit after the start, before picking up again. And maybe even with a short heavy downpour too. The drivers really have to prove themselves.

Oh yeah! You are right. Next year all the cars will open both their wings and a car that comes within 1s of another can deploy more electric power (350 kW IIRC) at higher speeds for a boost, but with limited energy per lap and at any point in the lap, so not limited to zones. Will be a totally different kind of overtaking or defending in the new formula.

At least in a proper race, strategy can mix up things so that we might see overtakes. Sprints on the other hand are just DRS-trains circling round.

Maybe they need to think of an additional DRS zone out of Stavelot (T15) so they can't save up the battery for only one big deployment per lap.

There do exist things resembling that a bit. Usually done on the local level and mostly concerning some street/development design, where people are invited to actively participate in a workshop style event with experts and vote on the results. But yes, these are not mandates. And as soon as you go onto the state or federal level, such structures become virtually non-existent.

The others are parliamentary commissions which can be instated by parliament and are formed of mainly external experts around a certain issue. These are often used on state and federal levels of government.

I would love if representation was spread wider over the population and that involvement was higher. I also am baffled at how bad general civics education is here in school, especially at the obligatory level. I would welcome a far more detailed and engaging civics education where they could already get some experience right at the school. Or go and participate at some local event. This way they also see the importance of a truly democratic process. Alas, as long as they can't vote, nobody seems to want their opinions.

Another part that needs addressing is finances. There's a lot of intransparency yes, but the way it works now, it is also very hard to get your message across without being big in a main political party or having some big private sponsor. Which limits your actual freedom before and after you're elected. If we're thinking radical we might severely limit campaign budgets or think about public funds allowing the same restrictive scope for everyone, no matter their background and finances. This would also limit the imbalance in outreach between capital-backed candidates and others.

A third huge problem lies within the judiciary, where judges on many levels effectively also have to be party-associated to get elected. If that sounds completely compromising their necessary impartiality, yeah, it's because it does. (Although I don't have data on how that influences their work)

And lastly: The structures of accountability for politicians. I know that some steadiness or stability is necessary, but without the fear of accountability, far too many misuse their positions without repercussions. As we see from around the world, this invites more and more brazen figures to do more and more brazen violations. Just a brain-fart: 100k signatures to force a vote on relieving someone of their immunity so they can be tried in court. And to not just wait it out. Right now, it's parliament that has this exclusive possibility.

This is not law yet. The Federal Council (the executive) has started a consultation process at the beginning of the year which ended in May. They are now looking at all the feedback that came in, that was - unsurprisingly - exclusively negative from all sides. If the responsible minister wants to go ahead with it, it goes to the Federal Council for a vote. If they approve it, this would be a decree to change an existing decree and that would come into effect next year or the year after.

And this is where direct democracy comes in: If this is the case anyone can start getting signatures for a public initiative which would change the constitution to prohibit such practices. In fact anyone can start doing that now. If it succeeds, then it'll come to a popular vote. Threema (a secure chat provider) has already announced that they would do that and I'm sure that they wouldn't be the only ones to band together in this.

The process might take long, but this is in no way "not good enough to counter a campaign for legal change with a goal" and in fact has happened multiple times in the past. Hence why Switzerland has a direct vote on issues every few months because of something called "Referendum", whereby a popular vote can be forced on an issue passing through parliament. I might have my criticisms of the political system, but this ain't it.

its system encourages it to have politicians as a thing

Well yes, there is some level of representation, so over 8 million people don't have to decide every little detail on 1000s of changes of law. The system is built upon a "milita" system. I.e. politicians usually have a job. So people have the possibility to vote in experts or their vicinity and know that they won't solely be career politicians. Unfortunately the laws around financing and propaganda are rather lax, giving an advantage to the rich, which leads to an over-representation of the capitalist class with occupations such as lawyers and business-owners and a clear under-representation of classical working-class jobs such as craftspeople or office workers. This is amendable though to correct the mismatch, if people realize their class interest and don't fall for the same right-wing propaganda of a party whose playbook has been inspired by the US GOP for decades and who is inspiring Germany's AfD now.

The main downside of the system imo has to do with people with no knowledge on an issue having to weigh in on them and therefore how powerful propaganda campaigns can be, which means that money buys power, as in every other existing so-called democracy - direct or not. Especially with how money shifts power away from the populace, this is inherent to capitalistic systems and it would be on the populace to protect itself from it. With enough propaganda though, people keep voting for more power of capital unbeknownst to them or not, just as they might vote against their interests on other things. The fact that you have to convince so many people, who hopefully do have some degree of education, makes it a lot harder though, for big capitalists to reach their goals, compared to less direct systems. And I know of several examples, how such a vote did not go in favor of big capital. What usually makes the difference is whether they succeed in portraying their advantage as the advantage of all.

I've waited 239 races and this is what I get?

I'm sorry you feel that way and I find myself having the same thoughts from time to time. I have to concede though, that the US is in fact the center of modern Neoliberalism and legal bribery.

Yet... You know who the lobbyists and donors don't bother talking to? Bernie Sanders (and Ron Paul when he was still in office). Why? Because they know that they have core principles. Then the question becomes: How do we organize (meaning financial resources, outreach, strategy, know-how, recruitment, analysis, policy creation, media and many more) to get more of these people into office? And how can we put pressure on elected officials to enact "our" policies?

Agenda 2025, or the decades long judicial take-over did not come from Trump, but from such organizations like the Heritage Foundation. Which of course are funded by billionaires like Peter Thiel. These people and organizations have huge advantages over the rest, that is clear. But they need more than just money to be able to put public pressure on elected officials, to the point where 25% of voters are ride-or-die with that program and a further 25% are at least ok with it or were duped.

And yes, I am well aware it is an uphill fight. But please: Don't let bad experiences doom you to inaction. Especially when this very moment, with the daily over-reach of the republican regime, there is real potential to galvanize an effective resistance.

Although I understand your point and would want to add that something like the Citizens United decision further diminishes power of the people without immense funds, I would like to point out, that participating in a democratic process doesn't merely mean drawing a cross onto a piece of paper every 2 or 4 years. Much more is possible and in fact necessary.

As an example and can be witnessed right now, there is a severe lack of organizing of pro democratic forces. Which is also the result of a decades-long campaign by the capital-interest-serving political establishment to delegitimize or outright destroy such movements and organizations, from worker's unions to independant media to the "Bernie Bros".

Make no mistake though. They did this, because they know, that this type of collective political actions bare real power. It is upon each one of us wanting to defend democracy, basic rights and the rule of law to do our part to take back that power. Voting is but a small part of that, if you don't have the people you need actually running, because they can't afford to and you cannot seriously pressure those elected like the donor-class does.

Well there's also a different mindset behind voting, if you can directly weigh in on important issues every few months. It's not like in other countries where direct ballot measures are much more rare. But yes, I wished more people would try to participate in a responsible manner.