Computers are better than people

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...when properly programmed, of course. Computers have the wonderful trait of being devoid of the self-serving biases that plague humans. Of course, computers can be programmed by biased humans and end up running biased programs, but at least computers are at least capable of acting without prejudice. This is very difficult for humans to do. Especially when drawing congressional districts. Andrew Sullivan has a good post about using computers to do this highly controversial task. Here's North Carlolina's congressional districts now:


Look at that absurd red one, and how the blue and brown ones in the east are all mixed together. That is very silly and probably the result of Gerrymandering (Wikipedia has a good article). Here's a map done by an algorithm:


Much more contiguous and nice, no? And look how it respects county lines! (I think those are county lines; if not someone let me know what they are.)

But of course this brings up the following question: Should Democrats be fair and nice, or should we use what state legislatures and governorships we control to Gerrymander in retaliation? I'm not sure about this. Doing the right thing is good, but letting Republicans get away with dirty tricks without any consequences is bad. Is there some other way for us Democrats to retaliate against Republican Gerrymandering without doing it ourselves?

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