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To the comments: many here seem to accept as given that nobody running for office deserves the privilege, but I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I think

To the comments: many here seem to accept as given that nobody running for office deserves the privilege, but I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I think governing is hard work, and expecting people who aren't interested to do it well is naive. I want to be a principal engineer—does that make me a bad engineer because true engineers care nothing for esteem, or a good engineer because I sit around reading and thinking about software all the time? To the article: "Modern policy is too complex for there to be meaningful electoral accountability. Electoral capture is too easy and too important for powerful interests. So, what’s the alternative? Get rid of elections. Use lotteries to select political officials." ...What? "Elections imposes insufficient accountability on representatives"...so let's replace it with a system that imposes zero accountability on representatives whatsoever? That's an alternative, but not a solution.

ericwooley 5y ago
> ...so let's replace it with a system that imposes zero accountability on representatives whatsoever? That's an alternative, but not a solution. I think the point is that accountability isn't as necessary. A random person will running the show after the next lottery, and whatever bribes and deals you have are probably off the table.
mdp2021 5y ago
I applaud to this newfound maxim, "an alternative is not a solution (per se)". Very good synthesis. The sinister side of these times is in the roots that made such notion shaky to some. Something related to the fading of the idea of "doing it properly". -- Edit: in the example of the idea of "extending the right to vote to infant children", which I mentioned in a parallel post as part of the trend, there is an important image: one of the proponents, during an interview (in the recent podcast of Jeremy Paxman), asked why, replied along the lines of «To shake this stagnant system». There is the point: _do not shake it_: improve it, fix it, debug it, re-engineer it; do not hit it with a hammer hoping it improves by winning determinism through the sheer force of luck, do not attempt electroconvulsive therapy, do not stick an ice pick in that thalamus in the idea that random sabotage can be even remotely comparable with the clever blueprints of a neural organism - it cannot bring an improvement (which should go without saying, yet was actual practice).

ericwooley 5y ago

> ...so let's replace it with a system that imposes zero accountability on representatives whatsoever? That's an alternative, but not a solution. I think the point is that accountability isn't as necessary. A random person will running the show after the next lottery, and whatever bribes and deals you have are probably off the table.

mdp2021 5y ago

I applaud to this newfound maxim, "an alternative is not a solution (per se)". Very good synthesis. The sinister side of these times is in the roots that made such notion shaky to some. Something related to the fading of the idea of "doing it properly". -- Edit: in the example of the idea of "extending the right to vote to infant children", which I mentioned in a parallel post as part of the trend, there is an important image: one of the proponents, during an interview (in the recent podcast of Jeremy Paxman), asked why, replied along the lines of «To shake this stagnant system». There is the point: _do not shake it_: improve it, fix it, debug it, re-engineer it; do not hit it with a hammer hoping it improves by winning determinism through the sheer force of luck, do not attempt electroconvulsive therapy, do not stick an ice pick in that thalamus in the idea that random sabotage can be even remotely comparable with the clever blueprints of a neural organism - it cannot bring an improvement (which should go without saying, yet was actual practice).