Why winner-take-all voting is bad for democracy

This was initially posted anonymously on slashdot.

No, in 'the last 50 years', voters and politicians have often not fudged up: the most recent five decades have seen massive advances in technology (often driven by policy), the fall of communism and the USSR, the introduction of the Internet and mobile phones to the masses, and the ascension of Eastern European countries into EU and NATO. This was highly rewarding for whichever party was in power at the time, and to voters, too.

The 'fudged up' part comes with the passage of time, when political incumbents become complacent (as parties), and are no longer able to create good policy, which then causes many countries to surf or skid on the inertia of previous achievements.

Consider Estonia, for example: Reform Party, Isamaa / Pro Patria, the former Res Publica party (since merged into Pro Patria), and Social Democrats / SDE were often in coalition, had in place great policies, interesting programmes (Tiigrihüpe computerisation of schools, the brainchild of Toomas Hendrik Ilves), consulted great visionaries (Linnar Viik), introduced the ID card for electronic two-factor authentication, and so on. Estonia and Estonians are still enjoying the fruits of many of these politicians' labor, including the current construction of Rail Baltic (pushed by Juhan Parts).

In 2012, Mart Laar, a superstar politician from Pro Patria had suffered a stroke. The retirement from politics of Mr. Laar caused a change in leadership in Pro Patria, which eventually resulted in rather average people becoming party leaders (ex.: Helir-Valdor Seeder).

In 2016, the coalition of Reform, Pro Patria, and SDE collapsed, IMO, because of a very scathing personal insult of one Estonian politician to another. These events lead to a change in the makeup of coalitions, introducing contrarian parties (Centre and EKRE) to government and power, who introduced bad policies, such releasing the pension money from the second-column pension plan (similar to a 401k), thus increasing inflation, and taking too many loans to burden all the future state budgets.

Time passed by. The EKREIKE coalition finally dissolved after yet another scandal involving Centre and EKRE.

Enter Kaja Kallas (Reform), arguably a very capable superstar politician and Prime Minister, who set out to fix many things, but who couldn't fix everything during her not-long-enough tenure as Prime Minister.

The passage of time during the previous Centre-lead coalitions resulted in the attrition of valuable talent from Reform and SDE parties, which resulted in the emergence of politicians who are less-than: Kristen Michal as PM from Reform, Lauri Läänemets from SDE, and Joakim Helenius from the Eesti 200 party. The current coalition of Reform, SDE, and E200 is satisfactory only because Centre and EKRE are not in power.

Ostensibly to rebalance the state budget, these politicians in the current coalition set out to raise taxes by introducing the car tax, and raising the property tax, which hits people of scant finances more than well-to-do and wealthy people. (2024)

2016 was also symbolic for two other major events: the stupid Brexit referendum (with not-very-surprising results), and the election of Trump that same year.

To summarize, the great coalitions in Estonia, which typically consisted of Reform, SDE, and Pro Patria, were held together not only due to their having superstar politicians in (party) leadership (Ansip, Laar, Marju Lauristin), but also because of these parties' desire to keep out the Centre party, which remains contrarian in many ways, and which leadership in the form of Edgar Savisaar sought to appease Russia.

Such coalitions were possible because of Estonia's electoral system, which favours proportional representation. In a first-past-the-post / winner-take-all system, Centre would have ruled Estonia to the country's detriment for too long.

The mistake of the U.S. and UK winner-take-all / first-past-the-post electoral systems favours only a two-party political system. A two-party political system invites the extremes into either party: the extremes of the U.S. Left into the Democratic Party, and the extreme-right into the Republican Party in America. Such an electoral and political system can easily lead to vacillations between extremes. For many decades, this had not been happening, as Democrats and Republicans were unified with regard to opposing the USSR and the wider socialist and blocs.

Now, even if a good party wins (the Democrats), there is a higher chance of it and the country being lead by well-meaning politicians, who are great bureaucrats, but who are very weak in foreign policy: these would be Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), Trump (appeasement of the Taliban in Afghanistan), and Joe Biden (2021-2025). I'll add Neville Chamberlain (1937-1940), Angela Merkel, and Nicholas Sarkozy, who also sought the politics of appeasement.

With regard to Russian aggression in Ukraine, Obama before Trump, and Biden himself sought appeasement ('de-escalation', stuff like that), though to a lesser extent, only because superstar politician and President of Ukraine Zelenskyy and many Eastern European politicians (Kaja Kallas), did not budge.

Proportional representation in the Western democracies that have adopted it, helps prevent the emergence of bad or weak politicians, and helps heal many of the bad politicians' mistakes. While it does not entirely prevent awful politicians from getting to power (both in Hungary now, and in Estonia in the recent past), a single-winner system almost always makes it worse, if the system of a political party favours and allows terrible politicians to run for office.

That is why it's never surprising, and by design, that the first-past-the-post and winner-take-all systems favour the emergence of only two major political parties. If their policies are not too different from another in domestic or foreign affairs, then this indeed makes it appear, as though there is little difference between the two.

Proportional voting usually prevents nations from stepping on that rake. (But doesn't help too much in countries where all, or too many parties are extreme, and willing to form a far-right coalition.)

To counter the argument of the parent poster, it's really not 'the last fifty years', but 2016 as one of the focal points in the West of things going wrong at the same time.

The difference of PAL haves and SECAM have-nots in the transition-era Estonia

This post is a reply to a YouTube comment under a clip from a "MacGyver" two-parter "Legend of the Holy Rose". [Updates in this blog in square brackets.]

I was watching this episode in Estonia, if not perhaps in 1989, then close to that time, from Finnish tv.

Estonia was the only country in the entire USSR that could receive terrestrial Finnish channels, and then only in the north of the country.

Wealthy households could afford a satellite dish made in Estonia (the name of the satellite dish company was "Merge"). In the south of the country, I remember seeing those dishes atop private housing, and cable tv with German satellite channels in a middle-class housing block — everyone who lived in that apartment block, must have all had it.

What follows, is a recounting of some tv history, and bittersweet nostalgia.

When colour tv was in development in the USSR, the USSR chose SECAM-D/K, as it was/is a French television standard and not that Western, because it was incompatible with PAL. (I hope I haven't mixed upu D/K and B/G)

This incompatibility ensured, that people in the Eastern Bloc wouldn't be able to catch the PAL-B/G video and audio of the "rotting West", or probably because de Gaulle, then the long-time leader of France, held anti-American sentiments.

[I speculate, that] The French developing and promoting SECAM, was also because post-WWII France was very weary of post-WWII Germany[, which had adopted PAL].

The Finnish MTV3 was a commercial channel started in 1986, and aired in PAL B/G, but not all households had tv sets with this PAL support: the picture in a SECAM set was black and white, very wobbly, and there was no sound. I learned of MTV3 only after I'd gone to school, from classmates.

OTOH, the picture out of YLE2, which aired MacGyver, was stable, and an old Soviet-made SECAM-only set could show it in black-and-white, with sound and all.

As a kid between seven and eleven, soon-to-be-introduced to MacGyver, I knew very little about the U.S./Soviet competition in space, and wasn't aware of lasers until a few years later.

Instead, I loved to collect stamps, because they opened me up to the outside world. The Soviet-era stamps promoted the USSR space programme, and I liked all stuff to do with space. There were plenty of foreign stamps, too, [including probably U.S. space-themed stamps, which made me aware of separate U.S. and Soviet space efforts, but not about the Space Race proper.]

The Estonian kid's journal "Täheke" ["Starlet", supposedly after the Red Star] only had child-oriented content when I was reading that one, but no space stuff.

But the one popular kid's journal that our family had been ordering from Moscow (I'm from a bilingual family), was "Murzilka", the titular character and mascot of which was/is a yellow anthropomorphised kid-height furry wearing a red Soviet beret.

"Murzilka" had plenty of Soviet propaganda well into the late eighties, though less during the latter years of the USSR, as it inched closer to collapse. But there always was plain non-political kid's stuff, even a comic series about computers featuring Murzilka and an 'almost-evil' witch trying to manipulate her three-headed dragon "computer".

Par for the course, the journal promoted the Soviet space programme, carrying interviews with cosmonauts. [The interviews were meant for the USSR propaganda to promote the commie way of life, but I passed those long-form interviews with too mnay words by to look at and read the set of "Murzilka" comics in the middle of the journal.]

Can't remember if this was the last form of kindergarten, or my first class of school. I lean towards kindergarten. So the teachers took us to the local cinema, which showed a very eerie Soviet space film that apparently had been rated as appropriate for children. [To the mind of a six- or seven-year-old me], it was very, very eerie, because it apparently showed aliens carrying big globes for some reason, and I was a bit squeamish watching them. The imagery stuck with me.

On many days, probably when sick, I was bored, and rummaged through the family bookshelves for books with pictures. (We had lots of books, as did most well-educated families in Estonia.)

I discovered a large Estonian hardcover about the history of space exploration, and loads of colour pictures of real-life spacecraft [either] in the middle of the book[, or throughout. I think it was titled "100 kosmoseaparaati" ("100 space vehicles").] It was easy to look for those images even from a closed book, because photos and pictures of any kind were printed on special paper, which was whiter, thicker, and shiny. [It seemed to be the Soviet tradition to put colour pictures in the middle of any book, but print on shiny glanzpapier was probably expensive. Well into my current adulthood, I've realised, that this style was common also to pre-WWII and Tsarist-era print, and not unique to Soviet typesetting.] Among other things, there were pictures of U.S. spy satellites. Can't say if this was before or after I'd had my first taste of 'Trek ca 1988...1991.

Then I got my hands on Dad's entire stash of nearly all editions of "Horisont", the pre-eminent Estonian science / popular science journal. (alas, his fine collection was irretrievably lost to the dark side. RIP and RIP.)

Right, and so, during Gorbachev's Glasnost and the late-Soviet era, "Horisont" began having copy about two things: introductory stories about computers, and a lot of stuff to do with UFOs, mentioning the names of then-eminent ET researchers (one, whose name stuck, was Däniken). I was browsing those editions for the otherworldly pictures, [mostly paintings].

And then in the country during Summer, I'd bought a boulevard gazette, where its cover featured a well-designed sci-fi image of an alien with very abstract, almost square body and facial features, and small and very luminescent green eyes. Or perhaps he was green, and the luminescent eyes were blue.

The 1997 "MiB" movie line about yellow journalism always having copy about UFOs rang very true well after the fact.

The above tidbits set me up to be even more receptive of space stuff. Real space stuff.

Now, back to regular programming..

Due to the differences in the tv sets that mine and most of my classmates' households had, as ours had a much older SECAM-only "Raduga" color tv ("Radugas" were later infamous for catching fire [due to a design flaw]), I could not see fancy stuff, unless I succeeded in making a cordial visit to a classmate. (This lasted for a very short while, and quickly ended for various reasons.)

Seeing TNG for the first time at a good classmate's home made me a lifelong fan of Star Trek and space-based sci-fi. By sheer coincidence, my first Star Trek episode was "Q Who?" — the very first Borg episode. This entire experience was massively fantastic: [USS Enterprise 1701-D was a fantastically beautiful and sleek-looking ship; and the Borg Cube, a rightly menacing, gigantic and powerful vessel defying all the rules of streamlined design.]

Of the seven young men in my earliest class makeup (there were 25 kids in all), the classmate who invited me over so I could see "Q Who?" (he and I didn't know the title of the episode before the fact), remains the only mate whom I remember only with good words.

The difference [say, the PAL/SECAM divide, not unlike the digital divide] was even more stark, in that YLE2 only showed "MacGyver", which I could see and did watch, just because it was there, plus action-adventure; while the commercial MTV3 aired "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (TNG), which I wanted to see more than anything else, but couldn't. [as our home didn't have a set that would show PAL and MTV3]

MTV3 also had "Knight Rider" in its lineup, which, for some reason, was almost never missed (in the sense, that I didn't crave watching it). ["Knight Rider", locally called "Ritariässä" after the localised Finnish title of the show, was apparently very popular with my classmates and almost all the male youth in Estonia. I'm not sure if the show and its episodes were ever discussed amongst them during recess. I knew I couldn't see it, and it's possible, that I'd switched myself out of the others' discussion, if the show ever passed my ears. Ultimately, compared to the very high quality of Star Trek: TNG, "Knight Rider" didn't seem very appealing.]

Yet in the very early 1990s, I got stickers from Spanish chewing gum, because Michael Knight was very masculine, and I wanted a piece of the West with me. Any piece, in part only because I couldn't watch that show, and many other guys could.

Because of an older tv at home, I didn't miss too much the Finnish ads for all the foods that people in the USSR never got access to, and we Estonians could then only salivate over. I saw those ads only at classmates' places, and then, too, very rarely.

[Oddly enough, there are particular Finnish foods that I like, but which were never shown in the few Western and Finnish ads that I remember. For example, I tried "Snickers" once in the early 1990s, and it was wholesomely yucky.]

As it was, most everyone did crave any and all stuff that was Western.

Of the few Western/Finnish ads I saw, I recall them depicting idyllic scenes of happy people enjoying tasty things, or something adventurous (there were several ads for "Tupla" chocolate bars). These were the years of transition in Estonia, and I wanted that kind of happiness, too. [one "Tupla" ad was modelled after Indiana Jones films.]

What I missed, therefore, was the experience of eating the advertised berry yogurt and watching something I couldn't.

The tv sets with PAL support always set any classmates' households a notch above those of anyone else: because they had a window to the world that I didn't. Two [or three] of those homes must have had access to hard foreign currency, showing off their nouveau-riche status to the fullest extent. It seemed, as though they were filthy-rich.

And it was massively disappointing, that other kids could get to watch the best sci-fi that there ever was, and I could not, which made me really unhappy. [I didn't mind them seeing and enjoying it, just that it was difficult to live with the knowledge, that I could not. I cannot recall envying them for this, more, that I genuinely missed seeing great science fiction.]

TNG kept running, and I continued not seeing it, while the local TV guides taunted me with its entry for each Saturday.

As an interesting alternate, these were the years when, from at least 1991, I'd caught a local retransmission each evening of VOA Europe, which played then-popular and chart-topping tracks, thus gracing me with a unique taste in expensive sound. (Our household didn't have a cassette deck until 1993 or 1994, I think, so it was the radio for me.) Eventually, there was mutual estrangement with those classmates, so I'd never learned what music did the others like.

Eventually, to the credit of the good classmate, who, along with other dudes, had seen "The Best of Both Worlds", he retold me the entire two-parter in vivid detail. [I was incredibly happy to hear the whole story from him, and to see his happiness in having seen it, and in retelling it to me :) ]

All this set me up to having a general interest in sci-fi, space, and woo.

I couldn't see any of "Star Trek" properly and at home until a few years later, but that's a different and overall happier story.

While interested in "MacGyver" as a pre-adolescent, it stopped catching my imagination in my teens and twenties. Reason was, that [I'd become a teenager, and] "MacGyver" the show was not as realistic in terms of dialogue, and it felt outdated, whereas TNG and DS9 were the future.

Then again, in the early-to-mid-1990s, I loved "The A-Team" (the parents didn't super like it for its unrealistic dialogue and scenes, but sometimes kinda-sorta tolerated it), and my favourite was "The Equalizer", which always aired at 22:00, which was too late for me.

Then followed "Homicide: Life on the Street", sort of capturing the very realistic feel of early-to-mid-1990s America, hope and anxiety. But its airtime was also late.

[I could not reconcile the fact, that "The A-Team", "The Equalizer", and "Homicide" were very late to me. Especially the latter two, which were high-quality fare. While I massively craved to be in that other world of suspense and adventure, where the good guys were good and well and genuine, and the bad guys always lost.]

"MacGyver" now retains the charm of mid-to-late eighties' Americana.

"Knight Rider" was perhaps similar, targeting the same or somewhat younger age brackets, but was even more outdated and wackier in terms of dialogue and scenes.

The eighties were full of tv shows featuring a man on a journey, usually across America, and fixing all kinds of problems in his way. [Or several men, plus a woman sometimes.] One of the common themes was their being a Vietnam veteran. There were fewer of those shows in the 1990s.

"MacGyver" and "The Equalizer" had a more worldwide appeal: the activities of both often intersected with politics and spycraft: The Equalizer was usually based in New York, and featured plenty of foreigners visiting the city, whereas MacGyver travelled the world.

["MacGyver" introduced me to fixing things by way of tinkering and ad-hoc solutions. Sometimes, the solutions that I had made, worked, and had served me for some years, flawed or perfectly prescient some of them were. As I'd eased into my middle years, some of my wonderment of discovery in tinkering has faded, and the world has offered a plethora of ready-made solutions that are not to be tinkered with.

[Looking back, the PAL/SECAM "analogue" divide took me on a different path of life than that of most of my classmates.

When a year of school ended, and the Summer break began, my family went to the countryside, which was a whole world unto itself. The parents were no longer exposed to nervous city life, and I got to sleep longer, and sleep in. It was bliss.

The countryside offered such a different and blissful existence, that I subconsciously protected it from all of my other classmates. My birthday is sometime during Summer, and when it came to thinking of the people I'd invite to celebrate getting older by a year, I could not think of anyone from the city (the school).

My childhood logic was always, that all the kids I knew from the city (the classmates) 'were too far away, and that it would have been impractical for them to come over.'

The countryside felt like a different country, one, that was inaccessible to the kids (the classmates) I knew from the city.

I've realised in adulthood, that not one of my classmates was a friend to me, as some of them and I had both failed to develop good relationships on the basis of mutual trust. There might have been potential for this, but I let go of some of the opportunities, as did they.]

Milline Eesti laul meenutab lapsepõlve kõige rohkem

Oli kunagi r/Eesti küsimus, kus ma postitasin oma variandi, kuid lõnga esitaja kustus ära.

Sõltub ajastust ja eluperioodist.

Lapsepõlv

Lasteaias

"Kevadel" / Juba linnukesed. "Boamadu" ROCK FM konkursi kaver

Kodus ja maal

"Kodulaul" "Nukitsamehest.

"Päikeseratas" ei ole lemmik, kuigi ma olen sellest loost teadlik.

"Kui mina alles noor veel olin" (Veljo Tormis, "Kevade") (cover by Reet)

3Pead – "Lillelaps" — See on sellest perioodist maal, kus ma polnud enam väga pisike, aga suur ka veel mitte. Oli seiklusi ja avastamist. Laul kirjeldab maa-elu suhtelist tormilisust just ilmapoole pealt, kuigi maa-elust meenuvad enamasti vaid ilusad hetked.

"Kui on meri hülgehall" / "Majake mere ääres" (muusika: Ülo Vinter, sõnad: Enn Vetemaa) — Üldse üks ilusamaid laule seitsmekümnendatest aastatest. (Film ise on jäädavalt kehva.)

"Põhjamaa" / "Laul Põhjamaast" — "Pipi Pikksuka" teatrietendusest, lingitud 2019.a. laulupeo kooriesitluses. Sügaval N. ajal oli see "Pipi Pikksuka" näidendi lõpulaul, ning selle esitamise ajal seisis absoluutselt kogu publik aupaklikult püsti.

Teismeiga, varateismeiga

Gunnar Graps – "Valgus" — Seda nägin ja kuulsin telekast ühe korra üldse lapsena, aga sööbis mu mällu. Oli vist mingi limonaadireklaami tunnuslugu. Mässumeelse teismeea laul.

Suhte otsimine

Ummamuudu – "Kõnõtraat" (Elina Borni cover)

Armumine ja esimene armastus

Genialistid – "Leekiv armastus"

Best B4 – "Ma armastan luuserit" — eestikeelne kaver algupäraselt Nylon Beati soomekeelsest loost, nagu ma mäletan. Laulu all kommentaarides meenutatakse, et Best B4 versioon avaldati varem. Üldse kõige kaverdatum Soome laul.

Ans Andur – "Kare tekk"

Eelmäng lahkuminekule

Code One – "On küll hilja". — Klassikaline 1990ndate ballaad, mis ilmestab hästi kogu aastakümmet.

Lahkuminek

Terminaator – Raudteejaam

See on see koht,

...kus ma olen täiskasvanu, aga noor ja teen palju vigu.

3Pead – "Poolel teel"

Hu? – "Exind"

Ikka veel kooliaeg

(mul pole eluperioodid kõik lineaarsed, ning osa laule on avaldatud alles *peale* mingit eluperioodi. Mitmed laulud lihtsalt kirjeldavad ühte või teist aega.)

Leslie Da Bass – "Dressibluus"

Hannaliisa Uusmaa – "Depressiivsed Eesti väikelinnad"

^ Kehtivad ka maakoha kohta teismeeas.

Sügavam noor täiskasvanuiga,

kus teen vähem vigu, aga jäi igatsustunne ilusa järele:

Avenova feat. Andriana – "Вечность" (Avenova on Narva bänd)

Noorusajast elu lõpuni

(positiivne take)

Sõpruse Puiestee – "Ma olen õnnelik, et inimesed on nii ilusad ja head"

3Pead – Armastuse valgus — see veidi uuem versioon kui algupärane.

Üldse kogu Veljo Tormise "Kevade, "Suve" ja "Sügise" muusika.

"Aeg läheb aga õnn ei kao" / "Imeliku kandlelugu", "Suve" lõpulaul. Veljo Tormis / Paul-Eerik Rummo. Ülemakstud Rentslihärrade cover

The triggers for "Spencer" in Impostor (2001)

This was written in reply to a comment under a YouTube movie recap.

After the hospital scan, the main agent knew with definite evidence, that Spencer was a planted robot with a bomb inside his body. Whether there was prior knowledge of his wife, is unknown.

The greater plan for humans must have been to move the married couple away from populated areas, which would defeat the aliens' big plan, though they did get some solace in the knowledge, that the entire ruse managed to decimate the robot-detecting operation. — This explains, why the agents are inadequate or inexperienced, in that similar explosions have happened before, and there's a manpower problem.

The film is clever, in that Spencer's detonation trigger was actual definite knowledge of being a robot. On second viewing, we see how close he is to learning of his botness and his body detonating, but the aliens did not account for Spencer's humanity even as a bot.

There may be differing accounts as to what other things may have triggered Spencer and his bot "wife". It could be, that both the "husband" and "wife" had to be in close proximity, and Spencer's earlier refusal to acknowledge his botness must have been due to the absence of his "wife".

We must assume very sophisticated programming: Spencer's AI mind learns, that he's about to be exposed, but he cannot yet trigger his internal explosive unless and until he's relatively close to his "wife", which "subconsciously" causes him to escape and seek his wife in order to prevent the bomb from being safely removed from either unit for reverse engineering, and to complete the mission to minimise exposure.

The movie shows a setting, where humans are able to make a stand, but are always one or two steps behind.

The True Estonia

This was initially written as a reply under a YouTube video, but the text was published here first.

Estonia is true in every place Estonia is at within its current borders :-)

There are certain spots and landmarks that one gets a feel of like a local:

The Tallinn Old Town. Raising of the Estonian flag at the Pikk Hermann tower on 24. February Independence Day and 20. August Reindependence Day (restoration of independence).

The Parliament building, which has only one open-door day. Opposite that, the Russian Orthodox Church, which few Estonians visit, for good reason.

The 24. February Independence Day military parade and small air show. It's still cold. The "parade of the penguins", which is the President's reception with politicians and dignitaries that same evening.

The Tallinn central business district and Linnahall (of Tenet). Kadriorg and the Kadriorg Park, with squirrels. The Singing Grounds (Lauluväljak) during the concert of a major star, or a massive song festival.

The traffic jams on Tammsaare tee and Järvevana tee during peak hour, and because the city is continually carving up road on main streets and replacing it with the new shiny. (I think the Centre-led city always invents new ways to carve up road on main streets so as to distrub traffic.)

The 'mäed' (hills) with apartment blocks in Mustamäe, Õismäe, and Lasnamäe. The Laagna tee canal of Tenet in Lasnamäe. Pirita and Štromka (Stroomi beach).

Going to a Prisma at night and buying liquorice and salmiakki candy, kõrsik, and Georgian Tarhun (either Zhedazheni or Natakhtari). For those not in the know, Prisma is a Finnish big-box grocery chain, which has several stores open 24 hours a day.

Kopli and Kalamaja. The Russian cemetery adjacent to the Tallinn Central Hospital (Keskhaigla).

The Rocca al Mare open-air museum with all old and rustic buildings mostly from the 19th century and earlier, and the model kolhoz (collective farm) residential apartment block with each flat showing a decade of the Soviet era.

The Museum of Art / Kumu, the Museum of Occupations / Vabamu, the Museum of the Seas (Meremuuseum), the Fat Margareta, the Seaplane Harbour, its submarine, and icebreaker Suur Tõll.

The ferris wheel at T1, and the near-emptiness of T1 itself. It's got a free toilet and free Wi-Fi, and a free old book exchange rack (tho not vintage). It's lovely.

The free public transit in Tallinn for registered city residents, and the sometimes-free bus transport in the regions outside cities. Contactless rider cards, with a system developed by Estonian company Ridango.

In Tallinn public transit, you'll have seen people of all nationalities and colours. The best part is, that people almost never bother one another, and almost never talk to strangers.

Excursions on the retro and vintage buses of the Timeless Buses collection during Museum Night (Muuseumiöö). The Museum Night as an event in and of itself, which happes only once a year.

By car: the Tallinn−Tartu road that never completes as a four-lane highway, which has been a local meme for many years, if not decades already. Traversing that road by car is an adventure in an of itself, and not without danger.

The similar path on the often-overcrowded "carrot" train / porgand 🥕, and the venerable Tartu train station. ERM aka Eesti Rahva Muuseum / the Museum of the Estonian People.

The Americana of Tikupoiss near Viljandi, and the American Beauty Car Show in Haapsalu.

There's the Rummu quarry (karjäär; private property, btw), its pristine water and the adjacent abandoned prison.

Then the Narva fortress/castle and museum, the open-air old vehicle museum (Maanteemuuseum), the mining museum (wrt oil shale) near Narva (I think there's an underground trip even).

Most of the beaches and shores across the country. I've heard, that Nõva is nice.

All the bogs and marshes and their beauty, which you can traverse on boarded-up paths. Mukri raba. You will encounter other hikers.

The forests, and the picking of berries and mushrooms there. Don't pick anything you don't know, and better have a friend who knows mushrooms well, plus consult a local mushroom book or lexicon, but those are in Estonian. Usually, avoid eating berries until they're cleaned and washed, as those may carry stomach parasites.

Beware the thousand Estonian bears, plus wolves, elks, wild hogs, foxes, and other wild mammals. Some may have rabies, and the government / forest service / RMK regularly drops anti-rabies feed. There may be viper snakes.

Beware the ticks, as they are the most insidious and the most dangerous of all. Also anyone who trades with timber and makes frequent calls to buy your forested property cheaply, if one happens to have any.

The delicious and a bit pricey onions of lake Peipus (Peipsi sibulad).

The often-rainy and sometimes-chilly *Jaanilaupäev* + *Jaanipäev* in the countryside, with a thousand mosquitoes who think that _you_ are their best meal that evening, and not anyone else. You'll need an anti-bug spray, gel, or stick ahead of the event.

Into the night, a warm bonfire with friends and family and lots of gossip, if and when other villagers (local friends) are made welcome to join. It's warm only because the people are huddled close to one another, like bats in a cave.

Have various disinfectant on hand to dispense on your person and to others before eating, though people usually rely on napkins.

Never throw plastic or trash into any fire, because it's toxic, and the fire may have been intended to grill food.

Eating onion-laced šašlõkk grilled on a UFO grill oven (well, it does look like a saucer) ontop of coal fire, complementing it with white or vegetarian salad, and marinated pickles 🥒. Eating the previously-collected and later-washed wild strawberries 🍓, raspberries, and other berries, plus rhubarb cake (rabarberikook), and drinking fizzy drinks well into the morning. Beware of ticks and drunk people, so pick your company.

Then there are Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, Vormsi, and Kihnu.

Watching Kevade, Suvi, and Sügis with friends and family.

When losing a friend or a closed one, a funeral send-off at Pärnamäe chapel/crematorium, if in Tallinn. I hope you won't have to attend, as send-offs of loved ones can be very personal. Though this comes as part and parcel with long-term living in Estonia, if you have close ones.

Discussing and signing inheritance documents via videolink and ID card online, at the same time with the notary, with family members scattered across the globe. (that is, if there are no inheritance disputes.)

The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, and the films from all over the world, including South Asia.

Christmas with gingersnaps / piparkoogid. Easter with a specially-prepared Pas'ha meal (пасха, originates from Russia).

The True Estonia is the friends and family you have around you on most of these events.

Prestige science fiction series

I've posted here first as a comment reply on reddit.

Prestige sci-fi, in order of appearance:

* Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987−1994)

* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1992−1999) — very much stands the test of time, especially all the episodes featuring Cardassians and Garak (Andrew J. Robinson).

The first American tv show to talk about comfort women in "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night" (1998).

Behind the camera: Ira Steven Behr, Ron D. Moore and Naren Shankar.

* Farscape (1999−2003, 2004) — Made in Australia. Great animatronics and puppeteering, fantastic sci-fi.

Starring: Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Virginia Hey, Lani Tupu, Wayne Pygram (once played Tarkin, btw), Jonathan Hardy (voice), Gigi Edgley, Rebecca Riggs, and many others.

Behind the camera: Brian Henson, Rockne S. O'Bannon and Naren Shankar.

* Star Trek: Enterprise (2001−2005). There was a lot of fan disdain for it, but it seems to have gained a resurgent following. 9/11 changed the world, and took the show with it.

* Battlestar Galactica (2003, 2004−2009) — upped the space physics realism part. Created and ran by Ron D. Moore. Score by Bear McCreary.

* Stargate Universe (2009−2011) — Starring Robert Carlyle, Louis Ferreira, Brian J. Smith, Elyse Levesque, David Blue, Alaina Huffman, Jamil Walker Smith, and Ming-Na Wen (The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett).

SGU features the first LGBT primary character in a space-based sci-fi show, and is one of the earliest to have a gay starring actor in a sci-fi show in Brian J. Smith (not related to the in-show character), though he wasn't out yet at the time. Brian J. Smith has starred in Sense8*, *Treadstone*, *Matrix 4*, and the upcoming series Essex County

Stargate Universe features an awesome score by the late Joel Goldsmith (son of Jerry Goldsmith), comparable in quality to that of Andor, and musical montages with the eclectic music of the day.

Some of the episodes depict in some detail what it's like to live with a family member who has HIV/AIDS, a life-long disability, and separately shows the progression of ALS and explains what it is.

By the time SGU aired, Star Trek: TNG had become dated in terms of style and presentation.

* The Expanse (2015−2022) — upped the space physics realism and greatly raised the standard on that. Shohreh Aghdashloo steals the show.

* Westworld — Season 1 and Season 2 stand out and raise the bar. Seasons 3 and 4 are weaker.

* The Mandalorian — the great space western. The Book of Boba Fett is good, too, once I disregard the inclusion of the teen biker gang. Boba Fett fills the lone ranger genre very nicely.

* The Boys — A very gory anti-superhero show, but worth watching for the gallows humour. Serious issues through and through. Adults only!

* Invincible — A bloody, gory, and messy cartoon, and a very good one at that. If you're an adult, it's worth the watch.

I must add extra caution wrt The Boys and Invincible, because they are so gory, that anyone who has seen bloody deaths, war, and battle trauma, might find these two shows very triggering.

Invincible is like the superhero version of Happy Tree Friends. If you know what that is, you'll get the gist.

* Andor — hugely raises the bar, and is on par with SGU, BSG, Farscape, DS9, and Westworld. (I've lost interest in The Expanse, though.)

Edit:

• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is great Star Trek and captures some of the classic feel with Captain Pike and Lt. Spock.

• Star Trek: Lower Decks is a lot of fun, captures the TNG feel, and has some lovely moments.

• Star Trek: Prodigy is a great choice for children.

The other Star Trek shows are meh.

The status of post-conflict diaspora language

This was initially written as a response to a comment under a Reddit post in a thread that discussed the tender relationship between the diaspora big-minority Russian language, and the indigenous majority-status Estonian language in Estonia.

I think it will take a while for Estonians as a group to disassociate the Russian language from the titular people in Russia, from the titular state, and the regime that runs it.

In my view, the Russian language as such is not guilty of any crimes.

But it has long been used as an instrument of oppression, colonization, and foreign machinations; it's been the titular language of oppressive dictatorships, and has been spoken by a great many people who have advanced, and continue to advance the policies of said regimes. — All this dismays me quite a bit.

As a consequence of having been used as an instrument of colonisation, the countries in which russification took place, naturally gravitate towards undoing said acts of colonisation and their many outcomes, which have had an effect on a number of majority-status indigenous cultures that have come to fear the loss of their native language.

This uncompromising undoing, as it were, of the results of occupation and colonisation is done perhaps as a measure to reduce the chances of their indigenous language(s) — with not too many speakers on a world scale — from becoming endangered sometime in the future.

And so, this creates the externality of the Russian language suffering the fate of collateral damage as a somewhat self-inflicted result of several conflicts and wars started by the Russian state.

Yet the Russian language itself is not in any way in danger.

But how the many Russian diasporae are to develop a culture in each of their respective host countries, which culture would be immune to foreign (Russian) influence measures and meddling, is something that requires a lot of care and nurture.

It's important to note, that in Russia proper, several indigenous non-Russian languages remain endagered, or are under the threat of extinction. Their speakers are discriminated against, and their sons have been thrown into the meat-grinder that is the Russian-initiated war in Ukraine.

There, in Russia, several indigenous non-Russian languages have already become extinct. As such, their extinction is always a major harm and irreparable loss to humanity.