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Random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

(assemblingamerica.substack.com)
360 points namlem | 2 comments | 14 Jul 25 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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retrac ◴[14 Jul 25 16:28 UTC] No.44562032[source]▶
The technical term is sortition. And it is my pet unorthodox political position. The legislature should be replaced with an assembly of citizens picked by lottery.
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gameman144 ◴[14 Jul 25 16:33 UTC] No.44562101[source]▶
This may show that I'm biased, but the idea of a randomized group of citizens making the law of the land scares the heck out of me. There is a non-trivial amount of nuance and compromise that goes in lawmaking.

Now, the idea of electing a few thousand representatives and having sortition determine who is actually selected is something I could feasibly get behind.

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connicpu ◴[14 Jul 25 16:42 UTC] No.44562207[source]▶
Regardless of how the average person may feel about it on a surface level, I think it's absolutely critical that congress has so many lawyers elected. These people write laws, we need people who actually understand the way law works doing that job.
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1. Ekaros ◴[14 Jul 25 18:07 UTC] No.44563322{3}[source]▶
Maybe it is time to change how laws work if you need trained experts to understand them. Seems extremely harmful to everyone else who is not lawyer.
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2. unethical_ban ◴[14 Jul 25 18:42 UTC] No.44563770[source]▶
Any adversarial system that exists for a long time has such issues. Go pull up the rulebook for any professional sport.

Ambiguities get adjudicated and then built into the next version of the rulebook and so it goes with laws. Terms are given specific meaning over time by court decision and are used as boilerplate.