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none of this resolves how incredibly hard it would be to legislate against and convict for this think about it like laws for drug paraphernalia. [1] no one is

none of this resolves how incredibly hard it would be to legislate against and convict for this think about it like laws for drug paraphernalia. [1] no one is going to ban pipes and papers and lighters, because people use them for other things. obviously, when you see a weed pipe or papers designed for spliffs, you can tell that that’s what they’re for. but it’s extremely difficult to convict someone for possessing or selling them, because there are feasible alternative uses this form of bribery is the same. obviously it’s very easy to spot someone bribed into a cushy job, but without actual evidence of collusion, are you going to get a conviction in a court of law operating under the principles of reasonable doubt? highly unlikely. it’s always going to be possible that that company simply liked how the representative did their job and hired them. or they like the PR of hiring ex-reps. or any number of reasons a lawyer could bring up in court if it could be done safely and reasonably, it probably already would have in our current systems >they are no longer “representatives” they would be representatives. I chose that word deliberately. I think you’re confusing “representatives” with “elected representatives”. they would be representing the population at large [1] yes throughout time and space there have been and are laws against weed and drug paraphernalia, but they’re widely seen as a bad idea, and easily side-stepped

lapcat 4y ago
> it’s always going to be possible that that company simply liked how the representative did their job and hired them There's actually no reason why the voting record of a citizen legislator needs to be released to the public. They do it with elected officials, because if you're going to vote for someone, you want to know how they voted. But with unelected officials, it could be secret ballots, so nobody even knows how they did their job. > they like the PR of hiring ex-reps. There's no PR in hiring a randomly selected person who was only in office for 1 year. Nobody even knows the randos. > or any number of reasons a lawyer could bring up in court Which reasons? All of the reasons that exist now relate to politicians having long experience, connections, and other things that go along with having a "career" in politics. None of the reasons hold for what is essentially a temp job. > I think you’re confusing “representatives” with “elected representatives”. they would be representing the population at large No, I'm not confusing anything. Getting randomly selected from the public is not the same as representing the public. An elected representative is expected to get the opinion of and serve their constituency. There's no such expectation in sortition. Compare with juries. A juror is mostly randomly selected from the public but doesn't "represent" the public. A juror doesn't need to consult the public about the trial; to the contrary, jurors are not even allowed to consult outsiders about the trial. A juror simply decides the case base on its merits and nothing else. There's no representation. I think you're underestimating the inherent corruption of the current political system. By the time a politician takes office they're usually a "known quantity", because (1) they have to run an election campaign to introduce themselves to the public, and (2) in order to finance such a campaign, they have to raise money, which mostly involves going around begging wealthy interests for money. So such interests can already develop a relationship with the candidate before they get elected, by contributing money to their election campaign. Running for election is inherently corrupting in that way. Whereas government officials randomly selected from the public are wild cards. You can't just go around bribing a thousand unknown random people, because while some may take the bribe, the chances are decent that you'll run into a honest, ethical person who won't take the bribe but rather turn you into the authorities, and then you'll go to jail, because bribing a government official is a felony. All it takes is one honest randomly selected citizen to blow up the entire bribery scheme. So it would be massively dangerous for the briber. It's difficult to build "trusting" relationships with such short-term unknown legislators. This is why most political bribery takes the form of legal campaign contributions, which pose no danger to the contributor and are quite effective at getting results. Eliminate election campaigns, and you've eliminated the primary source of corruption. We have to compare sortition against the current system, not against some ideal of perfection. If sortition is simply less corrupt that the current system, it's a win. You can always think of ways to game any system, but our current system is practically designed for corruption.
- permo-w 4y ago
  you’re repeatedly sidestepping the core of what I’m saying. we are talking about the practicalities of trying to legislate against this one specific kind of corruption no sane court of law is going to convict representatives for getting a good job post hoc. there is far too much possibility for reasonable doubt. unless you fundamentally change the way the justice system works, that is not going to change >which reasons? do I really have to come up with these reasons? bear in mind that they don’t have to be rock solid, they just have to introduce reasonable doubt. since you almost certainly have no other evidence, “perhaps that could be true rather than collusion” is enough. “their term made us aware of them and they seemed competent”; “they’re famous now and that’s good for sales”; “they made connections that could prove useful to the company”; “they look good to foreign investors/trading partners”; “patriotism!”; “we feel we have a duty to support our ex-reps!”; etc etc etc. there are a million reasons that any lawyer could come up with and sell to a jury also, please don’t specifically try and defeat each thing I say. just address the central issue. I say that just like you can’t convict people for using drugs because they possesa drug paraphernalia, properly functioning courts will struggle to meet the burden of proof to convict this kind of bribery you say that they won’t struggle because:
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > please don’t specifically try and defeat each thing I say Heh, this is an interesting request. > properly functioning courts will struggle to meet the burden of proof to convict this kind of bribery I think this frames the issue in entirely the wrong way. My claim is that you can't safely offer bribes to a randomly selected citizen legislature. Suppose the legislature has 1000 members, and they serve 1 year terms, maximum 1 term per lifetime. So as a wealthy interest attempting to trade jobs for political favors, you start out with 1000 complete strangers. They're unknown to you, and you're unknown to them. Moreover, they don't need to take meetings or phone calls with you, because you didn't vote for them (nobody did), you didn't finance their campaigns, they don't represent you, and they're not running for reelection, because they aren't elected, and they can't serve another term. Indeed, these legislators are likely to be suspicious of unsolicited inquiries, and rightly so. They probably don't even have time for your crap. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to somehow meet them, gain their trust, and offer them a bribe in less than 1 year, all while avoiding the honest citizen who responds to your offer by calling the cops. The burden of proof is pretty easy when the person bribed testifies against the briber.

lapcat 4y ago

> it’s always going to be possible that that company simply liked how the representative did their job and hired them There's actually no reason why the voting record of a citizen legislator needs to be released to the public. They do it with elected officials, because if you're going to vote for someone, you want to know how they voted. But with unelected officials, it could be secret ballots, so nobody even knows how they did their job. > they like the PR of hiring ex-reps. There's no PR in hiring a randomly selected person who was only in office for 1 year. Nobody even knows the randos. > or any number of reasons a lawyer could bring up in court Which reasons? All of the reasons that exist now relate to politicians having long experience, connections, and other things that go along with having a "career" in politics. None of the reasons hold for what is essentially a temp job. > I think you’re confusing “representatives” with “elected representatives”. they would be representing the population at large No, I'm not confusing anything. Getting randomly selected from the public is not the same as representing the public. An elected representative is expected to get the opinion of and serve their constituency. There's no such expectation in sortition. Compare with juries. A juror is mostly randomly selected from the public but doesn't "represent" the public. A juror doesn't need to consult the public about the trial; to the contrary, jurors are not even allowed to consult outsiders about the trial. A juror simply decides the case base on its merits and nothing else. There's no representation. I think you're underestimating the inherent corruption of the current political system. By the time a politician takes office they're usually a "known quantity", because (1) they have to run an election campaign to introduce themselves to the public, and (2) in order to finance such a campaign, they have to raise money, which mostly involves going around begging wealthy interests for money. So such interests can already develop a relationship with the candidate before they get elected, by contributing money to their election campaign. Running for election is inherently corrupting in that way. Whereas government officials randomly selected from the public are wild cards. You can't just go around bribing a thousand unknown random people, because while some may take the bribe, the chances are decent that you'll run into a honest, ethical person who won't take the bribe but rather turn you into the authorities, and then you'll go to jail, because bribing a government official is a felony. All it takes is one honest randomly selected citizen to blow up the entire bribery scheme. So it would be massively dangerous for the briber. It's difficult to build "trusting" relationships with such short-term unknown legislators. This is why most political bribery takes the form of legal campaign contributions, which pose no danger to the contributor and are quite effective at getting results. Eliminate election campaigns, and you've eliminated the primary source of corruption. We have to compare sortition against the current system, not against some ideal of perfection. If sortition is simply less corrupt that the current system, it's a win. You can always think of ways to game any system, but our current system is practically designed for corruption.

permo-w 4y ago
you’re repeatedly sidestepping the core of what I’m saying. we are talking about the practicalities of trying to legislate against this one specific kind of corruption no sane court of law is going to convict representatives for getting a good job post hoc. there is far too much possibility for reasonable doubt. unless you fundamentally change the way the justice system works, that is not going to change >which reasons? do I really have to come up with these reasons? bear in mind that they don’t have to be rock solid, they just have to introduce reasonable doubt. since you almost certainly have no other evidence, “perhaps that could be true rather than collusion” is enough. “their term made us aware of them and they seemed competent”; “they’re famous now and that’s good for sales”; “they made connections that could prove useful to the company”; “they look good to foreign investors/trading partners”; “patriotism!”; “we feel we have a duty to support our ex-reps!”; etc etc etc. there are a million reasons that any lawyer could come up with and sell to a jury also, please don’t specifically try and defeat each thing I say. just address the central issue. I say that just like you can’t convict people for using drugs because they possesa drug paraphernalia, properly functioning courts will struggle to meet the burden of proof to convict this kind of bribery you say that they won’t struggle because:
- lapcat 4y ago
  > please don’t specifically try and defeat each thing I say Heh, this is an interesting request. > properly functioning courts will struggle to meet the burden of proof to convict this kind of bribery I think this frames the issue in entirely the wrong way. My claim is that you can't safely offer bribes to a randomly selected citizen legislature. Suppose the legislature has 1000 members, and they serve 1 year terms, maximum 1 term per lifetime. So as a wealthy interest attempting to trade jobs for political favors, you start out with 1000 complete strangers. They're unknown to you, and you're unknown to them. Moreover, they don't need to take meetings or phone calls with you, because you didn't vote for them (nobody did), you didn't finance their campaigns, they don't represent you, and they're not running for reelection, because they aren't elected, and they can't serve another term. Indeed, these legislators are likely to be suspicious of unsolicited inquiries, and rightly so. They probably don't even have time for your crap. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to somehow meet them, gain their trust, and offer them a bribe in less than 1 year, all while avoiding the honest citizen who responds to your offer by calling the cops. The burden of proof is pretty easy when the person bribed testifies against the briber.