World Leaders Survivor Redux - Organisation Thread

[Gustaf]

In my opinion there should be a general rule as to which leader to include. The rule should either be head of government or whichever position has the most formal power. It gets illogical to pick whoever we suspect has the most real power in the country. At times this may reasonably be a non-elected person (such as Thaksin in Thailand, for instance).

[Gustaf]

In my opinion there should be a general rule as to which leader to include. The rule should either be head of government or whichever position has the most formal power. It gets illogical to pick whoever we suspect has the most real power in the country. At times this may reasonably be a non-elected person (such as Thaksin in Thailand, for instance).

You simply can't have a general rule.
Presidents and PM aren't the same in every country: see USA, France, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Russia, Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Ireland, 10 countries, 10 systems
(and sometimes, they don't even exist !).

Sure you can. I just offered an example of a general rule in my post.

[Gustaf]

In my opinion there should be a general rule as to which leader to include. The rule should either be head of government or whichever position has the most formal power. It gets illogical to pick whoever we suspect has the most real power in the country. At times this may reasonably be a non-elected person (such as Thaksin in Thailand, for instance).

You simply can't have a general rule.
Presidents and PM aren't the same in every country: see USA, France, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Russia, Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Ireland, 10 countries, 10 systems
(and sometimes, they don't even exist !).

Sure you can. I just offered an example of a general rule in my post.

The point of my answer was to show you that you CANNOT say everywhere and for sure who has the "most formal power", as you wrote. Constitutional law is a rather complex and subtle matter.

Yes, it is, but in most cases you can tell who has the most formal power. I, in fact, know of no country where it isn't possible. I'm not sure what your alternative is. Telling who has the most informal power must reasonably be harder, no?

[Gustaf]

I can't understand the sense of this "immunity" system.

I don't think it's a good idea either, but I guess it's supposed to spice things up. Anyway, it's based on a calculation as you can see above. And it's only for one round.

[Gustaf]

I presume the hard choice was booting Abbas?

[Gustaf]

Another embarassing round for the forum. Sigh.

[Gustaf]

Another embarassing round for the forum. Sigh.

What's so embarrassing about eliminating Harper and Douglas?

I'm bewildered that I even have to argue about this. CANADA? The only way one can argue that Canada is not one of the best countries in the world is if one is a radical right-winger. I will just post one example: Bayar of Mongolia. Do you seriously, really, really consider him a better leader than Harper? I find that hard to believe of anyone.

[Gustaf]

Lewis: I know, and I respect your attitude to this thing so far. I didn't vote for Bayar simply because I tried to save Harper and I generally don't want to vote for someone not in the running, so to speak. I will vote for Bayar next round, probably.

BRTD: Yes, I know. That was my point. Why people not radical right-wingers would vote off Harper is beyond me.

Edu/GMantis: I understand that perspective and I share it to an extent. However. Harper hasn't damaged his country very much, has he? I would say Bayar seems to have damaged Mongolia quite a bit. And many other leaders haven't done great things for their countries either. Also, I don't think you can run that argument all the way. One could say that Kim Jong-Il hasn't made North Korea that much worse since he took over, for instance. It is also very hard to judge to what extent various events were caused by the leaders or not.

Bottom line is that while I share that idea as regards say economic performance quite a bit, I don't share it when it comes to things like democracy or human rights. The leader of a country that has freedom of speech and free and fair elections should not be voted off before the leader of a country where these things are not true. I consider your standard so relativist as to be morally bankrupt if it makes it ok to treat your citizens certain ways. You won't convince me that Harper has done things to Canadians comparable to some of the things perpetrated by some of those other leaders.

PiT: I think that is an extremely poor reason to vote for someone. Bloc voting for candidates that shouldn't be voted off should be discouraged, not encouraged. If you don't have a real stake or opinion, I honestly don't think you should vote at all, rather than influence the out-come. But that is a personal opinion of mine, obviously.

[Gustaf]

you know whats really stupid is when people vote for a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator because they dont want a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator voted off...

Maybe I'm dense but I'm really not following your example. (I assume it's directed at me and refers to one of my votes along the way. I should note pre-emptively that I've done mistakes in these votes that I've later regretted, mostly due to ignorance)

[Gustaf]

you know whats really stupid is when people vote for a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator because they dont want a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator voted off...

Maybe I'm dense but I'm really not following your example. (I assume it's directed at me and refers to one of my votes along the way. I should note pre-emptively that I've done mistakes in these votes that I've later regretted, mostly due to ignorance)

its not just you that did it so it was only partially directed at you and it was last round in group two.

I voted Fernandez over Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono defeated the incumbent president (the daughter of a former dictator of the country) in a presidential election. Fernandez also seems to have replaced a democratically elected leader. I voted for Pires in the last round and he also didn't replace a dictator (although he himself comes from the party that used to run Cape Verde as a dictatorship.

Anyway, voting off "a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator because they dont want a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator voted off..." is vastly superior in my opinion when compared to voting off a relatively good democratic leader operating in a fully democratic environment over dictators and people running their country into the ground, etc.

[Gustaf]

you know whats really stupid is when people vote for a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator because they dont want a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator voted off...

Maybe I'm dense but I'm really not following your example. (I assume it's directed at me and refers to one of my votes along the way. I should note pre-emptively that I've done mistakes in these votes that I've later regretted, mostly due to ignorance)

its not just you that did it so it was only partially directed at you and it was last round in group two.

I voted Fernandez over Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono defeated the incumbent president (the daughter of a former dictator of the country) in a presidential election. Fernandez also seems to have replaced a democratically elected leader. I voted for Pires in the last round and he also didn't replace a dictator (although he himself comes from the party that used to run Cape Verde as a dictatorship.

Anyway, voting off "a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator because they dont want a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator voted off..." is vastly superior in my opinion when compared to voting off a relatively good democratic leader operating in a fully democratic environment over dictators and people running their country into the ground, etc.

my main issue is that you didnt go after a small country instead of Fernandez. and your excuses dont make any sense but whatever.

I'm not making any excuses. I don't think I have anything to give excuses for. Why would I want to go after a small country specifically? I never stated that as a principle of mine. 

[Gustaf]

you know whats really stupid is when people vote for a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator because they dont want a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator voted off...

Maybe I'm dense but I'm really not following your example. (I assume it's directed at me and refers to one of my votes along the way. I should note pre-emptively that I've done mistakes in these votes that I've later regretted, mostly due to ignorance)

its not just you that did it so it was only partially directed at you and it was last round in group two.

I voted Fernandez over Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono defeated the incumbent president (the daughter of a former dictator of the country) in a presidential election. Fernandez also seems to have replaced a democratically elected leader. I voted for Pires in the last round and he also didn't replace a dictator (although he himself comes from the party that used to run Cape Verde as a dictatorship.

Anyway, voting off "a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator because they dont want a relatively good democratically elected leader who succeeded a dictator voted off..." is vastly superior in my opinion when compared to voting off a relatively good democratic leader operating in a fully democratic environment over dictators and people running their country into the ground, etc.

my main issue is that you didnt go after a small country instead of Fernandez. and your excuses dont make any sense but whatever.

I'm not making any excuses. I don't think I have anything to give excuses for. Why would I want to go after a small country specifically? I never stated that as a principle of mine. 

i didnt say it was im saying going after the Barbados guy would have made more sense then going after fernandez.

Ok, now I will say that doing it the other way around makes more sense. Are we getting anywhere? Or do you simply operate under the assumption that your own view is sufficient basis to say other peoples' opinions do not make any sense?

I don't really see any valid criticisms in what you are saying.

[Gustaf]

Dominican Republic has been democratic since at least the 70s. I still think going after Fernandez was kind of dumb though, because while he's not notable and I know nothing about him, his country is a bit less of a joke than those other Caribbean countries that don't even have populations with six digits, and there's still plenty of such leaders around. At least his country is something other than a joke tax haven.

As opposed to Canada, right?

[Gustaf]

No switching please. I don't really see the point in doing that to be honest. A person can be a great world leader even if they don't happen to hold office any longer.

No first-poster immunity. That was one of the worse things of the last game. It throws things off way too much. I'm generally opposed to immunity, to be honest.

Also, while I'm not completely adverse to the rules variants it shouldn't be made to throw the game off (allowing vote splits had that effect a little bit, giving immunity to those with many votes as well). And I concur with others that it should definitely be just straight votes for the final 20.

[Gustaf]

Kikwete, Bayar, Correa, Morales, Garcia and Arroyo are top of my list right now.

[Gustaf]

I have to disagree somewhat - this was by far the worse round in the game to me, ever. I was pissed about the rightists Hugh mentioned above but none of them were people I was considering for the win. Bachelet and Obama on the other hand, were. I have a hard time not seeing the game descend into complete hackishness from this point onwards, which is sad.

But I will still keep voting and fight for the remaining good guys.

[Gustaf]

I was sort of interested. But it was too early. It was too late last time though. Maybe once we're down to 10 it would be a good idea?

[Gustaf]

Real life concerns are keeping me exceptionally busy atm., so the hours will be irregular for the next few rounds.

Also, I broke a tie, kicking out Rudd. I'd much rather've kicked out at least two of the 1-vote getters, because neither Rudd nor Merkel should be kicked out yet in my opinion.

I chose to get rid of Rudd because he's a slimy linguist. Not his policies or actions, his responses or accusations, but he abuses language. Silly I know - but not as silly as having to chose between him and Merkel.

You bastard. Just as long as you didn't do this to avoid accusations of patriotism...

[Gustaf]

I want to keep it public. Can I change my vote, since I didn't know we were doing approval voting now?

[Gustaf]

I want to keep it public. Can I change my vote, since I didn't know we were doing approval voting now?

Nope.

Will there be a penalty if I delete my vote then?

[Gustaf]

This is getting ridiculous now. What the hell has Sigursdardottir done to deserve being kept on?

[Gustaf]

This is getting ridiculous now. What the hell has Sigursdardottir done to deserve being kept on?

Licked a pu...started Iceland back on the way to economic recovery?

To be fair, she's a hugely important person to the queer movement.

I get that it is cool she's a lesbian and all, but the world's greatest leader based on that? I think Obama's blackness was more deserving, really.

[Gustaf]

Why? We eliminated three black leaders in round two.

That proves my point even better. A good black leader to set an example is pretty cool.