It could be argued that the Netflix catalog nowadays is akin to some kind of torture.

What's the point of having all that money and power if you can't actually do the things you want?

The most "sensible" application would be for betting markets I thought.

It was there last night. Now I get a 404.

Even with Germany it turned out that Angela Merkel did grave mistakes and Germans were able to find out about those only after she left office. Being continually in office gives you the ability to hide your trials. The longer you stay the easier it is for you to get elected.

That’s why it is very important to have a time limit in power.

If the latter: Yes, that is actually stupid, but the stupidity lies not in the term limits for politicians, but in the idea that public servants are employed on the grounds of party affiliation.[1]

But replacing large swathes of competent higher officials every time you change government... The only country I know of for sure that does that is the USA. Are you saying that's the way it works in Brazil, too?

___

[1]: Sure, to some extent it exists everywhere, but that's usually only a few sincure posts for old politicians removed from any actual influence by being "promoted diagonally left-upwards". (See, for example, the post of "landshövding" in Sweden.)

History and present have many examples of the flawed human tendency to latch onto larger-than-life figures.

A benevolent, wise dictator would be the most effective form of government, but we are humans, not angels.

Its a fundamental safeguard and a hedge against tyranny. Its why, in general, countries that are lead by one person for life can be very impressive in the short term but inevitably fall apart once the wrong person eventually takes charge. Because the odds are that eventually the wrong person will take charge.

I really can’t understand how Brazilians (that actually have a multi party system) keep having to choose between two awful candidates.

I would rather limit not amount of terms, but the age. Not eligible for any kind of elections if you are 60+, both as candidate and as voter.

I check my brake pads every year. Eventually the incumbent pads lose out to some whipper-snapper from the new pads box. I might vote red again or I might switch to blue. It depends how muddy it is. Either way, it’s both a new/old choice as well as a red/blue choice.

Time-in-office is also a major contributor to corruption. Lukashenko has been winning the same election for 30+ years!

I do think term limits are good, but nonconsecutive 16 years is actually an ok limit IMHO. Maybe not the one I'd prefer for my government, but not necessarily objectively bad for democracy.

Because some can have critical conversations, with pros and cons, right and wrong doings. But others will lie, cheat and steal, and degrade democracy, with long term impacts.

You might say he introduced a kind of populism, where politicians only care about the next election round and their reputation, to the cost of important decision-making and long-term thinking. Unfortunately this is kind of a working strategy, a weakness of democracy, where the current centre-right government is struggling with all the aggravated problems not dealt with in the past, and the voters think "well, perhaps we have to vote VVD again where these problems didn't exist", or vote more right-wing by populism that makes immigration the cause of all problems.

Long-term politicians result in "behind the scenes" doing the real work of running things.

Wait a minute ...

Lula's Fala.BR platform is a massive step up for free and public access to information for all Brazilians and federal contracting procedures have been standardized and oversight has been massively improved.

Lula represents a massive step towards fighting corruption

It's not going to end until the opposition comes up with a competent alternative. Flavio was the worst choice they did.

Of course just because there are technically flaws, doesn't mean it's not an improvement over the status quo.

Instant Runoff Ranked ballots are particularly well suited for electing a single position like a Mayor or President. Given that it's still a majoritarian system like First Pass the Post, it's a much more questionable system to use for other things like electing a parliament.

You can vote for or against as many candidates as you want. Take the top 2 score getters and do a runoff. This means in the first round you can have as many candidates as you want. Those with no name recognition get no support. Also it prevents the situation so many find themselves in where both candidates are deeply unpopular but we feel we have no other choices. If the most well known candidates are deeply divisive then they won't get through.

The runoff gives people time to research the 2 candidates.

8 is a really small sample to consider it as unusual, plus the reversal was not that huge 1.8%

https://mronline.org/2026/10/16/meta-acknowledges-the-reduce...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9y7l0pm8jkko

But, his dad:

> Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted by Brazil's Supreme Court for plotting a coup following his 2022 election defeat

I don’t see how to read it any other way. Explain?

How so?

I don't really follow Brazilian politics, but Jair Bolsonaro was found guilty by the Brazilian Supreme Court of:

participation in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, attempted coup d'état, qualified damage, and deterioration of protected heritage property.[1]

Flávio Bolsonaro is Jair Bolsonaro's son. "attempted coup d'état" is a failed coup.

There don't seem to be any serious questions that the process was fair and that the Supreme Court was impartial (I mean there are always Trumpian accusations of bias, but I mean ones with any evidence at all).

The only part I could see possible disagreement with is organizer I suppose? But I must be missing something.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_for_the_2022%E2%80%93202...

Jair Bolsonaro was tried and convicted of organizing a coup.

Flavio Bolsonaro is his son.

Where's the false part?

What do you have to say about this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%932023_Brazilian_co...

Aprende com o nome dele e faz ai um "Já ir". De preferencia no...

Pretty far fetched.

Russian troll factories etc are a documented fact, not an opinion. It goes way beyond just "influencing elections".

Really? I couldn't tell. In the last debate alone, the main TV network conceded to Flavio's request to not use live fact checking systems on TV. Turns out 75% of his statements were not true. He's facing no consequences for that, nor is the network for hosting and broadcasting his fake facts.

Why indeed.

I think as humans we are really bad at intuition about probabilities, and it being an election only makes it much worse. I don't think anyone is consciously conflating these with poll numbers but percentages of voters are the numbers we see a lot more than prediction markets, and 80% is idunno an 80% chance of getting between 50% and 54% of the vote or something.

this kind of gambling ought be made illegal along with the explicit in-pocket gambling

want to gamble, go to a physical place,

constant, easy access apps are already showing harm

You could argue that about pretty much every politician and their supporters in India. The right wing keeps winning because the left refuses to address the fears of a majority of the Indian population. Even if those fears are unwarranted - dismissing them as "uneducated" and "blind sheep" alienates people even more.

Fact is, whether you like it or not, the party in power has been in power only for a few years, and has achieved more than the other party did in 60 years.

Do you really believe that the INC would have handled Covid better? They were trying to kill off indigenous vaccines to favour Pfizer etc who (a) refused trials in Indian conditions and (b) wanted $62 per shot.

Do you really believe that they would have managed to keep fuel prices in check given Trump's war on Iran?

Do you really believe that Rahul Gandhi is qualified to run a home owner's association, leave alone a nation of 1.4 billion people?

Take a look in the mirror then next time you use that phrase.

There is crazy right and significantly more normal left. And if you want the center to win, you need to ackwnowledge that. Anything else helps the more crazy side.

This is key to his reelection. He literally ran on a "Bolsonaro will end Bolsa Família" campaign.

It's unfortunate. Lula inherited a post-Washington consensus neoliberal Brazil. He had nearly 20 years to undo all that and reindustrialize the country, thereby putting us on China's path.

I would have voted for him regardless of ideology if he had done it, but he didn't. It's just easier to just anesthetize the population and put them on paliative care with free money.

> he thinks he is helping the poor, but it is just for short term.

This "short term" is unbearably long... But I do see signs that the system is reaching its limits. Government was already having trouble paying pensions before Vorcaro.

> so much public debt, in a few years everyone, rich or poor, will have pay the price, with interest.

Bankers love Lula for a reason. Record profits.

Also, nobody can beat Dilma on cutting taxes from the rich.

A major reason it isn't working for now is because Donald Trump is, in addition to being a corrupt autocrat, incredibly incompetent. We shouldn't have to rely on that next time.

I don't know the specifics of Brazil's system, but at least in the US gerrymandering has nothing to do with the Presidency or Senate, only the House. It's also not without risk. Gerrymandering is bad, but it doesn't change the totals of votes; it attempts to reapportion "excess" votes yielding a large win margin in one area to give winning, but necessarily smaller, margins in more areas. Amongst other challenges though that smaller margin means if there is a wave then a gerrymander can turn into a "dummymander" where previously safe districts get flipped.

>funny business

This is actually pretty dang hard in anything but a total sham, and even then is at least obvious it happened. Some timy fiddling at the margins may be possible to sneak through, and yeah some elections that might make the difference. But that can't counter any serious victory. The more common technique seems to be trying to suppress the vote. But as well as also not being trivial it also too risks backfiring by motivating people much harder. There is a lot of human psychology around "loss", people often absolutely hate things being taken from them even if they were complacent about having them.

The word is absolutely meaningless now.

And when you correctly use the word to describe what they are supporting, you are inciting violence.

They called for extension back in 2022 too, and it was ruled illegal. "Everybody had the chance to vote", said Alexandre de Moraes.

It's also inconsistent with the court's own precedent. Extending voting hours was deemed illegal back in 2022. "Everybody had the chance to vote", said Alexandre de Moraes.

After Lula lost in the 1st round, suddenly it became legal again. The irony is not lost on me. That's the pattern with the leftist judges in the courts. The supreme court judge who decided it used to be Lula's own lawyer.

This time around, some guy in Lula's party created "Lula's Army", a channel with millions of people in it. Suddenly, it was fine.

They used to cry about "fake news" and call for censorship at every opportunity, and they'd get it because they own the courts. Now they were the ones spreading "fake news" of all sorts. Did they get censored? Nah.

Censorship in Brazil is unconstitutional, by the way. Political censorship is doubly so. It doesn't matter, because they own the supreme court.

There are no laws in Brazil, there is only what the supreme court wants. Whatever they write on a piece of paper becomes law, and police obeys it. They are the true seat of power in this country.

There is exactly one politician that once upon a time represented me: Dr. Enéas Carneiro. Ironically, his ideas were closest to the Chinese Communist Party. He's dead now.

The left wing has PCO, a real left wing party, and I agree with them on a daily basis. They're shunned by everyone, and were even persecuted by the supreme court along with the right wing.

I'm increasingly resigned to the idea that immigration is the only option by now.

Bolsonaro generally supports privatizing Brazilian state companies and selling them off to foreigners. I don't want that. Especially not to the US and Israel.

Lula on the other hand is better aligned with China, which is also what I want.

Lula and myself are aligned on these two points. So this outcome is not entirely bad for me.

The problem I have with Lula is his party's obnoxious taxation, lack of a real plan for reindustrialization, continuous defense of criminals, and most importantly, his total domination of the supreme court. I voted for the right specifically to see those judges impeached and imprisoned, because I absolutely oppose everything they did in 2022, far more than I ever opposed Lula himself. I'm of the opinion that presidents and elections barely matter anymore, because it's the supreme court that runs the country. It's the Venezuela governance model: president appoints god-like supreme court judges and rules monocratically through them.

The 1st round this month was such an upset not because of Bolsonaro but because of the senate. They are the ones who can impeach supreme court judges, and when Brazil unexpectedly elected a right wing majority in the senate, it struck true fear into the court. This was our chance to completely wipe out that court and forever change the history of this country, like Bukele did for El Salvador.

While in the end the necessary victory didn't materialize, Brazilian senate is still absolute majority right wing now, and they could still impeach those judges. I'm not going to hold out hope for that anymore, but if I see at least one judge bite the dust I'll still call it a major win.