3 ms·

The high school degree is necessary to ensure the person can understand the choices presented to them. Otherwise they will just be snowed by experts who claim o

The high school degree is necessary to ensure the person can understand the choices presented to them. Otherwise they will just be snowed by experts who claim one thing or the other. The lack of a criminal record is necessary won’t just commit fraud or accept bribes from day one. And also overall, people have to accept who is randomly chosen to be the president. Having a criminal with a elementary school education chosen would just lead to riots. It’s one thing if they were elected, but if it’s a choice made by a “random” system then that’s not acceptable.

oceanplexian 4y ago
Why not replace a diploma with a Net Worth or Income requirement. Someone with a 2.0 GPA, but has at least $10,000 in savings is clearly more fiscally responsible than someone who has a 4.0 GPA but is in debt. Something similar is already the law for accredited investors.
- notahacker 4y ago
  > Someone with a 2.0 GPA, but has at least $10,000 in savings is clearly more fiscally responsible than someone who has a 4.0 GPA but is in debt. Or maybe the second person was born into a low income family and is borrowing to invest in their future, and the first person is useless at more than just academics but has a trust fund. Accredited investor laws are because rich idiots can afford to lose money, not because their judgement is considered superior.
- hervature 4y ago
  That makes no sense. The vast majority of people go in debt when they get a mortgage and don't come out until at least a decade later. Debt is a tool when used properly.
shkkmo 4y ago
> The high school degree is necessary to ensure the person can understand the choices presented to them. I disagree. I think any criteria for sortition harms it's legitimacy and creates an avenue to disenfranchise large segments of the population. I am a big fan of sortition though, as I think elections select worse leaders with worse traits than the average citizen while the way we fund elections actively corrupts the few decent leaders we do manage to elect. Edit: I also wouldn't support inserting sortition directly into our current selection process or ever for selecting a chief executive. Sortition only works if you have enough random picks to get a good representative sample. Otherwise the risks of selecting a massive outlier are to high.
- dismantlethesun 4y ago
  I do agree that it can be used to disenfranchise people, however it’s unavoidable to create legitimacy. If we didn’t have a minor education requirement (minor because high school is free and is seen as the basic education that everyone has), then an age requirement can be substituted. For example, invoking the current age requirement of 35 to become president if you do not have a high school education so at least we know that you have life experience as a substitute. As for the criminal requirement, felons already can’t vote and participate in the electoral system so it’s questionable that many would accept felons being “randomly” chosen to lead the country. One could easily imagine and protest that a mafia kingpin who wins office by random chance did so by subverting the lottery. True or not, it’s believable enough to destroy legitimacy and throw the country into chaos.
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    > felons already can’t vote and participate in the electoral system In some places, yes. This is already viewed as problematic disenfranchisement by many people. > invoking the current age requirement of 35 to become president In sortition, your ability to serve in office becomes your "vote". The age requirement of 35 in a sortition system disenfranchises younger voters in a massive way while in our current system it does not. In sortition, selecting the "good ones" who are in the lottery is just a problematic as selecting the "good ones" who are allowed to vote in elections. While that doesn't mean we should have no restrictions, it does mean those restrictions should face very high levels of scrutiny and be treated as biased by default. > it’s questionable that many would accept felons being “randomly” chosen to lead the country. But again, sortition only works well if your sample is large enough to be reliably representative. It won't work well for selecting a president from a nation or selecting 2 senators from an entire state. This is because a sample of size 1 or 2 will always be prone to selecting outliers. > who wins office by random chance did so by subverting the lottery The integrity of the lottery, like the integrity of elections, is crucial to it's legitimacy. Our lack of experience with making this sort of selection process transparent, accountable, and hard to subvert is to me the biggest argument against sortition.
    - 4y ago

oceanplexian 4y ago

Why not replace a diploma with a Net Worth or Income requirement. Someone with a 2.0 GPA, but has at least $10,000 in savings is clearly more fiscally responsible than someone who has a 4.0 GPA but is in debt. Something similar is already the law for accredited investors.

notahacker 4y ago
> Someone with a 2.0 GPA, but has at least $10,000 in savings is clearly more fiscally responsible than someone who has a 4.0 GPA but is in debt. Or maybe the second person was born into a low income family and is borrowing to invest in their future, and the first person is useless at more than just academics but has a trust fund. Accredited investor laws are because rich idiots can afford to lose money, not because their judgement is considered superior.
hervature 4y ago
That makes no sense. The vast majority of people go in debt when they get a mortgage and don't come out until at least a decade later. Debt is a tool when used properly.

shkkmo 4y ago

> The high school degree is necessary to ensure the person can understand the choices presented to them. I disagree. I think any criteria for sortition harms it's legitimacy and creates an avenue to disenfranchise large segments of the population. I am a big fan of sortition though, as I think elections select worse leaders with worse traits than the average citizen while the way we fund elections actively corrupts the few decent leaders we do manage to elect. Edit: I also wouldn't support inserting sortition directly into our current selection process or ever for selecting a chief executive. Sortition only works if you have enough random picks to get a good representative sample. Otherwise the risks of selecting a massive outlier are to high.

dismantlethesun 4y ago
I do agree that it can be used to disenfranchise people, however it’s unavoidable to create legitimacy. If we didn’t have a minor education requirement (minor because high school is free and is seen as the basic education that everyone has), then an age requirement can be substituted. For example, invoking the current age requirement of 35 to become president if you do not have a high school education so at least we know that you have life experience as a substitute. As for the criminal requirement, felons already can’t vote and participate in the electoral system so it’s questionable that many would accept felons being “randomly” chosen to lead the country. One could easily imagine and protest that a mafia kingpin who wins office by random chance did so by subverting the lottery. True or not, it’s believable enough to destroy legitimacy and throw the country into chaos.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  > felons already can’t vote and participate in the electoral system In some places, yes. This is already viewed as problematic disenfranchisement by many people. > invoking the current age requirement of 35 to become president In sortition, your ability to serve in office becomes your "vote". The age requirement of 35 in a sortition system disenfranchises younger voters in a massive way while in our current system it does not. In sortition, selecting the "good ones" who are in the lottery is just a problematic as selecting the "good ones" who are allowed to vote in elections. While that doesn't mean we should have no restrictions, it does mean those restrictions should face very high levels of scrutiny and be treated as biased by default. > it’s questionable that many would accept felons being “randomly” chosen to lead the country. But again, sortition only works well if your sample is large enough to be reliably representative. It won't work well for selecting a president from a nation or selecting 2 senators from an entire state. This is because a sample of size 1 or 2 will always be prone to selecting outliers. > who wins office by random chance did so by subverting the lottery The integrity of the lottery, like the integrity of elections, is crucial to it's legitimacy. Our lack of experience with making this sort of selection process transparent, accountable, and hard to subvert is to me the biggest argument against sortition.
  - 4y ago