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Comment by screye | Hacker News Reader

Why is geography a factor in a democracy.

Why is cross regional appeal of any value, if these region don't make up even 10% of the combined US population.

If US states were divided by population it would be a different think all together. But California has 40 times as many people as Wyoming.

Cross regional appeal is quoted as an obviously good thing to have, but the core assumption of equal distribution of population has been violated.

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> Why is cross regional appeal of any value, if these region don't make up even 10% of the combined US population.

Because those people control a large fraction of the country’s food supply and it would be a disaster if they decided to stop selling it to the rest of us.

You're probably being facetious, but I have heard some version of this argument before. It's akin to saying "give us what we want or we'll hold the country hostage."

In reality, free markets being a thing, this wouldn't happen. We can import from other countries and they need to sell their goods to live.

More hyperbolic than facetious. It can’t be a good thing to disenfranchise the holders of your strategic resources en masse, and farmland was the easiest to point at.

You’re right that it’s extremely unlikely to get so bad that they get forcibly nationalized. However, my understanding is that market conditions are pretty bad for farmers right now, and have been for years. Any change that makes things worse for them will likely drive some to other lines of work and reduce overall production, driving food prices up.

This particular effect is probably extremely small in practice, but I felt the need to remind HN that not all value is produced in cities.

Do you want to eat unregulated Chinese mystery meat? Not that I agree with the sentiment of 'holding the urban areas hostage' but the US and the world need the agricultural production of the central US

California actually provides most of the produce (vegetables fruits and nuts) for the nation. The midwestern corn / soy / beef states are focused on producing bulk commodities for export to other countries.

Yes, you are correct. My comment implied that a healthy population needs both. The agriculture crops are equally necessary for calories and protein

Why have those protections in the Presidency though who is the face of America. Low population states (more accurate than saying the EC favors small states really) already have an even more disproportional impact in the Senate where 40 Senators representing just 38.4M people can completely control the laws that get passed via filabuster (lowest 20 population states + 1 to prevent cloture). That's a little of 10% over the population that can in theory decide 100% what can get passed in the US. (Granted the 20 lowest population states do include a few democratic states, but it is largely consistently republican states)

Senators get elected at best about 70% to 30% in votes also so assume that only 70% of that 38.4M people actually 'control' the laws. "Completely control" is a bit of an exaggeration though, I think you mean not allow new laws to get passed. Having a small population with the ability to prevent new laws is less concerning to me than a populous majority with the ability to pass laws. New laws should have broad support and broad appeal before getting enacted. Due to the internet there is much more spread of culture and thought between states than ever before and I think we could see much more laws getting passed very soon if democrats and republicans, and the media, could stop acting like every single day is election day again and are contrarian to every single word that comes from the other party.

True they can only block but that's a lot of power just look at the whole last 4 years (plus a stolen SC seat) when Mitch was in charge in the Senate, it's a strong position. Also there's a lot of stuff that needs to pass just day to day that you can attach force things to be attached to if you have a solid anti cloture vote and are willing to use it.

I'm not so sure it's just the 24/7 life or death coverage that makes that happen though. In solidly red or blue seats the main threat to a senators seat is a challenge from the extreme of their party, left or right, which also pulls them further towards the extremes of their parties.

I don't think that was the core assumption. Recall that lack of representation in government was one of the reasons for the revolution that created the US.

It's a critical factor for the United part of the USA and the fact that we're a republic.

Population isn't everything. We have states like Alaska, Hawaii and Wyoming which are national treasures with low populations.

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