4 ms·
How about a chamber populated by random lottery? Like jury duty?
by kbelder 7mo ago
How about a chamber populated by random lottery? Like jury duty?
- KK7NIL 7mo agoPerhaps you're joking, but Athenian democracy had a significant amount of randomness, with candidates being chosen randomly from the top vote winners. Terms were also only 1 year for most positions. These, and other systems, helped prevent any one person from monopolizing power. This is a good video on this: https://youtu.be/pIgMTsQXg3Q https://youtu.be/pIgMTsQXg3Q
- kbelder 7mo agoNot joking, although maybe not terribly serious either. I could envision a random (filtered) selection of citizens being given a veto power over legislation, as another check against abuse.
- inglor_cz 7mo agoWe could start by something like a randomly appointed commission to investigate, say, very expensive public projects.
- KK7NIL 7mo agoI like this idea, much better suited to a "jury duty" style approach.
- rgblambda 7mo agoNot quite the same thing, but in Ireland, it's become more common for Citizens Assemblies, which are randomly selected (this is disputed by some) citizens appointed to help word referenda on constitutional amendments and otherwise gauge public feeling on certain issues. The assembly then passes it's recommendation to the Parliament who are free to ignore it if they don't like it.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- hunterpayne 7mo agoAlso Renaissance era Florence did something similar. Also, fun fact, juries in Athens had 500 members to make it too expensive to bribe them.
- npunt 7mo agoRead/watch this interview [1] with Ada Palmer on her new book about the Renaissance. Florence did this for a time. > You put names in a bag. You examine all of the merchant members of guilds. You choose which ones are fit to serve, meaning not ill and dying, not insane, not so deeply in debt that they could be manipulated by the people whom they owe money to. Their names go in a bag. You choose nine guys at random. They rule the city. They are put in a palace where they rule the city from that tower. > They’re actually locked in the tower for the duration of their time in office because if they left the tower, they could be bribed or kidnapped. They rule the city for two or three months. At the end, they are thanked for their service and escorted out, and then a different nine guys share power for the next three months. It’s a power sharing that is designed to be tyrant-proof because you need consensus of nine randomly selected guys to decide to do anything. [1] https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer
- TheCoelacanth 7mo agoVenice's system also involved random selection, though in a very convoluted way. There were multiple repeated iterations where they selected a random group of eligible people and then that group voted to select a group who would then have a random selection taken who would then elect another group and so on.
- fc417fc802 7mo agoHow about both? A chamber of life peers and a chamber of temporary randomly selected representatives.
- perilunar 7mo agoAKA sortition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition “Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.” ― Plato