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We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

thewalrus.ca

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Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#21

Post by 1556 »

macspoofing wrote: post #2

Be careful what you wish for. Do you really want the policy to reflect popular polling? Really really? Because what the public supports is a mixed bag. Maybe the population will support higher healthcare spending but also greatly restricted immigration policy ... or leaving a beneficial trade-block due to fears of Eastern European immigrants. Contrast this to Switzerland, where we've seen popular anti-immigration mea…

The "tweaking" that you refer to sounds exactly like British immigration policy in the decades preceding the EU referendum. It didn't solve anything, resentment just built up and eventually overflowed. And the end result is far more damaging than it would have been to just listen in the first place.

Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#22

Post by entropea »

macspoofing wrote: post #2

Be careful what you wish for. Do you really want the policy to reflect popular polling? Really really? Because what the public supports is a mixed bag. Maybe the population will support higher healthcare spending but also greatly restricted immigration policy ... or leaving a beneficial trade-block due to fears of Eastern European immigrants. Contrast this to Switzerland, where we've seen popular anti-immigration mea…

>There is something to be said about policies put forward by sophisticated and educated elites.

Yeah, that they sell out to the highest bidder and are seeing revolts around the world as the middle & lower classes get decimated by their "educated elite" global policies. There is more to life than lifeless consumerism.

Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#23

Post by jvanderbot »

Maybe. I am bothered that there's an unofficial pre-election in the US that is called campaign financing. It skews candidates towards the wealthy, corporate backed, or populist. If elections were publicly financed somehow, then perhaps we'd see a more representative selection. At least they wouldn't be beholden to donors as often.

Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#25

Post by haolez »

Zenst wrote: post #20
haolez wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe is not democracy, but a benevolent dictatorship.

>There is something to be said about policies put forward by sophisticated and educated elites. Sounds more like a meritocracy, but then politics has taught us that many labels can fit depending upon your initial position and posture in much the same way that idea's in the middle can from the left appear right-wing and equally upon the right, appear left-wing. Hence labeling and focusing upon those labels whilst igno…

Yeah, but we can’t even figure out how to have reliable elections without using paper ballots. I don’t think we are mature enough to have an unbiased merit-based selection of individuals to rule us all. Who sets the merit parameters? Who will test candidates?

Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#26

Post by Zenst »

motohagiography wrote: post #4

Random just means without reproducible information about inputs. There is nothing additionally equitable in deciding an outcome (more representation by favoured minority groups) and then calling the selection process “random.” Are airport screening selections random, or just opaque? What the author is in effect advocating is an opaque process whose outcome reflects some desirable criteria. Presumably if one disagrees…

When it comes to random - ask yourself this:

People mostly accept the results of a lottery draw, if the same system was used to pick politicians, then we all deep-down just know - people would question the results more and more. Indeed I'd expect headline reports that a Russian satalite was flying overhead when the draw took place and effected gravity and the results and they should be voided. Just how society works.

But if you printed out a list of random numbers printed out upon a page of A4 and produced 10 pages. Then asked a group of people to pick which of the 10 pages is the most random. Well, the result would be enlightening into what random is and what individual perspective of random is.

One person's random is another person's pattern.

Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#27

Post by hgoel »

macspoofing wrote: post #2

Be careful what you wish for. Do you really want the policy to reflect popular polling? Really really? Because what the public supports is a mixed bag. Maybe the population will support higher healthcare spending but also greatly restricted immigration policy ... or leaving a beneficial trade-block due to fears of Eastern European immigrants. Contrast this to Switzerland, where we've seen popular anti-immigration mea…

The same supposedly educated elites that through ignoring everyone not an educated elite caused the current political climate in the US?

Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#28

Post by macspoofing »

1556 wrote: post #21
macspoofing wrote: post #2

Be careful what you wish for. Do you really want the policy to reflect popular polling? Really really? Because what the public supports is a mixed bag. Maybe the population will support higher healthcare spending but also greatly restricted immigration policy ... or leaving a beneficial trade-block due to fears of Eastern European immigrants. Contrast this to Switzerland, where we've seen popular anti-immigration mea…

The "tweaking" that you refer to sounds exactly like British immigration policy in the decades preceding the EU referendum. It didn't solve anything, resentment just built up and eventually overflowed. And the end result is far more damaging than it would have been to just listen in the first place.

If they didn't adjust the policy they would be in the same place as Britain is with Brexit today.

Re: We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

#29

Post by js8 »

Zenst wrote: post #11

If we had a more granular democratic say that was counted above and beyond a token X in a limited choice of option every 4-5 years with those options promises being no guarantee that what was on the tin is what you will get. Then maybe we would have more harmony and progress. Imagine if you will that every voter had the ability to submit their idea's for other voters to support/debate and the top ones go onto being v…

This already exists, it's called initiative and I believe that some of the U.S. states even implement it. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiatives_and_referendums_in...

Representation, referendum, initiative and lottery are all just different tools in the toolkit of democracy. They all have advantages and disadvantages, and ideally, they should be used as such.

So for example lottery is great if you want people who are good representation of common interest (i.e. not corrupt), but of course it suffers that these people might not be experts or interested in the problem. Lottery is probably the best for advisory or supervisory boards.

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