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A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

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Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#141

Post by breuleux »

superkarn wrote: post #124
breuleux wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, why not choose all representatives by lottery? I don't think representatives need to have any particular competencies beyond being representative of the interests of the population. Hired staff can take care of things that require particular abilities. I reckon that a wholly random set of representatives would act like a direct democracy where every voter is free to fully focus on the issues, is allowed an…

Would this have a similar outcome as the "lottery" for jury duty? What happens if somebody who really doesn't want to do it is chosen?

That's a very good point. I currently lean towards requiring every citizen to register for the lottery once every ten or so years (for one year of service). If they are picked, they have to go, except for serious unforeseen circumstances, but at least they would be able to plan for it to some extent. This might also require a cultural shift for people to accept it, but maybe not a radical one.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#142

Post by mlillie »

Jolter wrote: post #128
_v7gu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coordinated groups have voting power of sqrt(total money)*sqrt(number of individuals), uncoordinated ones have sqrt(money). If you are for some cause, you should just find like-minded individuals and pool your total money. They have very limited incentive for keeping the money for themselves because they also agree with you on the issue. Then the other side should also coordinate tightly in this manner, and now you h…

Money?

100 'dollars' to spend

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#143

Post by breuleux »

koube wrote: post #137
kmonsen wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bribery is even more rampant now with career aspirations since reelection is costly. The job of politicians is to get reelected and they do it by being available to donors.

If we are able to reduce the question of no reelections to the question of whether we should have term limits, I believe we will find that no reelections will have the same drawbacks as term limits[0]. Lawmaking is a profession, and needs to be done by professionals. If it is not, studies show that power shifts towards other existing power structures, such as the head of state and to lobbyists[1], which would make a…

You are absolutely right about lawmaking being a profession, but in a lottery system, I reckon these professional lawmakers would simply be hired by the representatives, and they could stay on for as long as they are deemed useful. The representatives would act more like full-time overseers on the executive and legislative branches, if that makes sense.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#144

Post by skybrian »

pauldix wrote: post #78

This actually looks like it could be applied very effectively to open source communities on a single project when setting priorities for future feature development. For example, you have 20 features in the backlog and you're going into a two month sprint in which you can only focus on 3. Might be an interesting way to open up voting to everyone. On larger projects this would be useful even if it's only the developers…

I'm skeptical about why volunteers should work on anything other than whatever they feel like working on? Voting on free labor seems presumptuous.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#145

Post by terryschiavo22 »

The only problem with elections right now is Citizens United. Does anyone honestly believe that the Democratic nominees on the left are all running because they think they can win? Or can we agree that the ability to raise endless money and garner publicity under the guise of an election could be what they're after?

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#146

Post by mlillie »

BurningFrog wrote: post #111
erentz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with politics today isn't that people are single-issue voters... The problem is the people have no representation, what people want does not impact the likelihood of passage of a law.[1] People on the left in right have a lot more in common with each other than everyone likes to make out. But even where they agree still nothing happens. I think this “polarization” line is a convenient distraction from t…

> * what people want does not impact the likelihood of passage of a law* Not that I follow this closely, but last i heard the Median Voter Theorem was still holding up well in the research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem

Isn't the core assumption of MVT that there exists a one dimensional spectrum from which to calculate a median in the first place? Voting for candidates is hardly one-dimensional; even a particular ballot measure may have multiple choices, or another question on the ballot of a related but somewhat conflicting nature.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#147

Post by bdamm »

terryschiavo22 wrote: post #145

The only problem with elections right now is Citizens United. Does anyone honestly believe that the Democratic nominees on the left are all running because they think they can win? Or can we agree that the ability to raise endless money and garner publicity under the guise of an election could be what they're after?

Is this exclusive to the Democratic candidates? I think this was the case for the Republican candidates of 2018 as well.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#148

Post by terryschiavo22 »

bdamm wrote: post #147
terryschiavo22 wrote: post #145

The only problem with elections right now is Citizens United. Does anyone honestly believe that the Democratic nominees on the left are all running because they think they can win? Or can we agree that the ability to raise endless money and garner publicity under the guise of an election could be what they're after?

Is this exclusive to the Democratic candidates? I think this was the case for the Republican candidates of 2018 as well.

I'm saying this more in regard to the current crop of candidates because it's more obvious and egregious that there are some running for President right now that are doing it for attention and money.

Although you're right. This is by no means exclusive to one side of the aisle.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#149

Post by JumpCrisscross »

forinti wrote: post #66

The greeks had two institutions we could use: ostracism and lottery. We should be able to vote on those we want out of politics and the most voted would have to seat it out. And a small portion of representatives should be chosen by lottery. Maybe 5% or 10%. These representatives, obviously, would not have to answer to their sponsors.

> The greeks had two institutions we could use: ostracism and lottery

To expand on the former, if a majority of Athenians voted to hold an ostracism vote, two months later, the person with the most votes (potentially over a minimum) was banished from the city for 10 years [1].

One can imagine a gentler modern version. Every ballot must have an ostracism line. Every candidate on that ballot must appear on this line. If a simple majority of voters choose the same person, a second one-line election is held in 2 months. If a simple majority of voters, two months later, vote again to ostracize, the candidate is barred from appearing on that jurisdiction's ballots for 8 years.

So if a majority of New Yorkers say Richard Nixon is ostracized, he is simply unable to appear on New York ballots for 8 years. Given the ballot will contain all manner of candidates running for many different offices, this makes it sufficiently difficult to ostracism while providing an incentive against polarization.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#150

Post by rolleiflex »

breuleux wrote: post #141
superkarn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would this have a similar outcome as the "lottery" for jury duty? What happens if somebody who really doesn't want to do it is chosen?

That's a very good point. I currently lean towards requiring every citizen to register for the lottery once every ten or so years (for one year of service). If they are picked, they have to go, except for serious unforeseen circumstances, but at least they would be able to plan for it to some extent. This might also require a cultural shift for people to accept it, but maybe not a radical one.

For someone who doesn’t want to do it, a year is a very long time to come up with ‘serious unforeseen circumstances’.

There is no point in trying to force people to do things - the best way is to change the job in such a way that people will want to take it.

Pay them well, in other words, in money, in prestige, or otherwise.

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