Trouble with Elections: Everything We Thought We Knew About Democracy Is Wrong

https://democracycreative.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elections

by Bluestein • 12 months ago

11 6 12 months ago

democracycreative.substack.com

It's difficult to discuss a whole book as a HN post. Or are we discussing it an ad? The idea is interesting, but it would take some effort digging into the details to say more.

... actually i see some scary issues with the idea on the surface. I would want to decline if i was chosen, as it may pose a risk to my life and destroy my relationships if people knew. Suddenly every person within 30 mile radius wants to talk to me and convince me of something.

dmoy• 12 months ago

How would sortition work with the US's modern lobbying setup? Wouldn't that tilt the balance even farther in favor of career lobbyists than it already is?

jfengel• 12 months ago

It also shifts the balance towards career bureaucrats.

And maybe that works. Two sides of experienced people, both with expertise in the domain, arguing it out. The final decision gets made by a person who doesn't have a vested interest in either one.

Maintaining the balance is, of course, hard-to-impossible. The US bureaucracy has long been accused of being a "deep state" with its own motivations. They relied on continuity to maintain an interest in the public's interest, but they are not part of the hiring process for the department heads. In the past, those department heads did not disrupt that continuity, but that no longer holds. So any merit that there might have been in the civil service's neutrality, that is going or gone.

nudgeOrnurture• 12 months ago

where the fuck is the text

dvdgdn• 12 months ago

What's beyond majority rule? I'm glad new options and variations are being discussed. Sortition addresses some of the challenges mentioned in the earlier posts, but I think the real million dollar question is, how do we create that 'whole greater than the sum of its parts' effect in group decision making? I.e. how can a group of people choose as wisely or more wisely than its wisest members - rather than being at the mercy of its lowest common denominators? Shameless self-plug: I've been creating a system that defines the concept of merit formally, from the bottom up, so that we can objectively compare the merit of group members and weight accordingly.

promise-keeping.com/whitepaper

daft_pink• 12 months ago

just want to say that the problem with the current USA election controversies (gerrymandering, redistricting, etc) is that both sides are clearly trying to fight for and advantage, while claiming the other side is doing something wrong, while I suspect that both sides are doing something wrong.

Trouble with Elections: Everything We Thought We Knew About Democracy Is Wrong

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