4 ms·

Political parties(at least in the US) are themselves a form of gerrymandering. The issues for which the 2 main parties stand for seem almost arbitrary except th

Political parties(at least in the US) are themselves a form of gerrymandering. The issues for which the 2 main parties stand for seem almost arbitrary except that one party is "of the future" and the other party is "of the past". Yeah there's some philosophical basis for the positions but they're often post-hoc to serve certain special interests. [edit] I've frankly become slightly sympathetic to non-democratic forms of government because I feel political parties inherently lead towards forms of treachery. They will be bought off or will try to invite outsiders as a means to grab onto power. My ideal political system these days is a meritocratic lottery system.

kqr2 10y ago
Actually a lottery system is not incompatible with democratic principles. In fact, it was one of the original principles of Athenian democracy: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition : In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was therefore the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of true democracy.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  That's an interesting approach.Not so easy to implement probably.
  - Natsu 10y ago
    There's also the question of who is eligible for the lottery and who ultimately controls that determination. That form has a strong incentive to pervert the lottery process, both by choosing who is eligible and by perverting the draw itself. The latter is probably easier to secure than the former. And even philosophically, I tend to doubt there's any widespread agreement on what makes a good leader to begin with. If anything, we disagree quite bitterly regarding that.
    - maxxxxx 10y ago
      It may end up like jury duty where people will want to get out of it if they can.
      - iainmerrick 10y ago
        Not everyone tries to get out of it. Some people even enjoy doing their civic duty.
    - iainmerrick 10y ago
      The Venetian Republic had an interesting solution to that. The initial lottery was just to pick an electoral college, who would would then vote (using approval voting) on another randomly-selected pool of candidates. This was repeated for several rounds! See http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/06/lot-in-venice/ http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/06/lot-in-venice/ That seems like a pretty clever way to prevent anyone from stacking the deck in advance. Although it was ultimately an oligarchic system, since only the rich ruling class were ever considered for office at any stage.
    - mseebach 10y ago
      A good leader isn't, in a democracy. It's supposed to be rule by the people, not rule by whatever dictator can get past whatever bar we set. This is why debating where to put the bar and how to draw the line is doomed to fail - people will tend to support whatever system is more likely to return the dictator they themselves will prefer - which again often seems to be the candidate that will damage your opposition the most. Even the meme of "the lesser of two evils" seems to talk past this point entirely, because a dictator we must certainly have! We need to get back to a much less powerful presidency, one we'd be comfortable leaving to Trump for a bit, but more importantly, one that he probably wouldn't be attracted to in the first place. (Since we're harking back to ancient definitions of things: during the roman republic, that is, pre-Julius Caesar, dictator was a title given to a single person only in short periods of time, to deal with a crisis. During peacetime, power was with a large senate and two consuls, the latter only elected for a year. This a short and incorrect summary of the history, but TL;DR the pre-Caesar Romans would probably have considered the US president a dictator, regardless of third world cleptocrats hugging the contemporary definition)
DrScump 10y ago
My ideal political system these days is a meritocratic lottery system That sort of describes Athens, with the critical caveat that only freemen male citizens could participate.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Give it a decade or two and we will be hearing criticism that only humans can participate.
  - ihsw 10y ago
    I for one welcome our new AI-elected overlords.
  - zeckalpha 10y ago
    Already happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
throwaway91111 10y ago
Meritocracy only works if you can define merit, which is a (deeply) political decision.
hackuser 10y ago
> political parties inherently lead towards forms of treachery. They will be bought off or will try to invite outsiders as a means to grab onto power 'Democracy is the worst possible option, except for all the others.' All the least corrupt, most free, most properous countries in the world are democracies. Can you name a system that has worked better?
henrikschroder 10y ago
Where I'm from there's two political blocks that are made out of 3-4 parties each. This means that it's very easy to first pick the general side, left or right, and then you can throw your actual vote on the party whose profile you like the most. For example, both blocks have a party that is profiling itself on environmental concerns, so you can vote "green left" or "green right" if you want. Also, there's no first-past-the-post nonsense, each electoral district has several mandates, and there's a few spare mandates that are used to make sure that the final parliamentary mandates pretty accurately reflect total popular vote of each party, while still maintaining regional representation. This means every vote counts, and voting for a party that gets 5% of the vote is perfectly fine, they'll get 5% of the seats. As it should be. I really don't get the whole winner-takes-all mentality of the American system. I think it would be an incredible boost for democracy if there were more parties. If you could have an actual Tea party, one Christian Values party, and one fiscally conservative party, instead of those being factions inside the Republicans, fighting for control, and whichever faction "wins" gets to set the agenda of the entire thing.
maxerickson 10y ago
Groups organizing and acting collectively is inevitable. One thing we could do in the US is to stop giving established groups preferential treatment.

kqr2 10y ago

Actually a lottery system is not incompatible with democratic principles. In fact, it was one of the original principles of Athenian democracy: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition : In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was therefore the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of true democracy.

maxxxxx 10y ago
That's an interesting approach.Not so easy to implement probably.
- Natsu 10y ago
  There's also the question of who is eligible for the lottery and who ultimately controls that determination. That form has a strong incentive to pervert the lottery process, both by choosing who is eligible and by perverting the draw itself. The latter is probably easier to secure than the former. And even philosophically, I tend to doubt there's any widespread agreement on what makes a good leader to begin with. If anything, we disagree quite bitterly regarding that.
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    It may end up like jury duty where people will want to get out of it if they can.
    - iainmerrick 10y ago
      Not everyone tries to get out of it. Some people even enjoy doing their civic duty.
  - iainmerrick 10y ago
    The Venetian Republic had an interesting solution to that. The initial lottery was just to pick an electoral college, who would would then vote (using approval voting) on another randomly-selected pool of candidates. This was repeated for several rounds! See http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/06/lot-in-venice/ http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/06/lot-in-venice/ That seems like a pretty clever way to prevent anyone from stacking the deck in advance. Although it was ultimately an oligarchic system, since only the rich ruling class were ever considered for office at any stage.
  - mseebach 10y ago
    A good leader isn't, in a democracy. It's supposed to be rule by the people, not rule by whatever dictator can get past whatever bar we set. This is why debating where to put the bar and how to draw the line is doomed to fail - people will tend to support whatever system is more likely to return the dictator they themselves will prefer - which again often seems to be the candidate that will damage your opposition the most. Even the meme of "the lesser of two evils" seems to talk past this point entirely, because a dictator we must certainly have! We need to get back to a much less powerful presidency, one we'd be comfortable leaving to Trump for a bit, but more importantly, one that he probably wouldn't be attracted to in the first place. (Since we're harking back to ancient definitions of things: during the roman republic, that is, pre-Julius Caesar, dictator was a title given to a single person only in short periods of time, to deal with a crisis. During peacetime, power was with a large senate and two consuls, the latter only elected for a year. This a short and incorrect summary of the history, but TL;DR the pre-Caesar Romans would probably have considered the US president a dictator, regardless of third world cleptocrats hugging the contemporary definition)

DrScump 10y ago

My ideal political system these days is a meritocratic lottery system That sort of describes Athens, with the critical caveat that only freemen male citizens could participate.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Give it a decade or two and we will be hearing criticism that only humans can participate.
- ihsw 10y ago
  I for one welcome our new AI-elected overlords.
- zeckalpha 10y ago
  Already happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

throwaway91111 10y ago

Meritocracy only works if you can define merit, which is a (deeply) political decision.

hackuser 10y ago

> political parties inherently lead towards forms of treachery. They will be bought off or will try to invite outsiders as a means to grab onto power 'Democracy is the worst possible option, except for all the others.' All the least corrupt, most free, most properous countries in the world are democracies. Can you name a system that has worked better?

henrikschroder 10y ago

Where I'm from there's two political blocks that are made out of 3-4 parties each. This means that it's very easy to first pick the general side, left or right, and then you can throw your actual vote on the party whose profile you like the most. For example, both blocks have a party that is profiling itself on environmental concerns, so you can vote "green left" or "green right" if you want. Also, there's no first-past-the-post nonsense, each electoral district has several mandates, and there's a few spare mandates that are used to make sure that the final parliamentary mandates pretty accurately reflect total popular vote of each party, while still maintaining regional representation. This means every vote counts, and voting for a party that gets 5% of the vote is perfectly fine, they'll get 5% of the seats. As it should be. I really don't get the whole winner-takes-all mentality of the American system. I think it would be an incredible boost for democracy if there were more parties. If you could have an actual Tea party, one Christian Values party, and one fiscally conservative party, instead of those being factions inside the Republicans, fighting for control, and whichever faction "wins" gets to set the agenda of the entire thing.

maxerickson 10y ago

Groups organizing and acting collectively is inevitable. One thing we could do in the US is to stop giving established groups preferential treatment.