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Related is the fact that most people who would be good politicians want nothing to do with politics and most that go into politics are the worst people to repre

Related is the fact that most people who would be good politicians want nothing to do with politics and most that go into politics are the worst people to represent us. While i know it's too idealistic, I wish there could be some jury duty style model where real people are obliged to take on political duties

Waterluvian 4y ago
“Mother #*^%er.” “What’s wrong?” “Sigh. Just got this in the mail. It says I have to be president this year.”
- NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
  This is not as far-fetched as it would seem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition The ancient Greeks pretty much appointed magistrates and others by lottery, and every citizen participated in a very direct democracy. The Greeks saw this as a counter to oligarchy. I'm not sure that today's federal government is very far off from oligarchical tendencies.
  - tengwar2 4y ago
    You can't generalise about ancient Greeks like that. Every polis (city state) had its own constitution, and they were more radically different than any we have now. There were some poleis which used sortition, yes, but others had something more recognisable to our voting system. And of course there were the Spartans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Constitution.
Forgeties79 4y ago
I hear this a lot but I think it’s kind of a cynical take. There are plenty of people who run for office because they genuinely care and genuinely believe they can make a difference. Of course there are power hungry sociopaths who make it. But there are 535 members of Congress, 50 governors, thousands of mayors and city council members and state reps, etc. They can’t all be terrible, yet I feel like the popular refrain is still “no one actually good wants to be in charge.” I don’t know. Just feels very self fulfilling and defeatist.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  I’ve seen the “voluntold into politics” at lower levels: like in schools and community organizations and such. The president of my province’s dental association is someone new every year. It seems to work, particularly at lower levels. At high levels, perhaps not so much. I agree that there’s people who sign up out of civic duty. I think the sexiness of politics attracts the wrong people. I think this is particularly an American phenomenon, but not unheard of elsewhere. We have a handful of cult personalities in politics but 99% of the politicians you can’t even name. They’re not getting huge kickbacks or a big salary. It’s just a job.
- pydry 4y ago
  If you take principled stances you will generally end up making a lot of enemies of powerful interests. They will shred your character in public mercilessly and persistently even if your record is pretty much spotless. It's much much easier to be casually evil and join a bloc of powerful interests who will take care of you and look after you if you happen to be caught in bed with a prostitute.
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    Sounds like how people join prison gangs regardless of any previous sympathy towards them
- yellowapple 4y ago
  It's hard to find solid numbers, but even assuming only 0.5% of Americans meet the criteria for a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis (https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/npd-statistics/ https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissisti...), that's still 1,666,437 people - more than enough to fill nearly every (if not actually every, with room to spare) candidacy for every elected position in every level of American government. Solid numbers for Antisocial Personality Disorder (a.k.a. "sociopathy") are similarly hard to find, but are in all likelihood double that of NPD (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546673/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546673/). That is: yes, politicians can absolutely all be terrible.
WJW 4y ago
The "politician by random lottery" model has always seemed like it would get completely owned by those that don't get changed around every few years, like the civil service and the lobbyists. Even more than is already the case, since at least now you can have career politicians who can be trained by their parties in things like "dealing with lobbyists". Seriously, I love my mother but if she were the deliberate target of a months long lobbying campaign with billions of budget I fear for the actions she might take.
- yyyk 4y ago
  True, but we don't have to appoint everyone or even most positions that way. A small random element can actually help in keeping a system stable.
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  Selecting office holders in a similar manner to how jury pools are picked from the general population would lead to having leaders who are on average of average intelligence. As much as our current system is dysfunctional, and we like to call most politicians morons, the vast majority of them, with some notable exceptions, are of above average intelligence. But our system also selects for lots of negative traits like sociopathy that would be represented at a much lower level if offices were filled at random. It would be an interesting trade-off to see how it turned out. Probably would work better with political structures like Congress or a state legislature with many members so the standard deviation of personality attributes would overall tend to be dampened. For something like the mayor of a city, you're one bad random selection away from disaster. In regard to your mother, I believe we erred greatly in giving unnatural persons like corporations most of the same rights as natural persons. I'd favor a system where only those who are eligible to vote for a particular candidate could advocate on their behalf, in any form other than casual personal conversation. Same would go for lobbying politicians once they're in office. Only those the office holder represents would have to right to lobby them and it could only be in a personal capacity. Office holders would be free to reach out to whoever they wanted, but without the quid pro quo of campaign donations, the nature of those discussions would be very different. Under those circumstances, she'd probably be a much better officer holder than many of the creeps we have running things now.
roenxi 4y ago
"Want nothing to do" undersells the hazing process that US politicians go through. Any sane and reasonable human being would be destroyed by the scrutiny that comes with public office. The process catches any flaws that someone might have, but also rules out anyone without an unusually strong ego and a lust for power. Which means all the people who might handle power appropriately are not involved. Although yes to sortition. It'd be much better than current practices.

Waterluvian 4y ago

“Mother #*^%er.” “What’s wrong?” “Sigh. Just got this in the mail. It says I have to be president this year.”

NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
This is not as far-fetched as it would seem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition The ancient Greeks pretty much appointed magistrates and others by lottery, and every citizen participated in a very direct democracy. The Greeks saw this as a counter to oligarchy. I'm not sure that today's federal government is very far off from oligarchical tendencies.
- tengwar2 4y ago
  You can't generalise about ancient Greeks like that. Every polis (city state) had its own constitution, and they were more radically different than any we have now. There were some poleis which used sortition, yes, but others had something more recognisable to our voting system. And of course there were the Spartans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Constitution.

Forgeties79 4y ago

I hear this a lot but I think it’s kind of a cynical take. There are plenty of people who run for office because they genuinely care and genuinely believe they can make a difference. Of course there are power hungry sociopaths who make it. But there are 535 members of Congress, 50 governors, thousands of mayors and city council members and state reps, etc. They can’t all be terrible, yet I feel like the popular refrain is still “no one actually good wants to be in charge.” I don’t know. Just feels very self fulfilling and defeatist.

Waterluvian 4y ago
I’ve seen the “voluntold into politics” at lower levels: like in schools and community organizations and such. The president of my province’s dental association is someone new every year. It seems to work, particularly at lower levels. At high levels, perhaps not so much. I agree that there’s people who sign up out of civic duty. I think the sexiness of politics attracts the wrong people. I think this is particularly an American phenomenon, but not unheard of elsewhere. We have a handful of cult personalities in politics but 99% of the politicians you can’t even name. They’re not getting huge kickbacks or a big salary. It’s just a job.
pydry 4y ago
If you take principled stances you will generally end up making a lot of enemies of powerful interests. They will shred your character in public mercilessly and persistently even if your record is pretty much spotless. It's much much easier to be casually evil and join a bloc of powerful interests who will take care of you and look after you if you happen to be caught in bed with a prostitute.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  Sounds like how people join prison gangs regardless of any previous sympathy towards them
yellowapple 4y ago
It's hard to find solid numbers, but even assuming only 0.5% of Americans meet the criteria for a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis (https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/npd-statistics/ https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissisti...), that's still 1,666,437 people - more than enough to fill nearly every (if not actually every, with room to spare) candidacy for every elected position in every level of American government. Solid numbers for Antisocial Personality Disorder (a.k.a. "sociopathy") are similarly hard to find, but are in all likelihood double that of NPD (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546673/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546673/). That is: yes, politicians can absolutely all be terrible.

WJW 4y ago

The "politician by random lottery" model has always seemed like it would get completely owned by those that don't get changed around every few years, like the civil service and the lobbyists. Even more than is already the case, since at least now you can have career politicians who can be trained by their parties in things like "dealing with lobbyists". Seriously, I love my mother but if she were the deliberate target of a months long lobbying campaign with billions of budget I fear for the actions she might take.

yyyk 4y ago
True, but we don't have to appoint everyone or even most positions that way. A small random element can actually help in keeping a system stable.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Selecting office holders in a similar manner to how jury pools are picked from the general population would lead to having leaders who are on average of average intelligence. As much as our current system is dysfunctional, and we like to call most politicians morons, the vast majority of them, with some notable exceptions, are of above average intelligence. But our system also selects for lots of negative traits like sociopathy that would be represented at a much lower level if offices were filled at random. It would be an interesting trade-off to see how it turned out. Probably would work better with political structures like Congress or a state legislature with many members so the standard deviation of personality attributes would overall tend to be dampened. For something like the mayor of a city, you're one bad random selection away from disaster. In regard to your mother, I believe we erred greatly in giving unnatural persons like corporations most of the same rights as natural persons. I'd favor a system where only those who are eligible to vote for a particular candidate could advocate on their behalf, in any form other than casual personal conversation. Same would go for lobbying politicians once they're in office. Only those the office holder represents would have to right to lobby them and it could only be in a personal capacity. Office holders would be free to reach out to whoever they wanted, but without the quid pro quo of campaign donations, the nature of those discussions would be very different. Under those circumstances, she'd probably be a much better officer holder than many of the creeps we have running things now.

roenxi 4y ago

"Want nothing to do" undersells the hazing process that US politicians go through. Any sane and reasonable human being would be destroyed by the scrutiny that comes with public office. The process catches any flaws that someone might have, but also rules out anyone without an unusually strong ego and a lust for power. Which means all the people who might handle power appropriately are not involved. Although yes to sortition. It'd be much better than current practices.