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The election of the doge

generalist.academy

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Re: The election of the doge

#21

Post by aidenn0 »

tptacek wrote: post #12
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

This is fascinating. One thing that would be awesome to try would be doing this with the House of Representatives in the US. Basically, one registered voter would be randomly chosen from each congressional district. They would be obligated to serve for the 2 year term and paid the current salary of a member of Congress ($174,000/year). They would never be part of the lottery again after 1 term. I think this could hav…

Sortition is a great way to make everybody in the country feel like they have absolutely no stake in or influence over the federal government, since the odds of any one person being chosen are infinitesimal --- lower than those of being struck by lightning.

The same is true of an election being decided by one vote.

Re: The election of the doge

#22

Post by thechao »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

This is fascinating. One thing that would be awesome to try would be doing this with the House of Representatives in the US. Basically, one registered voter would be randomly chosen from each congressional district. They would be obligated to serve for the 2 year term and paid the current salary of a member of Congress ($174,000/year). They would never be part of the lottery again after 1 term. I think this could hav…

A sibling mentioned this is called sortition. The main drawback another sibling mentioned is lack experience. I think a good combination is 'sortition & incumbency'. Elections occur in two phases:

1. If an incumbent wants to keep their seat, they keep their seat with a K% chance, say 50/50; and,

2. All remaining seats are chosen at random from the eligible (see below) that apply for the position.

An additional tweak is to require 'previous experience' by having statesfolk work in lower level representative positions. For instance: anyone qualifies for city council (maybe not metropolises) or county level positions; a person just puts their name in the hat to get started. Once a statesperson has successfully had a complete term at city/county level they can move to the state level, then the Federal level. It could even be lateral: lower-house to upper-house. There are 10s-of-thousands of county & city level positions, giving a sizable pool of new statesfolk to draw from.

The incumbency mechanism allows a subset of representatives to maintain stability & gain experience "in situ"; the pipelining provides a naturally trained pool of statesfolk. The sortition mechanism is a robust anti-gerrymandering, anti-corruption, anti-just-about-everything-we-don't-like-in-government mechanism.

Re: The election of the doge

#23

Post by blululu »

For a more mathematical analysis of how this process plays out in terms of representation, I found this article to be very helpful: https://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2007/HPL-2007-28R1.pdf

*It is also worth noting that the main article simplifies the process a little, since a certain threshold approval is required

Re: The election of the doge

#24

Post by ALittleLight »

taneq wrote: post #4
gen220 wrote: post #3

It’s fascinating how random selection plays an essential role in the election. The final phase’s selection isn’t random, but many intermediary phases are. I think randomness is an underrated tool for introducing a sense of “fairness” to problems with strange power dynamics: where everyone is interested in a fair outcome, but the best outcome for any individual causes some harm to the group. Salary negotiation is one…

> Imagine haggling over the range start or range size, and then picking your salary from a uniform distribution contained by that range. I cannot imagine anyone, ever, being happy with being told "hey you're great but you only rolled a 4 on your salary negotiation so you're $15k out of pocket.

"Neat! When's the soonest I can re-apply?"

Re: The election of the doge

#25

Post by tptacek »

aidenn0 wrote: post #21
tptacek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sortition is a great way to make everybody in the country feel like they have absolutely no stake in or influence over the federal government, since the odds of any one person being chosen are infinitesimal --- lower than those of being struck by lightning.

The same is true of an election being decided by one vote.

It seems to me that the exact opposite thing is true of an election decided by one vote.

Re: The election of the doge

#26

Post by ALittleLight »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #17
magicsmoke wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Great Council of Venice was a large legislative body made up of a relatively small number of noble families" So in Venice's case, it wasn't so much randomly selecting representatives from all its citizens as it was selecting from already wealthy and influential persons, on the assumption that they were somewhat competent if they could amass and manage their existing power.

being groomed your whole life to take your father's place is totally different from being randomly forced to be a member of a legislative body, though... even if you are unremarkable, at least you'd learn enough to "know the language" from being in that world your whole life. maybe. also, you could at least argue that nobility have the most "skin in the game" when it comes to decisions about the realm. (not that that…

Could make it a pool of n lawyers, o professors, p doctors, q people who've made more than X million dollars, etc.

Re: The election of the doge

#27

Post by shajznnckfke »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

This is fascinating. One thing that would be awesome to try would be doing this with the House of Representatives in the US. Basically, one registered voter would be randomly chosen from each congressional district. They would be obligated to serve for the 2 year term and paid the current salary of a member of Congress ($174,000/year). They would never be part of the lottery again after 1 term. I think this could hav…

So these random people are going to be put in power without making any ideological commitments, no platform, no coalition, no campaign promises. Where are these rookies going to get policy ideas if not from the lobbyists whose job is to convince them?

Re: The election of the doge

#28

Post by mrmonkeyman »

taneq wrote: post #4
gen220 wrote: post #3

It’s fascinating how random selection plays an essential role in the election. The final phase’s selection isn’t random, but many intermediary phases are. I think randomness is an underrated tool for introducing a sense of “fairness” to problems with strange power dynamics: where everyone is interested in a fair outcome, but the best outcome for any individual causes some harm to the group. Salary negotiation is one…

> Imagine haggling over the range start or range size, and then picking your salary from a uniform distribution contained by that range. I cannot imagine anyone, ever, being happy with being told "hey you're great but you only rolled a 4 on your salary negotiation so you're $15k out of pocket.

But that's actually what happens. They just don't mention the dice part and wrap it in some BS.

Re: The election of the doge

#29

Post by Kosirich »

flobosg wrote: post #9

In case someone else, like me, was expecting canine memes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge > A doge was an elected lord and chief of state in several Italian city-states, notably Venice and Genoa, during the medieval and renaissance periods.

You beat me to it, I also thought the picture behind the link would be a Shiba with a bat punishing horny people.... and that's coming from someone who is from an area that historically use to be governed by a Doge

Re: The election of the doge

#30

Post by Kosirich »

I'm a huge advocate of introducing randomness to most of governmental dealings. I draw a parallel to John Rawls "Veil of Ignorance" and how actors in a system behave differently based on the (un)certainty of the outcome. I would be interested if there are modern examples of use of randomness in public offices, government contracts ect. and what are the benefits and negative sides of using randomness to combat corruption.
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