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The author has conflated democracy with voting. Sortition - the selection of Government at random from the citizenry - is a far superior mechanism, and results

The author has conflated democracy with voting. Sortition - the selection of Government at random from the citizenry - is a far superior mechanism, and results in a Government that is genuinely of the people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

vlehto 11y ago
The reason why nobody has sortition, is because deep down democracy is about being as agreeable as possible to the median citizen. If you have vague feeling that you decided who is prime minister, you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars. The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else. And so survival of the fittest governments has favored democracy for past three centuries.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > The reason why nobody has sortition, is because deep down democracy is about being as agreeable as possible to the median citizen. If you have vague feeling that you decided who is prime minister, you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars. I doubt this has any explanatory power as to why sortition isn't used much today. Among other things, the median citizen doesn't care even a little bit about who is prime minister or otherwise in charge.
  - makomk 11y ago
    I think it has a lot of explanatory power. From what I've seen the main reason people don't care about who's in charge is because they think all the candidates are basically the same and none actually represent them.
    - vlehto 11y ago
      ...in the framework of your country. If you are U.S. citizen, you probably would prefer Obama over Enrique Peña Nieto. Personally as a Finn I like Sipilä and Niinistö over Putin. In a way any Finnish party head would suit me better than Putin. It matters little which of them, but it matters a lot that it's one of them. In medieval Europe, vassal dukes would bargain who king they would pay taxes to. And you had situations where Britain was ruled by dude who spoke French and lived in Normandy.
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  > you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars Well, you don't really have a choice in the former, and when there's a draft, you don't in the latter either. > The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else I disagree. You are elevating the state too high. I would counter that the countries with the most economic freedom -- those that have embraced markets and rule of law -- are the ones at the top.
  - vlehto 10y ago
    You do have choice to go completely against your government. If some unpopular dictator enacts draft, there is going to be loads of guerrilla fighters around. Because now they have to fight anyhow, why not fight for themselves.
ZenoArrow 11y ago
There's a system that, in my opinion, is even better (fairer, less prone to corruption) than sortition, and that's liquid democracy (a.k.a. delegative democracy): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8 The idea being, you can let people vote on your behalf, or you can vote directly, and you have the freedom to choose between these on an issue by issue basis.
- notahacker 11y ago
  I rather like the concept, but I can see it having some interested and unanticipated side effects if you allow people to select their delegate by category rather than individual bill by individual bill. The person that decides whether people's delegates for voting on (e.g.) an act related to surveillance default to being the delegate they selected for "civil liberties" or the delegate they selected for "national security" actually ends up with rather a large degree of executive power, despite probably having a lower profile than the leader of an executive regular parliamentary or presidential system. Of course, there's a reasonable argument that this is still much more transparent and fair (and reversible) than, for example, coalition bargaining, but it is a system I'd like to see used in practice more in bodies like trade unions before we decide it's the solution to national governance.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "I rather like the concept, but I can see it having some interested and unanticipated side effects if you allow people to select their delegate by category rather than individual bill by individual bill." The point is that you can delegate for individual bills, as well as taking back your power to vote on individual bills. You can delegate by category, but you don't need to if it doesn't serve you. The idea is that the people you delegate to have to stick up for your best interests, as their power can be taken away at any point if they do not.
    - notahacker 11y ago
      Agree that you can delegate for individual bills, but my point was that most people won't delegate for individual bills most of the time, but probably will choose delegates for "categories" of decision making if the system is set up that way. Surveillance law is a pretty relevant example, since for most people not on HN it's a relatively low priority, and there's a fairly high likelihood that if they're able to delegate somebody to vote for them on a general area like "civil liberties issues" (for most people, a delegate with a decent libertarian credentials) and "national security" (for most people, a delegate who promises to be robust), the person or committee that decides for whether a particular surveillance bill is considered "civil liberties" or "national security" in effect holds a casting vote any time most of the public doesn't feel strongly enough to make a bill-specific decision. Somebody has to resolve differences between a budget balancing bill popular with the public's preferred delegates for "taxation" issues and a bill with public spending implications popular with the public's preferred delegates for "health issues", "education issues" or "social policy issues" too. Since they're supposed to be administering a process rather than enacting a particular programme of government they were elected on like a de jure executive, they're probably also subject to far less scrutiny. Of course, the system still has the advantage that the public can step in and overrule their regular representative whenever they feel strongly enough to do so, but not necessarily any more effectively in practice than powers to force a referendum as a form of public veto.
notahacker 11y ago
"Government of the people" or not, I've yet to see anything resembling a convincing argument that the average citizen thrust into government is actually better at government than someone who spends their life prior to and in office trying to demonstrate their aptitude at government to the average citizen.

vlehto 11y ago

The reason why nobody has sortition, is because deep down democracy is about being as agreeable as possible to the median citizen. If you have vague feeling that you decided who is prime minister, you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars. The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else. And so survival of the fittest governments has favored democracy for past three centuries.

thaumasiotes 11y ago
> The reason why nobody has sortition, is because deep down democracy is about being as agreeable as possible to the median citizen. If you have vague feeling that you decided who is prime minister, you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars. I doubt this has any explanatory power as to why sortition isn't used much today. Among other things, the median citizen doesn't care even a little bit about who is prime minister or otherwise in charge.
- makomk 11y ago
  I think it has a lot of explanatory power. From what I've seen the main reason people don't care about who's in charge is because they think all the candidates are basically the same and none actually represent them.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    ...in the framework of your country. If you are U.S. citizen, you probably would prefer Obama over Enrique Peña Nieto. Personally as a Finn I like Sipilä and Niinistö over Putin. In a way any Finnish party head would suit me better than Putin. It matters little which of them, but it matters a lot that it's one of them. In medieval Europe, vassal dukes would bargain who king they would pay taxes to. And you had situations where Britain was ruled by dude who spoke French and lived in Normandy.
clarkmoody 11y ago
> you are more motivated to pay taxes and fight wars Well, you don't really have a choice in the former, and when there's a draft, you don't in the latter either. > The country that gets least tax evasion and most volunteers to army is likely to perform better than anybody else I disagree. You are elevating the state too high. I would counter that the countries with the most economic freedom -- those that have embraced markets and rule of law -- are the ones at the top.
- vlehto 10y ago
  You do have choice to go completely against your government. If some unpopular dictator enacts draft, there is going to be loads of guerrilla fighters around. Because now they have to fight anyhow, why not fight for themselves.

ZenoArrow 11y ago

There's a system that, in my opinion, is even better (fairer, less prone to corruption) than sortition, and that's liquid democracy (a.k.a. delegative democracy): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8 The idea being, you can let people vote on your behalf, or you can vote directly, and you have the freedom to choose between these on an issue by issue basis.

notahacker 11y ago
I rather like the concept, but I can see it having some interested and unanticipated side effects if you allow people to select their delegate by category rather than individual bill by individual bill. The person that decides whether people's delegates for voting on (e.g.) an act related to surveillance default to being the delegate they selected for "civil liberties" or the delegate they selected for "national security" actually ends up with rather a large degree of executive power, despite probably having a lower profile than the leader of an executive regular parliamentary or presidential system. Of course, there's a reasonable argument that this is still much more transparent and fair (and reversible) than, for example, coalition bargaining, but it is a system I'd like to see used in practice more in bodies like trade unions before we decide it's the solution to national governance.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "I rather like the concept, but I can see it having some interested and unanticipated side effects if you allow people to select their delegate by category rather than individual bill by individual bill." The point is that you can delegate for individual bills, as well as taking back your power to vote on individual bills. You can delegate by category, but you don't need to if it doesn't serve you. The idea is that the people you delegate to have to stick up for your best interests, as their power can be taken away at any point if they do not.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    Agree that you can delegate for individual bills, but my point was that most people won't delegate for individual bills most of the time, but probably will choose delegates for "categories" of decision making if the system is set up that way. Surveillance law is a pretty relevant example, since for most people not on HN it's a relatively low priority, and there's a fairly high likelihood that if they're able to delegate somebody to vote for them on a general area like "civil liberties issues" (for most people, a delegate with a decent libertarian credentials) and "national security" (for most people, a delegate who promises to be robust), the person or committee that decides for whether a particular surveillance bill is considered "civil liberties" or "national security" in effect holds a casting vote any time most of the public doesn't feel strongly enough to make a bill-specific decision. Somebody has to resolve differences between a budget balancing bill popular with the public's preferred delegates for "taxation" issues and a bill with public spending implications popular with the public's preferred delegates for "health issues", "education issues" or "social policy issues" too. Since they're supposed to be administering a process rather than enacting a particular programme of government they were elected on like a de jure executive, they're probably also subject to far less scrutiny. Of course, the system still has the advantage that the public can step in and overrule their regular representative whenever they feel strongly enough to do so, but not necessarily any more effectively in practice than powers to force a referendum as a form of public veto.

notahacker 11y ago

"Government of the people" or not, I've yet to see anything resembling a convincing argument that the average citizen thrust into government is actually better at government than someone who spends their life prior to and in office trying to demonstrate their aptitude at government to the average citizen.