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>I wonder what would happen if there were not politicians, if the parliament of Europe were the sum of all its citizens voting for laws in some sort of mega-sta

>I wonder what would happen if there were not politicians, if the parliament of Europe were the sum of all its citizens voting for laws in some sort of mega-stack-overflow consensus system There's another way to achieve something similar less chaotically: demarchy, which was used for some things in ancient Greece. This involves electing people at random for a limited time period; if the selection is truly random, then the outcome of a couple hundred randomly selected people voting on something should usually match the outcome of the whole population voting on something. And due to it only being for a short period of time, you avoid anyone accumulating too much power.

noman-land 3y ago
I think you're basically describing the Byzantine fault tolerant consensus mechanisms used by blockchains.
amelius 3y ago
It's nice in theory but politicians will never allow themselves to be replaced by random people, so good luck getting this implemented.
- scott_w 3y ago
  That’s not why it won’t work, the reason is even more fundamental: most people won’t want to do it because it’s a fucking hard job that puts you in the limelight.
- 3seashells 3y ago
  Democratic Politics is not there to be efficient. It's there so sociopaths can backstab one another civilized.
breuleux 3y ago
Another advantage is that if you pay random citizens full time to oversee the government, they will be able to talk and negotiate with each other directly, they will have the time to actually study and think about the issues, and they will be able to subpoena the information they need to take good decisions. If you want people to vote meaningfully on issues, you have to empower them to cast the very best vote they could cast, and demarchy is basically the only way this could be done practically in a large society. The concept of a general election or general referendum is aberrant.
jltsiren 3y ago
It would be chaos, and the real power would shift to the administrators. If you select people at random, they will have even less understanding of the issues they vote on than career politicians. They don't have established networks of experts they believe they can trust. They lack the skills to have effective meetings between more than a handful of people, to negotiate, and to make collective decisions. Administrators would have to provide all that. That would be bureaucracy in the literal sense of the word.
- roenxi 3y ago
  There'd need to be some filtering before people take office. I like the idea of randomly selecting a small pool of candidates then voting within that pool. Maybe people elect and elector who's job it is to sit for 12 months just assessing people to hold actual power. Career politicians are better than monarchs or aristocrats, but the fact is that making governance decisions is technically easy. Anyone can do it in principle. Politicians literally don't understand what they are voting on because the breadth of topics is too large and famously the US Congress can go from proposing to voting on complex trillion-dollar spending bills [0] in 48 hours. There is literally no way a random pool of people can do worse than that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Appropriations_Act%2C_2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Appropriations_Ac...
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    The two-party system in the US probably works in a different way than the multi-party system in the EU. In the EU, and especially in national parliaments, political parties are the primary actors. While individual politicians are often ignorant of the topics they vote on, the parties usually have the relevant expertise, though they are not always willing to take advantage of it. After all, one of the primary functions of a political party is to provide a pool of resources and trusted expertise that is independent both from the government and lobbyists.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      These two positions are sitting in contradiction to each other. People chosen by lot are said to lead to administrators making the decisions and that would be bad ... but career politicians govern by giving decision making power to an administrator making the decision and that that is good. I don't think your original comment got to the heart of what you don't like about demarchy. Furthermore, I personally just flat out don't believe "parties usually have the relevant expertise". What exactly, in detail, is that supposed to mean? Because as I've never seen that technical expertise coming out of a political party.
hn_acker 3y ago
Some states in the US permanently ban felons from voting [1]. I want the eligible voting population to be all citizens over the age of 18 with no regard to history and conduct, because I favor universal suffrage and don't want governments to have leeway over who is "worthy" to vote in a democracy (yes, the US is a representative democracy). My population of eligible representative candidates in a demarchy would be the same. However, other people might not want current criminals or even former criminals to be eligible. Separately, some people might want candidates to pass an intelligence test. How could the US collectively decide the eligible population of representative candidates for a demarchy? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t...
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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noman-land 3y ago

I think you're basically describing the Byzantine fault tolerant consensus mechanisms used by blockchains.

amelius 3y ago

It's nice in theory but politicians will never allow themselves to be replaced by random people, so good luck getting this implemented.

scott_w 3y ago
That’s not why it won’t work, the reason is even more fundamental: most people won’t want to do it because it’s a fucking hard job that puts you in the limelight.
3seashells 3y ago
Democratic Politics is not there to be efficient. It's there so sociopaths can backstab one another civilized.

breuleux 3y ago

Another advantage is that if you pay random citizens full time to oversee the government, they will be able to talk and negotiate with each other directly, they will have the time to actually study and think about the issues, and they will be able to subpoena the information they need to take good decisions. If you want people to vote meaningfully on issues, you have to empower them to cast the very best vote they could cast, and demarchy is basically the only way this could be done practically in a large society. The concept of a general election or general referendum is aberrant.

jltsiren 3y ago

It would be chaos, and the real power would shift to the administrators. If you select people at random, they will have even less understanding of the issues they vote on than career politicians. They don't have established networks of experts they believe they can trust. They lack the skills to have effective meetings between more than a handful of people, to negotiate, and to make collective decisions. Administrators would have to provide all that. That would be bureaucracy in the literal sense of the word.

roenxi 3y ago
There'd need to be some filtering before people take office. I like the idea of randomly selecting a small pool of candidates then voting within that pool. Maybe people elect and elector who's job it is to sit for 12 months just assessing people to hold actual power. Career politicians are better than monarchs or aristocrats, but the fact is that making governance decisions is technically easy. Anyone can do it in principle. Politicians literally don't understand what they are voting on because the breadth of topics is too large and famously the US Congress can go from proposing to voting on complex trillion-dollar spending bills [0] in 48 hours. There is literally no way a random pool of people can do worse than that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Appropriations_Act%2C_2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Appropriations_Ac...
- jltsiren 3y ago
  The two-party system in the US probably works in a different way than the multi-party system in the EU. In the EU, and especially in national parliaments, political parties are the primary actors. While individual politicians are often ignorant of the topics they vote on, the parties usually have the relevant expertise, though they are not always willing to take advantage of it. After all, one of the primary functions of a political party is to provide a pool of resources and trusted expertise that is independent both from the government and lobbyists.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    These two positions are sitting in contradiction to each other. People chosen by lot are said to lead to administrators making the decisions and that would be bad ... but career politicians govern by giving decision making power to an administrator making the decision and that that is good. I don't think your original comment got to the heart of what you don't like about demarchy. Furthermore, I personally just flat out don't believe "parties usually have the relevant expertise". What exactly, in detail, is that supposed to mean? Because as I've never seen that technical expertise coming out of a political party.

hn_acker 3y ago

Some states in the US permanently ban felons from voting [1]. I want the eligible voting population to be all citizens over the age of 18 with no regard to history and conduct, because I favor universal suffrage and don't want governments to have leeway over who is "worthy" to vote in a democracy (yes, the US is a representative democracy). My population of eligible representative candidates in a demarchy would be the same. However, other people might not want current criminals or even former criminals to be eligible. Separately, some people might want candidates to pass an intelligence test. How could the US collectively decide the eligible population of representative candidates for a demarchy? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t...

Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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