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One potential problem with this in the public sector is that when you have a lot more representatives (potentially anyone), much less scrutiny is given to any o

by abalone 11y ago

One potential problem with this in the public sector is that when you have a lot more representatives (potentially anyone), much less scrutiny is given to any one of them. I've seen this in ranked-choice systems. Most people still end up picking the candidate that spends the most money (gets the most exposure), only with even less information about them because the money and coverage is spread more thinly. And I'm not sure that immediate recall power is really an effective defense. Even in representative systems with transparency, few people make the effort to study issues and track voting records. And who would you delegate to instead? Someone you know even less about, probably. A "grand election event" with primaries has the benefit of winnowing and focusing attention on a small set of candidates. Unfortunately that also tends to be those with the most money to spend.

x5n1 11y ago
> And who would you delegate to instead? Someone you know even less about, probably. AI. Get AI to sift through all the data, summarize it, and then select a set of best qualified candidates in the world. This same AI would also have global surveillance. People are often crazy and politicians are often idiots.
- DiabloD3 11y ago
  x5n1's comment is getting downvoted, but I'm not even entirely sure he's wrong. We're building AI-type applications to help people run large companies and other difficult problems that throwing more people at just doesn't help (because, usually, its organizing people that is the difficult part; and when its not, its organizing data to help people organize themselves). Having some sort of large scale AI infra to help the government manage stuff to well integrate local, state, and federal into a cohesive unit with well defined boundaries and task ownership between the layers and departments would massively fix the US government. And before someone says "no duh, our founding fathers said this", they never looked at it from the point of view of someone from our era that deals with large scale application design (because, well, it didn't exist yet). I mean, what would go a long way is manufacturing a programming language to write laws in, so we could lint and compile time warn/error laws. That would be a good place to start.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    > I mean, what would go a long way is manufacturing a programming language to write laws in, so we could lint and compile time warn/error laws. That would be a good place to start. Awesome! Would love logic and contradiction checking on the laws as a feature of such a language.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn (Do you seriously believe that a field as nascent and murky as macroeconomics, coupled with the hectic state of public policy and political advisory -- that these same people can then turn around and write a magical AI to quick fix government planning as we know it?) I mean, what would go a long way is manufacturing a programming language to write laws in, so we could lint and compile time warn/error laws. That would be a good place to start. The law already is a formal language, and court procedure is also formalized and mechanical. The language of the law is such that it permits a high degree of fuzziness, so one can benefit from common law, case precedent, jury nullification and all sorts of nice judicial perks. The "programming language for laws" that people on HN keep proposing will only fuck everything up even worse.
    - x5n1 11y ago
      > benefit from common law, case precedent, jury nullification and all sorts of nice judicial perks. for the right class of people. the same "perks" turn into something much more sinister for the "wrong" sort of people. whether those be blacks or browns. the point is to have one set of laws that applies logically to all situations and to all people equally. Adding that as a constraint will either make the laws much worse or much better.
      - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        the point is to have one set of laws that applies logically to all situations and to all people equally. This is already the case. Codifying laws into some sort of PL is a complete diversion and redundant.
simula67 11y ago
Sure, but this problem already exists with representative democracy. This system can dampen other problems like Election Cycle Effect, high barriers of entry for becoming a candidate, voters focusing on superficial aspects of the candidate etc

by abalone 11y ago

x5n1 11y ago

> And who would you delegate to instead? Someone you know even less about, probably. AI. Get AI to sift through all the data, summarize it, and then select a set of best qualified candidates in the world. This same AI would also have global surveillance. People are often crazy and politicians are often idiots.

DiabloD3 11y ago
x5n1's comment is getting downvoted, but I'm not even entirely sure he's wrong. We're building AI-type applications to help people run large companies and other difficult problems that throwing more people at just doesn't help (because, usually, its organizing people that is the difficult part; and when its not, its organizing data to help people organize themselves). Having some sort of large scale AI infra to help the government manage stuff to well integrate local, state, and federal into a cohesive unit with well defined boundaries and task ownership between the layers and departments would massively fix the US government. And before someone says "no duh, our founding fathers said this", they never looked at it from the point of view of someone from our era that deals with large scale application design (because, well, it didn't exist yet). I mean, what would go a long way is manufacturing a programming language to write laws in, so we could lint and compile time warn/error laws. That would be a good place to start.
- x5n1 11y ago
  > I mean, what would go a long way is manufacturing a programming language to write laws in, so we could lint and compile time warn/error laws. That would be a good place to start. Awesome! Would love logic and contradiction checking on the laws as a feature of such a language.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn (Do you seriously believe that a field as nascent and murky as macroeconomics, coupled with the hectic state of public policy and political advisory -- that these same people can then turn around and write a magical AI to quick fix government planning as we know it?) I mean, what would go a long way is manufacturing a programming language to write laws in, so we could lint and compile time warn/error laws. That would be a good place to start. The law already is a formal language, and court procedure is also formalized and mechanical. The language of the law is such that it permits a high degree of fuzziness, so one can benefit from common law, case precedent, jury nullification and all sorts of nice judicial perks. The "programming language for laws" that people on HN keep proposing will only fuck everything up even worse.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    > benefit from common law, case precedent, jury nullification and all sorts of nice judicial perks. for the right class of people. the same "perks" turn into something much more sinister for the "wrong" sort of people. whether those be blacks or browns. the point is to have one set of laws that applies logically to all situations and to all people equally. Adding that as a constraint will either make the laws much worse or much better.
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      the point is to have one set of laws that applies logically to all situations and to all people equally. This is already the case. Codifying laws into some sort of PL is a complete diversion and redundant.

simula67 11y ago

Sure, but this problem already exists with representative democracy. This system can dampen other problems like Election Cycle Effect, high barriers of entry for becoming a candidate, voters focusing on superficial aspects of the candidate etc