Why US Politics Is Broken — and How To Fix It | Andrew Yang | TED

The US electoral system pushes politicians to the left and right due to primaries, where politicians need to win over a small number of more polarized voters. We can change this system into non-partisan ranked choice elections so that politicians don’t need to bend over for the extremes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ws3w_ZOmhI

Why Everything Is More Expensive | David Dayen | TMR

Private electricity companies are supposed to have their prices managed by governments because they form natural monopolies, but they make tons of money because they capture the government and screw over the electricity user.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfRKOlqRG8s

Bringing Back the Battleship? – Railguns, US Shipbuilding and a 35,000 ton bad idea?

Larger ships are vulnerable to modern weapons. With a larger ship, you have more eggs in one basket. If the enemy takes out that one ship, you’ve lost a lot of firepower. Even with anti-missile and anti-drone defenses, the enemy only needs one good hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvUbx9TvOwk

The Messy Reality of ‘Made in America’

Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC is building a subsidized plant in Arizona, but is having trouble dealing with: thousands of pages of regulation, unions who want Americans to get the jobs, cultural clashes, and homeowners who don’t want plants nearby.

This event shows that the US can be a tough place to do business. We should consider reform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3rcPok9fb4

The Scientific Lie That Damaged Generations of Men

Wolves don’t actually have alpha males. That idea was based on a study of wolves forced together in a zoo. In nature, wolves live in families. The mother and father of a family aren’t best understood as “alphas”, they are best understood as the mother and father of a family.

In Chimps, there isn’t just one dominant leader. The apparent alpha often does not lead in combat with other chimps, and the leader leads by cooperation and aid, not just force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOuer8-sIzQ

Right-Wing Legal Strategy Is Working, And It’s Terrifying | Mark Joseph Stern | TMR

The Trump administration told Texas to gerrymander based on race. Texas did as asked. A judge said the gerrymander was illegal because it was based on race. The Supreme Court said that despite the detailed investigation by the lower court that showed a race-based gerrymander, they don’t think it was based on race. They based that opinion on very little, and overturning a lower court based on one’s opinions of the facts is illegal, unless the lower court decision was overwhelmingly erroneous, which it was not in this case. The Supreme court also said it is too close to an election to make a change even though the elections are a year out. This means state legislatures can illegally gerrymander half the years because House elections are every two years.

The Supreme Court is clearly ruling on freedom of religion cases in a way that is biased toward Christianity and that allows Christians to risk and hurt non-Christians as long as they consider it a part of their religion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31vNflImmtM