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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: 0.001s | 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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munificent ◴[14 Jul 25 18:07 UTC] No.44563329[source]▶
> the idea of a randomized group of citizens making the law of the land scares the heck out of me.

Here in the US, we use randomized groups of citizens to determine who gets locked away potentially for life or executed. Does a jury of peers also scare the heck out of you?

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1. Supermancho ◴[14 Jul 25 18:21 UTC] No.44563494[source]▶
> Does a jury of peers also scare the heck out of you?

Those are screened.

Someone like https://youtu.be/00q5cax96yU?t=60 could be selected without some additional constraints than plain sortition. Ofc then those constraints are politicized.

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2. Edman274 ◴[15 Jul 25 19:36 UTC] No.44575002[source]▶
okay, well that guy won an election so clearly it's possible even without sortition. If people are picked at random then the likelihood of getting some wacko is lower rather than higher, because wackos are more highly motivated to try to act on their wackadoo policies and because of the way voting is implemented, that wouldn't really be a problem for them because it no longer appears to be disqualification for a politician to be crazy, and the crazy ones are the ones who run. On the flip side, the actual rate of totally crazy people across the entire population is likely to be smaller than you expect and random selection would represent the underlying rate of wackos in the public. If it turns out that the rate of wackos is so high that like, 51 percent of your legislature is hearing voices in their head and living like Diogenes, then representative democracy isn't going to help you either.