When were you when the UK was kill?

[Ben]

then you agree with me- in any case, no matter which side of the issue, when it comes down to a vote and the difference is sufficiently small

there should be a contingency plan

[Ben]

im not saying it as some sore loser of the brexit vote because, like i said, i have no investment in the decision and only a mild curiosity. i am only talking about the result of a voting procedure

[grue]

well yeah it's silly but what are you going to do? you can't do anything other than 50/50 if what i said is true, and if you implement safeguard mechanisms to counter the referendum then there's no point in having it in the first place, right?

[Ben]

if the referendum results came in and it was an exact 50/50 split, what would they have announced? is there a formality for this? would they just keep revoting until it leaned one way or the other? if more "leave" people were in car accidents that day and didnt get to vote so that it went toward "stay" would you say nothing or would you at least mention how weird it was and ask if there was another way?

[Ben]

why is this such a hard concept? what happens in the event of ANY tie? what defines a tie? do you really think a tie should mean precisely one number to another number, with numbers this large? that is, statistically, absurd

[Ben]

if we play a series of sixty trillion tennis matches and we are even until you win the thirty trillion and first, that doesnt make you better until i can prove that i lose the next one as well, and a few more until i am outside of a reasonable doubt that i am the worse player

in practicality, a vote is harder to orchestrate but that never defeats the point im making in theory and it shouldnt invalidate our ability to try to fix things that are wonky

if you were the better player, nobody would say that was certain until you had 40 trillion and i was still lagging behind at 30 trillion

[Ben]

in any case i think the intensity my initial curiosity and borderline-rhetorical "huh, i wonder if this is the best way to do this" query has been overtaken by how long ive let myself defend it so you guys can go back to talking about the liberation of france or w/e this was about

[grue]

usually when there's a tie, you redo the thing.

referendums are costly and time-consuming. you can't just restart one if someone gets in a car crash or whatever. there are concessions being made

and yeah that happens a lot in tennis actually, that's why the games go for long and often the wins are very marginal. still count as wins, though.

the bigger picture you're ignoring is that decisions have to be made. states are clunky complex and big things, and 99% of what happens all the times is compromise. you have to reach a decision by day x, andd at that day a decision has been made. there's no point in circling over the minutia of "what ifs" that will exist no matter what.

if a referendum is to be done, it must reach a decision. it can't stall forever, it's just not something that can happen. 50/50 is the fairest way to set the divide. it's not that it's a hard concept, it's that you're holding it to impossible scrutiny. how would anything that you say be feasible? safeguard mechanisms on a referendum? defeats the purpose. nullifying unless certain criteria are met? either unfair or time/resource consuming.

it's the system that it is. it's important enough for politicians to use it respectfully but not so important that they can't do the opposite if the need is too big. a referendum is just a referendum, and you're overthinking the whole thing

[Ben]

i just tried to say it was weird y'all

[Ben]

"huh, what a close vote" this is what i will say when i am able to go back in time

[Delirious Biznasty]

500,000 is a big number to divide the choices

[CharlieH]

[Ben]

at least you guys didnt have to name it britgate, brexitgate, eugate, etc

[Ben]

in any case thanks for the actual perspective

[Gorilla Tits]

what would the watergate scandal be called today? Watergategate?