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Ok. That would be weird. Presumably if you have power, you have the power to just quit or resign. Given how much effort people put into getting out of jury dut

by krapp 10d ago

Ok. That would be weird. Presumably if you have power, you have the power to just quit or resign. Given how much effort people put into getting out of jury duty I can only imagine how something like sortition (which I think is what you're describing) would work. Would it be like military conscription, where you could go to prison if you're AWOL? If so, who really has the power in that scenario? And there's also the problem of competence. Forcing some random to act as Secretary of HHS is more likely to get us an RFK type than someone who knows what they're doing. But then vetting candidates with some kind of voir dire like system is just voting, except only a few people get to do it.

jjav 9d ago
These are all problems. On the other hand we know for sure from centuries (millenia?) of evidence that allowing the people who most crave power to be the ones who seek and obtain said power, is a recipe for disaster as well. It is interesting to brainstorm what could be a better system. I think clear qualifications should be required. So to use the HHS example, it would have criteria to be a doctor, certain years of practice, perhaps practice in several specialties for breadth, some research experience, some administrative experience. You'd want to make the criteria narrow enough that only mostly truly qualified people meet it, but also broad enough that at least tens of thousands of people do qualify for the role, so that someone can't just easily fine-tune their resume to assure themselves a spot. It needs to be impossible to game. I don't have the answers, but clearly we can do better than the current system where only power-hungry psychopaths choose to travel the road to obtain the vast power they crave.
- phtrivier 9d ago
  It's a known problem, for which we've also had a pretty robust workaround since Montesquieu : distribute separate part of power to _many_ craving people who disagree and can lock each other's. I'm all for adding a branch that would be primarily picked at random (and I'm all for having a branch that is only recruited among peers of expertise, with fréquent rotation as a way to limit the risk of connivence, etc...)

by krapp 10d ago

jjav 9d ago

These are all problems. On the other hand we know for sure from centuries (millenia?) of evidence that allowing the people who most crave power to be the ones who seek and obtain said power, is a recipe for disaster as well. It is interesting to brainstorm what could be a better system. I think clear qualifications should be required. So to use the HHS example, it would have criteria to be a doctor, certain years of practice, perhaps practice in several specialties for breadth, some research experience, some administrative experience. You'd want to make the criteria narrow enough that only mostly truly qualified people meet it, but also broad enough that at least tens of thousands of people do qualify for the role, so that someone can't just easily fine-tune their resume to assure themselves a spot. It needs to be impossible to game. I don't have the answers, but clearly we can do better than the current system where only power-hungry psychopaths choose to travel the road to obtain the vast power they crave.

phtrivier 9d ago
It's a known problem, for which we've also had a pretty robust workaround since Montesquieu : distribute separate part of power to _many_ craving people who disagree and can lock each other's. I'm all for adding a branch that would be primarily picked at random (and I'm all for having a branch that is only recruited among peers of expertise, with fréquent rotation as a way to limit the risk of connivence, etc...)