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Actually a lottery system is not incompatible with democratic principles. In fact, it was one of the original principles of Athenian democracy: From https://e

by 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)

by kqr2 10y ago

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)