2 ms·

if you had a refutation, you would have said it by now. as it is, you’ve tried a gish gallop, then thrown your toys out of the pram when it’s been pointed out t

if you had a refutation, you would have said it by now. as it is, you’ve tried a gish gallop, then thrown your toys out of the pram when it’s been pointed out to you did you really think I was going to engage you in an exponentially growing series of piecemeal arguments growing less and less relevant with each iteration? let’s close this by saying that you completely failed - and even resolutely avoided - giving any evidence or arguments that it would be even remotely possible to convict anyone for this, and then tried to prove yourself right in some alternative discussions about: sortitioning as a whole, the word “representative”, easy vs easier, the difficulty of bribing a representative, whether they have constituents, whether I have a correct grasp of corruption as a whole, etc etc etc etc, not a single one of which mattered to the central question of “would you be able to convict an ex-rep for having a sudden upwards change in job?” to which the answer is a resounding and unchallenged: no

lapcat 4y ago
> the central question of “would you be able to convict an ex-rep for having a sudden upwards change in job?” I think the problem here is that you believe it's the central question, whereas I don't. It's a minor issue in the larger question of whether sortition is better than elections. Anyway, I'll close this by dropping these links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_polit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_and_local_politicians_convicted_of_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_and_loc...
- permo-w 4y ago
  yes, there is an overall question of whether sortitioning is better or worse, but did I say to you: "the current system is better than sortitioning"? no I didn't. we were never talking about that. if you'd like to discuss that separately, we can, and I suspect we'd agree, but I did not sign up for that discussion, so surely you can see why I only want to talk about the only issue I've ever even mentioned? what I said was that it would be extremely hard to convict someone for this specific corruption, you disagreed, and we proceeded. if you don't have an argument to back up your disagreement, you misspoke, or misread, or jumped to a conclusion, that's fine, but you're just ignoring it and talking about other things as if you were right. does that seem to you like a rational mode of thought? >these links: this is the same thing again. we're not talking about general convictions for corruption, we're talking about convictions for this very specific kind of type of bribery, where your only evidence is a change of jobs
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > did I say to you: "the current system is better than sortitioning"? no I didn't. we were never talking about that. if you'd like to discuss that separately, we can, and I suspect we'd agree, but I did not sign up for that discussion Sigh. Well, I've always been talking about that, and I didn't sign up for this conversation either. In any case, though, here's what I said before you first replied to me: "This is actually why bribes to randomly selected citizens would be easier to catch." Note that catching is not the same as convicting, and that's not mere pedantry. In order to convict, you have to catch first, and my claim is that in a political environment where the legislators are randomly selected, the kind of corruption you talk about would stick out like a sore thumb. Whereas in our current system, the revolving door between government and corporate lobbying is pervasive, so a former representative getting a cushy job when they leave it not even notable, it's commonplace, the norm. In a sense, it's harder to catch a criminal when everyone is a criminal. If that continued to be the norm under sortition, it would indicate a massive flaw in the new system. It's one of the problems that sortition ought to fix, otherwise we're no better off than before. So as I said, "After a maximum 1 year term, a randomly selected citizen would be expected to go back to their previous line of work." It's automatically suspicious if they don't! Regardless of whether there's a criminal conviction at the end, there would be a level of personal scrutiny regarding the acceptance of post-service jobs that doesn't exist now, especially because under sortition there would be very little if any practical value in the "experience" of a temporary legislator to a potential employer, i.e., political connections, networks, and knowledge that currently take many years to acquire. On the matter of conviction, you seem to assume that the laws would remain exactly the same as before, whereas I make no such assumption. Rather, I assume that the laws would get stricter, so it would be easier to convict a government official of corruption. Our current elected representatives who make the laws are too easy on themselves, precisely because soliciting money from corporate donors is how they got into office in the first place, so they don't want to cut off their source of power. If somewhat more honest folks were in charge, they wouldn't allow legislators to get away with a lot of the crap that's currently allowed.

lapcat 4y ago

> the central question of “would you be able to convict an ex-rep for having a sudden upwards change in job?” I think the problem here is that you believe it's the central question, whereas I don't. It's a minor issue in the larger question of whether sortition is better than elections. Anyway, I'll close this by dropping these links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_polit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_and_local_politicians_convicted_of_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_and_loc...

permo-w 4y ago
yes, there is an overall question of whether sortitioning is better or worse, but did I say to you: "the current system is better than sortitioning"? no I didn't. we were never talking about that. if you'd like to discuss that separately, we can, and I suspect we'd agree, but I did not sign up for that discussion, so surely you can see why I only want to talk about the only issue I've ever even mentioned? what I said was that it would be extremely hard to convict someone for this specific corruption, you disagreed, and we proceeded. if you don't have an argument to back up your disagreement, you misspoke, or misread, or jumped to a conclusion, that's fine, but you're just ignoring it and talking about other things as if you were right. does that seem to you like a rational mode of thought? >these links: this is the same thing again. we're not talking about general convictions for corruption, we're talking about convictions for this very specific kind of type of bribery, where your only evidence is a change of jobs
- lapcat 4y ago
  > did I say to you: "the current system is better than sortitioning"? no I didn't. we were never talking about that. if you'd like to discuss that separately, we can, and I suspect we'd agree, but I did not sign up for that discussion Sigh. Well, I've always been talking about that, and I didn't sign up for this conversation either. In any case, though, here's what I said before you first replied to me: "This is actually why bribes to randomly selected citizens would be easier to catch." Note that catching is not the same as convicting, and that's not mere pedantry. In order to convict, you have to catch first, and my claim is that in a political environment where the legislators are randomly selected, the kind of corruption you talk about would stick out like a sore thumb. Whereas in our current system, the revolving door between government and corporate lobbying is pervasive, so a former representative getting a cushy job when they leave it not even notable, it's commonplace, the norm. In a sense, it's harder to catch a criminal when everyone is a criminal. If that continued to be the norm under sortition, it would indicate a massive flaw in the new system. It's one of the problems that sortition ought to fix, otherwise we're no better off than before. So as I said, "After a maximum 1 year term, a randomly selected citizen would be expected to go back to their previous line of work." It's automatically suspicious if they don't! Regardless of whether there's a criminal conviction at the end, there would be a level of personal scrutiny regarding the acceptance of post-service jobs that doesn't exist now, especially because under sortition there would be very little if any practical value in the "experience" of a temporary legislator to a potential employer, i.e., political connections, networks, and knowledge that currently take many years to acquire. On the matter of conviction, you seem to assume that the laws would remain exactly the same as before, whereas I make no such assumption. Rather, I assume that the laws would get stricter, so it would be easier to convict a government official of corruption. Our current elected representatives who make the laws are too easy on themselves, precisely because soliciting money from corporate donors is how they got into office in the first place, so they don't want to cut off their source of power. If somewhat more honest folks were in charge, they wouldn't allow legislators to get away with a lot of the crap that's currently allowed.