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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- If you think democracy is broken, here's an idea: let's replace politicians with randomly selected people. Author and activist Brett Hennig presents a compelling case for sortition democracy, or random selection of government officials -- a system with roots in ancient Athens that taps into the wisdom of the crowd and entrusts ordinary people with making balanced decisions for the greater good of everyone. Sound crazy? Learn more about how it could work to create a world free of partisan politics.
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Yeah, in Russia this randomizer machine will always pick Putin
They haven't even made it to democracy yet, they can't possibly make the leap to this yet.
Russia is communism, communism is power to the people, the people is putin, putin is russia basta
How much longer will americans ignorantly call the russian political system communism considering it's a nearly perfect copy of the american system for a quater of a century already
😂😂
I Love You!! Karavay, I Love you!! ahahahahh :'D
There is an Isaac Asimov story where one guy is randomly selected by computer to be the one voter in the election. Political Parties still existed but they had to please this one guy. It was called 'Franchise' and was written in 1955. An interesting idea.
Re-reading the story. I see that the random person is not asked 'Who should be President?' They're asked innocuous poll questions like 'Do you think the price of bananas is too high?' and 'Which is more important X or Y?' These answers then determine which party best fits.
Then thr parties get to campaign/tell this guy their views and policies they will implement right?
I think one of the major benefits that these large "sortition" senates/parliaments could provide would be the elimantion of the "left vs right"/"us vs them" mindset, and the elimination of the general division between parties that puts current senates/parliaments into states of immobility, where individuals of either "side" or group won't concede any "power" or "leverage to the other side for fear of losing support from the implemented power structures that allowed those individuals to come into power (i.e. their party, their base, funders and donaters who "commit" to certain parties.
The education system would have to drastically change for this idea to be fruitful. We cannot continue to create non-thinking automatons who just follow orders if we are going to work towards this "truer" democratic state.
Verónica Leándrez Geet Anand ✔
Good. If you have more democracy, the long-term stability of the system requires people to be well-educated.
So for once in our history, our lives would depend on educating everyone. Perhaps THAT's what it'd take for us to take it seriously.
You can do a lot to educate people once they are selected. But then that puts a lot of power into the hands of those doing the educating and presenting the information.
Couldn't have put it better myself
But if you have a large educated populous, why have a randomly selected parliament, if you can instead have a direct democracy, and have everyone vote on everything.
VSauce
Ah you saw that video by VSauce from a couple days ago. I always knew that was the way American democracy worked in the start of the history of the country.
Michael here
Lattocracy
It‘s funny because the one group project for uni, where we were randomly put together by the professors, made the result that was the best i.m.o.
In the United States, how a member of Congress can go into a $174K job, and come out as a multimillionaire seems odd. The 22nd Amendment limits the President to no more than 10 total years, and I wonder if it's time to seriously consider term limits for Congress.
There are political views on the left and right, and just like with any family, there will be disagreement. However, when a power-hungry and elite class slowly penetrate a Democracy, the idea and meaning of a self-governed citizenry devolves.
Get rid of lobbyists.
Ajit Pai the head of the FCC has already been promised jobs via private companies after he leaves the FCC.
He has voted in favor of measures which actively reward the companies while going against what the public opinion wants.
There are indeed problems with the current system. Over the past 240 years in the US, we have increasingly given power back to the federal government. The more power gets concentrated, the more special interests are vested in manipulating it for their benefit. More power = more corruption (and it's true in any government all throughout history). You need limits on government power. Terms limits for Congress are essential and we've known that since Washington resigned after 2 terms saying he would not be a king. Limits on cronyism are essential as well. Shorter election cycles allow for less money to influence it. Common, trusted sources of information on the candidates (ie not the MSM because they're all activists) would be needed so people could actually learn about the candidates. A national day off for elections would be helpful so people could actually go and vote. And finally get a voter ID system in place so that only legally entitled people are voting.
Sortition is a bad idea. Not everyone has the interest or desire to alter their careers or lives fundamentally to serve. Not everyone has the IQ to serve in this capacity. Let's face it, half the population has a below average IQ by definition. This job does actually require some skills. Then there's the numbers game and the goal of achieving a truly representative sample that balances geography and population (this is why we have the Electoral College). This is an idea that hasn't been thoroughly thought out. There are better solutions.
Jimmy B the randomly chosen person would have to return to the community they came from. More than likely I think they'd be voting for the good of the community.
+Maelinda Seawell
Bad idea. Lobby is forbidden in my country and such a ban just makes corruption more entrenched and harder to spot. There's even a (small) movement here to legalize lobby in order to shed (at least SOME) light on the under-the-table agreement among local politicians and economic interests.
I've been saying this for years. Cut out the psychopaths and career leeches.
James Lagnese I was scrolling down to say exactly the same in exactly the same words.
So in other words, cut out the politicians.
KT I really dont get it. Law makers are supposed to write laws. So why do people want someone who has no experience or education in law?
KT elections seen to be the best way of finding extremists.
James Lagnese A rose 🌹 by any other name is still a rose 🥀. Anyone can run for office. It does help if you are familiar with the rules of the political chess game. I think it would help if candidates would be required to take a serious ethics and personality test to properly “stratify the selection”.
I think sortition is a terrible idea with tons of inherent issues, in theory, let alone in practice... Having said that I absolutely love that there are people looking for alternative government systems, an art long lost and desperately needed.
Would you be willing to have an experiment government run on this idea and see how it goes?
What issues? We trust random citizens to determine guilt or innocence. Why can't they write a few policies regarding their mutual neighborhoods?
Amber Portland
would you trust a random citizen who might be an office worker run a farm? Would you trust a person who has no experience in mechanics fix your car? Would you trust a person with no culinary experience prepare your food for you?
well just because we do something a certain way doesn't mean its correct.
But among the glaring issues, incompetence is bad enough already in government, this would probably maximize that in government, people without a solid understanding of history, economics, the justice system among others. No matter how much we give them resources and experts when they can ignore them at their whim (for like religious or other ideological views [or honestly just plain stubornness]), I don't think it will suffice.
Not to mention some skills cannot be taught, for example, love or hate Donald trump you can tell he has a lack of experience handling relations with heads of states among other diplomatic skills, simply from inexperience, those skills take time and practice.
The last glaring issue is that most of the time I bet the best solution would be missed since it takes those 1 in a billion to make that connection, take Elon Musk, he was consistently told by experts that the rockets would never work and no other ordinary person would have continuously tried it. It is those gem of a people that I believe would be consistently missed out of sheer probability.
These are just some of the issues I see, I hope I was clear.
Sortition is a stupid idea, agreed. Why not just fix the system we already have? Ban all campaign financing. Ban all political advertising. Have one government website dedicated to political parties which lists their policies side by side. Advertise this website only. Pay the politicians extraordinarily well to eliminate the temptation of corruption.
"Wisdom of crowds". Yes. Witch trials are always fun.
The kripperinos are branching out aren't they?
It's done every day , it's called a "JURY" of your peers
Don't you think we're way beyond the awkward moment in our history where we burned witches? People are getting more and more educated and can actually think for themselves.
Pixel Fyxe Scientists have peer reviews which need to fulfil certain criteria in order for their research to be considered valid. All scientific research needs to identify conflicts of interest as well as potential biases in order to be take seriously. A hypothesis is all well and good but it can't be treated remotely similarly to a theory.
The metal worm, if people could think for themselves there would be no politics and especially religions.
I like this idea. Anyone that want to lead has an agenda. We need to randomly select a governing council, like a jury. No more single leaders.
This was my idea many years ago .. very true.. :)
Having an agenda is not intrinsically a bad thing
@@thephoenix756 No but 8 to 9 times out of 10, it can lead to disastrous consequences even if the person in question has good intentions at heart.
Quite an interesting concept. I have been saying for years that getting much of the politics out of government would be the best way to improve the system.
Implementing something like this still wouldn't get rid of politics though. As long as people have opinions they will still argue and maneuver amongst the crowd to get their way. And some people who get in are bound to have greater leadership capacity than others. it would however wipe the slate clean after every term. And at least it would keep the system from being dominated by people seeking power. A term would instead be something like imposed responsibility, like jury duty.
The main problem is corporate influence and policies/legislature swayed by financial interests. Breaking that link is essential. *The* biggest problem we face as humans, actually, I believe.
Everyone pushing for a system like that would mysteriously die of heart attacks.
only in Russia.
In Russia they'd go to Gulag.
I feel like a ton of people are missing the reference here :(
I've been pushing for this for almost a decade now and my heart is in perfect condition.
death note reference.. lol...XD
I'd be quite worried about countries with a high rate of strong religious belief, how to avoid the religious majorities destroying the minorities. So you'd first have to have unalterable constitutional laws in place, but unchangeable laws are often not a good thing either...
Shea Finkelsen Most atheists are completely fine with people believing whatever they want, as long as it doesn't influence policy, and they don't force it on other people.
Shea Finkelsen about atheists? Don't you mean for atheists? The how on earth would you prevent a version of sharia law that would stigmatize atheists? Family atheists wouldn't be oppressors in that kind of system they would be victims.
Shea Finkelsen I'm sorry what? That's just stupid. You do realise even America has the separation of church and state. Being aethist doesn't make you communist.
Shea Finkelsen also I can play this game too. The most shithole countries in the world are the most religious.
Joshua Smith seperation of church and state, yep sure, that's why every dollar bill has in God we trust and the national anthem has under God and why every politician clearly states their religious beliefs and generally how firmly they believe. There is certainly meant to be a seperation but even high court rulings are often made in regards to religious views rather than rational ones, but then there is meant to be a seperation of the judicial and the legislative yet the supreme Court (supreme in America, high court in many other countries) is elected or put in place by the government so their is a huge political influence at least in terms of election to the highest courts.
It would be great if there really was a proper seperation of powers, but l doubt there ever has been and certainly not since lots of things were changed in the early days of the cold war(like many of the references to God on the currency and in the anthem).
I don't know how this solves the problem of corruption. If you have a bunch of political novices in office, many of them on the poorer end of the spectrum, they seem likely to let lobbyists do all the work for them, ie "Here, we got this complicated bill written over several years by dozens of legal and business experts and you probably won't understand it but we'll give you money to vote for it." If you're poor and will be kicked out of office by some rando the next cycle anyway, why not take that offer?
Vote could be secret.
I'm a political scientist and I'd support a movement like this. What worries most critics is the fact that government would be "too representative" of the people, who are very dumb, apparently. But a truly just and legitimate society has to care more about the people having a voice on law-making than to lead them to a utopia, which normally leads to a totalitarian nightmare.
I await our wise AI overlords.
Amen. General AI (hopefully benevolent) in their infinite wisdom could solve all our problems :))
Shane Pye except that someone might control them or their programming could be deeply faulty originally
This could be the best solution. Just simply make the algorithm to enhance the maximum amount of quality of life and let it play itself out. It could have really interesting results.
me2
Which is impossible. Self-Aware AI is impossible.
I was thinking that the jury system is a sortition. And it works pretty well.
Absolutely! Here in Oregon we actually have a "citizen jury" type of process that's really fascinating.
I'm not in political sciences, but my initial reaction is welcoming of sortition democracy. I worry that there will be selected individuals who are not responsible and instead apathetic towards their newly granted position. How will this be combated? Selecting more individuals for the citizen's senate, a screening, or something else? Perhaps I'm assuming that the probability of selecting apathetic individuals is much higher in my own bias than it actually is.
just4fun620 Randomly selecting the top 10% of classes?
just4fun620 maybe he just hadn't considered that? XD, exactly what I was thinking though.
Easy do the job or be replaced
Art of Warring, as a chemistry grad student I've learned that book smarts don't always translate into research smarts. There are token straight A grad students who can't perform well in the laboratory. Also, if we're going to recruit from the education system, the education system has to be much better than it already is. Selections from the top 10% of classes will have much disparity between people chosen from public California schools and public Minnesota schools, simply because a top 10%er of a public California school could very well be the "best of the worst" -- meaning they are objectively bad, but relatively great.
Keith Barrett. I think abstaining to vote or taking a neutral stance on policies is a perfectly fine choice. It might be hard to discern those that abstain from those that just don't want to invest energy into the purpose.
If the citizen senate can vote to kick someone off, then we have to consider if there's discrimination or prejudice in play. Maybe the governmental judicial branch steps in, instead? I'm not sure since "doing the job" isn't defined from this video
Those who oversee the random selection process would ACTUALLY be in charge.
The program selecting them randomly would be in charge
Make standard categories for it to sort and use a random number generator.
PIJD FRAY I would be happy to be ruled by a math equation.
Run a frame from live television through hash function and derive the random numbers from that. Thousands or even millions of people can replicate the procedure and confirm that the numbers are correct. And even if someone can manipulate what appears in the frame, they can't produce a specific result that they want. That's the point of a hash function.
Incidentally, that's already how random numbers are generated for cryptography: th-cam.com/video/1cUUfMeOijg/w-d-xo.html
yondaime500 I totally agree with the math of hashing and cryptography I think what PJID was specifically referencing was the presenter's comments about ensuring that we have a stratified system that equally represents the populace. Whoever is defining the categories, and deciding which scientific studies are to be used as reference material has enormous power. Using a very long hash function, or possibly using some sort of chain of one way hashes would be very close to a true RNG and could be a much more open and easy to verify method. I really like your concept of using a frame from live TV as the seed. That's a pretty novel idea. :)
This isn't a new idea, ancient Athens not withstanding. Bill Binney, the former NSA Technical Director for World Operations and NSA whistleblower said this back in 2015. His idea was to pick the Congress and Senate representatives straight out of the phone book. At first, I laughed.
But, as he went on to say, think about it - they'd have term limits, live in dormitory, apartment type housing and a nominal salary. Without all the distractions of "reelection". Most folks would want to do the best they could while there, and couldn't wait to get back home to their real jobs.
Then, I realized he was so right. Brilliant, in fact.
I saw the title and imagined this being done with teleporters - like world-wide all the politicians disappear simultaneously and there's just these really confused people who suddenly have to figure out what they're doing in the House of Commons or wherever. (The politicians were eventually found living in a remote farming collective in southern Siberia.)
William Chamberlain sounds like an exciting future
This needs to be a Netflix series.
An inconsequential observation. The simplest solution would be to Grandfather our current Representatives and replace them with sortition Representatives one at a time.
The only issue is that lobbyists (special interest groups) would start targeting these random representatives and make them just like our corrupt politicians. The identity of the randomly generated people would have to be protected from the public, but that would mean no public accountability. You would need another randomly generated group to oversee the primary randomly generated group to act as a buffer (and another if you want to secure government). Great idea but I think to keep the lobbyist out of the equation the randomly generated people should transfer their personalities to AI and have the AI make the decisions as that person would at the time of choosing.
Right! That’s my thought too. I feel like the lobbyists would figure it out and work their magic
"ordinary people" at a TED event
Haha, funny
Spot on....Middle class elite pseudo intellectuals pandering to each other. Not one fact in here, just some web-designer looking amoeba spouting off some utopian vision, which if it ever came to pass would result in a body count.
@@mwnciboo totally agreed it's an absurd idea sounds total rubbish. But it has made me think about one thing i.e. when a leader (MP, PM, etc) gets elected, it's usually by spending butt loads of money and support. This money and support usually comes from a few key sources and hence when the leader comes in power he/she has to pay back these key sources. This usually leads to corruption and policies that may not benefit the general public becoz many times the interests of the key sources and public are at odds.
Now, as I see it there can be 2 solutions to it:
1. Sortition- this eliminates the need for sources altogether but comes with butt loads of other problems which I assume you are quite familiar with.
2. Transparency- this seems ideal but practically does not work becoz the people in power are the ones who make laws and they don't want to make laws that might reveal that they are corrupt.
Maybe a better solution lie in a system somewhat like the jury system in courts. Still researching it all.
So true
A sidenote: "the wisdom of crowds" in a strict sense is actually something quite different. It is the fact that when you aggregate estimates of many people, under the right circumstances, you get remarkably accurate results. But a parliament does not aggregate estimates. It provides a culture of conversation and decision making processes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd
In a democracy, this rather basic aggregation technique is almost never used and basic information for decision making is largely gathered from experts. No parliament lets everyone estimate the upcoming inflation rate and aggregates the results.
I think what he actually means is the act of agreeing: to find some way to come to a decision that most or all of the members of the group can agree with. And that most popular opinions are represented in that agreement process, by involving a large crowd in the opinion sample process.
The trouble is that it would become Mob Rule. One or 2 members of the group would be charismatic or bullying enough to lead the rest. And the mob would follow like sheep.
In the current system is this not so, if not why do you think it is it not so?
Because, for better or worse we have rules and checks and balances. Don't get me wrong, the current system is rubbish and needs to be changed. I just don't think it is a good idea to "leap from the frying pan into the fire."
Yes, I think it would also be effected by perceived hierchies from real life too. For example, a very young person may get pushed around by the older people because they are younger and used to following other people, and we usually see older people as 'leaders'. If this was someone with training who prepared for the job, they may not do this, but someone random may just fall into line behind others.
Kind of describes our politics now😂
“Mob rule” is a slur used by oligarchs and dictators who fear democracy.
So, we're trillions in debt, in multiple wars, and congress never fixes any problems. WHY WOULD ANYONE BE AFRAID TO TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT?
I agree with this 100%. The thing that I want to add here is that, these random people have to be replaced for good when they finish their term with the new ones so that there will be less chances of manipulation & corruption !!
Bertrand Russel said something to the effect (haven't been able to find the original quote), "When you have an elected government two types of people want to be elected. Those who are in it for the power, and those who are in it for the money. Under no conditions are members of either group to be trusted. What is needed is to give the position to someone who doesn't **want** the job."
I like the idea, it’s like a school project where students are randomly selected for balance, so they can learn new things from one another. While also preventing students to gang up based on groups of smart students only, strong students only or popular students only.
It’s called running in terms they have that but it’s still election
Churchill said:
"Democracy is the worst way to run a country - except for all the others we've tried".
We should try partition.
"When one is given too much power, there it thresholds"
It is just like building roads and highways. Success is determined by the benefits and improvements the initiative will bring. Yes, there will be some misuse of the roads, people trying to avoid the rules, bully others and worse. But that doesn't mean we should never build infrastructure that can take us to a better future.
Love this guy's ideas. Imagine, a government by the people and ran by the people globally working toward the common benefit of mankind ! It would eliminate so many problems! Sounds utopian to me but it would be fantastic!
You know that would be very unlikely to happen don't you?
I've given this some thought over the years.
The main problem is that, like jury duty, people that don't want to do it will get out of it leaving behind only those that do want access
to the position and the power; giving us exactly what we have today.
Unless, of course, you intend on making it mandatory (after screening processes, validation of citizenship, etc.)
I suspect I have far less faith in an unwilling leadership group than the speaker.
Sortition seems to work well enough for jury duty, seems like a good idea to me.
Except the lawyers pick weather they want you on the jury or not. You could be in several jury selection throughout the day, And If they don't choose you, you go home.
FEDERALLY speaking, I think the House of Representatives should be SELECTED BY LOT rather than POPULARLY ELECTED like our current members of U.S. Congress.
I actually had an epiphany of my own before seeing this... I thought government might be better governed by a random selection of our peers much like a jury is selected. You are required to serve your one term in service of the people when you are selected... however, I can see some people would have a harder time with some jobs than others, so the complete randomness might come with complications... but the way this man explains it with a panel of experts to refer to... well, it just might work!
This is precisely what is happening right now in Italy. And things are getting worse, not better.
random selection, AND exams for getting the right to be part of that list from which people are selected randomly
I think this might work perfectly
But who decided on what is on the exam?
@@Avalon_Snowfall exactly, pure random had got us to human level intelligence, so it's not surprising that it's also a good system for government
How would you control to ensure that “uneducated” people were represented?
@@Mrchayse42 the “exam” should be something more like a test that anyone can give and that has nothing to do with one’s education level.
@@roberthoffenheim7861 Exactly. The uneducated are people too, they should not be excluded from having a say in our democracy.
Random selection will create more economical, political and social instability.... Random selected person who knows that he wont get another opportunity to rule will surely think about his own stability rather than nation stability...The more power u have the more will u desire and the more strength will demand for your own self interest
"If you give people responsibility, they act responsibly." I believe in this as well. It can and does work.
Governance by identity politics, as the selection would be done by precisely that, so as to get a 'representative' slice of the population. I guess that includes the 16% of society with an IQ below 85. Yea, we really want them having more of a vote than the captains of industry. That will be 'really' good for society, right?
What we need is direct democracy with delegated voting. All citizens can vote on all bills. Most of us however could not be bothered to vote on most subjects, so we can delegate our vote to someone else we trust to exercise it for us. This could be a parent, a friend, a famous TH-cam personality, whomever we choose. If we do not exercise our vote on an issue, their vote will exercise both theirs and ours. They in turn can delegate theirs, and their delegate will exercise both theirs and ours if neither you nor your delegate chose to vote, and so forth. No doubt there would be some people exercising many votes, and that's fine, as those votes could be taken away and delegated to someone else, or exercised directly at any point.
I think it would work if 2 conditions are met : 1- the group should be representative enough yet not too large (I'd say a maximun of a 100 a minimum of 50 if we follow the original human unit tribe). 2- it would only work for specific subjects that do NOT require expertise or deep uderstanding of complex concepts...in the end they represent an average and average is what it is ...average.
I remember hearing about a similar system amongst the (if I remember correctly) pueblo native americans, where it's working very nicely, thank you very much.
Thinking about implementing it here in the UK though I can see problems around representation. For example small business owners/sole traders. They may not be able to afford to leave their business.
A single parent in rural Northern Ireland may not want to be travelling to London regularly.
A full time carer may not be able to leave the person they care for.
A trans person may not want to be that much in the limelight. How do we protect the privacy of those selected?
There are of course other situations where people couldn't release themselves from their normal lives for a what 5 year period?
Of course, if being representative isn't important then none of these issues will be important.
Remote work, video-conference chamber sessions.
Perhaps a pool of folks who know history that would have an interest
Then could be apart of the pool
Then also it pays well and could be a win
This will never happen because anyone who's competent enough to enforce this change is experienced enough to know that leaving fate up to random chance is not a reliable to achieve better results. I'm not convinced that random selection is better. I think it will just create new polititans.
The good news is that the internet is allowing new factions to form as thought leads guide masses of followers to new opportunity. Soon we'll be ruled by people who are elected because they have proven themselves over and over again for the whole internet to see.
Sleuth Nope.. the only thing the internet has done is greatly exaggerate the nasty effects of populism and professional manipulation. The interweb does NOT create critical thinkers.. it creates complaceant sheep mentality..
mikkel thybo 😂yup
evolution is a random process. designing a random process could make it more efficient than evolution.
What you're not understanding is that the whole point of Sortition is to eliminate the Dime a Dozen Politician that you're referring to, because it Removes the Reelection benefit of pandering to Corporate lobbyist, and placating to special interest.
Random selection of people...who are registered to vote? Like a jury duty notice? And, like an agreement between the prosecution and defense teams, who will oversee the vetting and selection of these representatives? What variables do we use to ensure we end up with a well-rounded group of individuals that fully represent different aspects of the population? A census? What recourse does each segment of the population have if the individual who seems to best represent and advocate for their interests, doesn't? Or if that segment sees their representative as 'the neighbor who can't even figure out how to separate their recycling'? What's the motivation for any citizen to take on a weight and responsibility of this magnitude?
there would still be politicians. Those advisory experts he mentioned.
Tyrant-Den They'd exist, but they'd serve the same role that lawyers serve to a jury. They wouldn't be able to force stupid decisions on the jury.
But there would be more than one, there would be a hierarchy, truths getting twisted. I still think it has the potential to be a better system though.
True. However they won't be able to bring Corporate Donations, or Special Interest voters along with them.
I read many comments, and one thing I found missing was the point that in this case you will not have any parties or blocks. Imagine, a group of strangers from different parts of the country, deciding who among them will be the President/PM, and the cabinet ministers!
There will be no more party line voting in Congress/Senate/Parliament Imagine, how good this would be for making laws and legislation!
The debates in the Legislature will finally be relevant, interesting, and fruitful!
There will be a very high probability of changing of President/PM, and/or other ministers, if they are not doing their job properly or good.
Muito interessante essa perspectiva, adoraria conhecer mais sobre isso, alguém aqui sabe se tem algum estudo sendo feito no Brasil?
Acho que não
As Brett Hennig suggested in his lecture, electing lawmakers through a lottery system rather than elections can be a good way. However, I think it is better to elect lawmakers through a referendum rather than a lottery system, such as the recall system, to boost people's participation. Introducing an example of random selection, he says that people act responsibly when given responsibility. However, if a random selection of lottery systems is made, it will be difficult to say that the people are responsible for the outcome of the election. However, if a lawmaker is elected through a referendum, people will feel responsible for their choice because it is the result of their vote and election, and I think they will be able to act responsibly according to their politics and the results.
A group of randomly selected people would probably be pretty effective at preventing bad laws from being passed, but I'm not so sure they would be good at writing new laws. That being said, instead of replacing our existing institution with this, adding a sortition as a 3rd branch of Congress with veto power over the other branches of Congress would probably encourage the other branches of Congress to keep their bills clean from corruption and encourage laws to be written in a way that is more easily understood by the general populace, so I'd be for that.
Few things to say:
1) Athens was not a democracy, it was a citizen-governed oligarchy. Women, slaves, strangers and non-citizens, in general, could not vote.
2) THEY DID IT IN ICELAND. After the collapse of 2008, the country was crushed under debt. Citizens considered they shouldn't be held responsible because it was all the bankers' fault. They peacefully overthrew the government with protest every week, cancelled the debt and elected a new parliament based on random selection. And it worked! It was the most amazing moment of democracy in our entire human history.
3) Representative democracy doesn't work because people don't feel like their point of view matters, which leads to frustration. And the representatives always end up in corruption and tax fraud scandals, because humankind cannot handle power well. People are so much more educated nowadays and they can actually think for themselves.
Yes! I have been thinking about this for years
I think the biggest problem isn’t the government, it’s the people because you can’t make a good, functioning system with flawed parts. Humans don’t have to be perfect, they just have to be not bad. If the people within a society are all fair and well educated, then the existing system would function perfectly. Of course, selecting random people would also work, but a monarchy would too, because the monarch would also be fair and well educated which would lead him/her to teach his/her child to be the same. This also works the other way around in the sense that if everyone was fair and well educated, then they would have the capabilities to make a functioning government. Thus, the problem isn’t the government, it’s the people operating it.
Honestly, I think it's time politicians have term limits and age caps. If you're 60 years of age, you should not have a position of power running a country, period. That's not being against the elderly, that's me recognizing that people around 60 are no longer in tune with the rest of society, where they are still holding onto old ideals that no longer work. If a politician is 60, they were around when a person with a full time minimum wage job could afford a new home, a car, furniture, tech, food, and bills without needing another person in the household to work just to support the family. They STILL believe this to be true today. So why are we letting these people who don't even know what the majority of American's are going through decide OUR fates?
Randomly selected from state schools and not privately educated. Therein lies the root of much inequality. I always figured since a boy that until a government was full of 'normal' working class folk then there is no affinity between us and them and the inequality will continue to grow. Nowadays its starting to be accepted that this disparity is real, money buys you even the best jobs nowadays.
How would they fill up the spot of this random person who was let's say the head of a hospital, or someone who already has a lot of responsibilities and is probably already working too much...?
Or what if someone with a low IQ, without any knowledge or capability to learn would be selected...?
Or who would hold this whole system accountable so someone doesn't go rogue or try to seize power?
How to reintegrate people after the session ends...?
Henrik Rónai
The person could decline then another person is chosen at random.
"I am the senate."
- Sheev Palpatine
This is something I've been thinking about for years. Would it really be so catastrophic to have random people selected for the civic duty of running the country every few years? Even career politicians rely on specialist groups in their decision making, and are rarely even remotely educated in the areas of the ministries they lead. There already are several "unqualified" people, such as singers, actors and other celebrities, in politics. There already are uneducated people, who have barely completed compulsory education, in politics. Every person in politics was once a first-timer. There's no reason why randomizing the selection process couldn't work. In fact, I'm sure people would be way more interested and involved in politics if they had a real stake in the system. Moreover, it would give an incentive to include politics in compulsory education, in order to prepare everyone for their civic duty.
Democracy isn't "broken" as he says, it's just imperfect. It annoys me when people say we have broken corrupt governmenst because while we definitely have issues have you seen the rest of the world? We don't stone gay people to death, you don't have to pay corrupt policeman, and women can wear basically whatever they want without fear of being attacked. I'm so insanely grateful to live in our democracies, and while I appreciate his arguments and trying to help fix some of the issues with modern democracy, it is far from broken.
God of Beans but that's not really democracy per se. That's just part of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Yes as pointed out by zztop you are confusing political systems with society/culture and if you don't think there is corruption in western politics you are sadly mistaken.
And another thing a big reason the rest of the world is BECAUSE of our imperfect political systems. e.g. In Iran they HAD democracy in the 1950s until the government there was deposed by democratic USA - just as happened countless times in other places around the world particularly South America. The Middle East is a complete basket case in no small part to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq by democratic USA - why? Why were there invasions ? Why are we still there? Do you think this has anything to do with democracy?
Do you think nations can develop stable political systems and humane societies when both are constantly undermined by western democratic powers??
Our wonderful western governments support the rich to exploit the 3rd world with wars off which they profit. If you have any interest in learning more about how this works reading a bit of Noam Chomsky is a good place to start.
God of Beans, I guess you live in Europe, like I do. Here what you say applys perfectly
In USA however you get shot by policemen for simply beeing black.
REPUBLIC
I can see the appeal in such an idea, a truly representative parliament, and since you do not win by election, there is no perverse incentive to do what is popular for another term. But if you want a true representation of the people, why not simply use a direct democracy, with a number of referendums a year on major laws, it works well in countries that do it, like switzerland and Liechtenstein. These are a proven method, allowing everyone to be part of the "parliament", bringing everyone's insights into the discussion, as opposed to only those of the few who are elected or randomly selected to parliament.
The idea that someone shares my interests and that I would want them to represent me just because we belong in the same demographic seems as deeply flawed as voting.
I think they would at least be more likely to represent your interests^^
Sparkymagnet I had exactly the same concern.
Just thinking if you took my school year and took everyone of the same colour, race, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, iq, and whichever other intersectional qualifiers you can imagine, you would basically account for about 90% of the boys I went to school with.
Now, to imagine (30 years on) that I would agree with most of them on most topics, or be particularly similar in lifestyle, choices, values or any other way is frankly ridiculous.
@@11scarymonster It's not about agreeing with them or having the same views. It's that normal people (and not career politicians) would be the ones deliberating and proposing policies.
Honestly the likelihood of having someone represent your interests is far higher in a sortition system than an election system, especially with so few representatives (like in the US). A sortition system would need thousands of representatives.
The idea isn't so much to represent the people better (though it would do that) so much as to remove the "game" aspect of politics - randomly selected people will be less likely to desire political power, but can be expected to take their duty seriously if called upon.
Is it perfect? No. Can it work? Yes. Would it be better than elections as practiced now? Potentially. I think it's worth investigating.
Yeah, but the ones choose by sortition wont manipulate you to think that exact thing. They don't share your interests dude, they act like they do so people like you would fail into their trap. That's what all this TED talk is about man hahaha
In America they call this a jury of your peers.
This guy should be a philosopher
so funny. Lets get random people but they have to be diverse. Thats an oxymoron. How are they random when you put parameter on who is chosen?
If they were truely randomly selected, then statistically the group selected should have a similar make-up to the society they were chosen from.
Whilst there is a chance they might be disproportionate, the way sampling works is that most of the time youll get a representative group. Its like how if you roll a dice 100 times you'll get a fairly even amount of each number. So if its done by ballot, you'll have more women, more young people, more minorities ect.
Have you ever heard about polls?
I've had similar ideas. Eliminate congress. Randomly select a president. Have all the things that require a congressional vote, handled similar to jury duty selection.
If you want a liscence to drive, or file a tax return, you would have to register to vote in a new way.
A situation requiring a vote comes around, and a select group a different people from all over the land would get an unavoidable email, saying that they have X number of days to read up on the situation, then they have to vote in what to do with it.
Avoiding it would cause a fine, or less of driving privileges or something else. These people would be selected randomly, and only the operating system would know who they are, so there is no bribing them.
This would streamline a lot and save tons of money. It would also be much faster.
If the bill or situation is presented in a ton of multi thousand page documents, the registered voter could kick it back and demand that it be simplified.
Great sentiment that would be promising, in theory. In reality, there’d have to be economic assurances for the randomly selected people. The system as it currently exists already prevents a lot of people from participating due to employment that provides neither the financial liberty or time to be involved. I can’t see that issue going away with this system.
Literally just pay them with a salary. Ruling the nation is literally a full time job
Wow! Talk about giving up at the first hurdle....
Here's what I think a real functioning democracy should look like: Vote on a platform for each governmental sector, not a political party. Ideas, not people. Solutions, not more problems.
Example: Instead of voting for party A, B or C (as the most relevant choices) you would have: Foreign Affairs with Proposition A, B, C, D. And so on for every sector. Whichever proposition wins the majority vote sends it's delegates to parliament (democratically elected from those who presents themselves as candidates for that sector of government). The winner with most votes becomes cabinet minister for that sector, such as Foreign Affairs, Environment, Public Safety, etc. The rest of the most popular votes (Ranking system of voting, where you pick the preferred candidates, up to X amount, based on the seats that must be filled within that sector based on it's need) then form the rest of the sector's seats.
50% is required to win, if no proposition (or election for cabinet minister within each sector) has 50% support, another election with the top 2 happens shortly after.
Scrapped ballot (none of the above propositions), no voter turnout or rejected ballot counts towards the 50% required.
The Prime Minister or President would be a separate vote than each sector.
The winner as leader of the nation would then need to work with the elected ministers of each sector and act as the voice of government, not a political party or ideology. Further separating governmental powers and the influence of a single person who happens to win an election with less than 50% of the population's consent. This means that we would actually vote on the best ideas instead of the person saying absolutely nothing. People would debate actual issues when thinking about what they vote for. It would no longer be a popularity contest for absolute power. Each sector would have more competent and effective leaders who are proficient in the sector they choose to run as a candidate in.
Thoughts?
It is an interesting idea, but...
The first problem that arises is that it can't be compulsory, since it would be unethical to force people to take public office as legislators, in which they would have to leave their current lives and residence, and divest from their investments, etc. That would leave us with a system that ends up selecting people who would only accept the role if they had something to gain, in comparison to their current occupation. Logically, we would either have to substantially increase the salary for democratic representatives, to ensure a truly random and representative system, or settle for a democratic representation where only society's least well-off could legislate.
In earnest, Liberal democracies have done exceptionally and incomparably well, by any reasonable statistical analysis of societal health indicators, and despite the indulgent nature of its otherwise healthy capacity for self-criticism.
I still prefer, good old fashioned representative democracy. But terms limits and strict caps on financial donations per capita couldn't hurt.
In fact most people are absolutely inadequate in terms of regulations or management. There will be a pool of “experts” helping people to understand how it works and how to implement their fantastic solutions. And you’ll have to randomize those experts to avoid corruption, and some of those will stay as grey cardinals and a kind of shadow government, which we do have right now in many countries. Those new people will be even more influenced by businessmen who are not randomly chosen and who keep their money, power and business the whole life unlike the parliament.
Moreover, this system will lead to even deeper inequality, like “why is he randomly chosen to rule me if I was always smarter and successful, I don’t believe it” etc.
And you can’t even estimate the importance of education in terms of economic and social responsibilities. These stories about “ordinary people” are always sweet, communists suggested something similar, by the way
That would be chaos...
but why?
and democracy isnt?
Yes the current insane asylum is working so well.
I think that’s because you have the mentality of ‘everyone else, except you, is an idiot’. In psychology it’s called ‘self projection’.
Pixel Fyxe Yes, the American general populace is ignorant, but once the people are randomly selected they can go through an intensive, standardized political science course in order to approach their role competently. (This would be standardized and regulated by popular vote, in order to keep individuals from brainwashing the delegates with their own agenda.) Of course we want our lawmakers to be competent. In our current system, we get competent lawmakers by letting rich people get higher education in order to accumulate the knowledge they need. But that system inevitably creates an aristocracy, since the only people who can afford the best educational resources are the richest/most privileged people in society. The goal here is to make sure that the people in government are a representative microcosm of the country first. We can educate them once they're selected. But this set of priorities ensures that there's no class barrier to entry in governmental positions (like there currently is), so the underprivileged classes of society will be just as capable of running the government as the aristocrats. That alone would radically change the direction of this country.
We should replace our politicians with nothing as they both do nothing.
What of the people chosen didn't want to be there?
Choose someone else
This was my idea many years ago haha.. glad to hear it on here... yes!
lot of bad ideas there. most people have no clue of what they want to do, much less how to get there.
You as well as whoever you're describing would definitely want to decline an offer to participate in a Sortition process.
Probably about 2/3rds of these randomly selected people would have a nervous breakdown within a year.
I'm a scientist, I am used to a high stress high workload environment and I have absolutely no shame in saying that I couldn't cut it as a politician. To appreciate the level of stress this job brings all one has to do is look at pictures of presidents just after election and compare them to a picture 4 years later. Those people look like they've aged at least 10! On top of this, no private life, no privacy whatsoever and as an added bonus, every single thing you say is scrutinized into smithereens.
Direct *Internet voting platforms* will be very fun :-)
We could have 5k+ selected experts, professionals and scientists that vote on issues and public spending proposals. 5k people will be much smarter than a small parliament that can be bribed !
Or why stop with 5k people. We could have all the educated people who can vote online and make good for all of us. That could even include international voters, as long as the issue is not very national in nature.
While I don't believe this system would work, as it puts too much faith in the cooperation of the general public and undervalues the expertise of real lawmakers and politicians, I gave the video a like because I appreciate TED providing a platform for interesting concepts and ideas.
Our "Real lawmakers and Politicians" undervalued themselves when they drove the National Debt to 20 Trillion dollars. Only a bought and paid for Politician would think of doing something like that just to get Reelected.
this needs MORE VIEWS
TRUE
Democracy makes no sense as the sole central decision making process of a government. If a question is too complex, chaotic or mysterious to be understood then the most reasonable position is to not make any judgement and just admit you don't understand. We have no right to tell other people that their opinions are incorrect. If a decision is to be reached about this sort of question via majority vote then there will probably be a large group of people who feel oppressed. A majority oppressing a minority. If a question is simple enough to be rationally understood by anyone then we should be able to reach a decision through democratic consensus. If a question is very complex and therefore requires expertise, then a panel of experts appointed by examination should make a judgement.
It's a very interesting concept.
I'd like to see it tried and tested, because yes there are plenty of issues and if a new system would improve upon that, even just slightly I'd be up for it.
It would at least prevent people with selfish power hungry motivations from reaching the positions they want (at least more than now)
A few problems that come to mind are random people are extremely easy to manipulate, corporations or individuals could hold a lot of power, because if you bring a random person into a difficult and completely new job, they gave no idea on the nuances and can't tell if they're being had as easily.
Also me personally, I wouldn't really want to run the country, it sounds selfish, but I have a career I'm trying to pursue and to be taken out for a few years could genuinely destroy that, and you'd find a lot of people would have that simple issue of not wanting to do it, maybe anxiety issues or alot of other things. Maybe an opt out clause, but then you'd sift out a lot of demographics and naturally skew the views towards people who want to run the country (basically polititions now haha)
lol yea u spittin facts, everythig turns to an oligarchy eventually.
The solution to the first problem is just choosing more than 1 person pick 1000 people some of them are bound to have some ideia of what to do
I've been working on this for about 8yrs or so now. Here's a few other things that would need to be implemented to really make a go of it. The system of selecting the people cannot be rigged. The people selected have to go through a screening the make sure they're sane, not racist, and not affiliated with any type of criminal activity or organizations. Once put into position, there has to be a system to keep them from using said position for their own/family/friends benefit or to specifically harm others. They serve their set term, then are taken out of the lottery. I have a journal full of ways to do this. Thinking of making a website where people can read it and add to it, and/or correct any mistakes they find in it.
absolute awesome, would you like to share it here?
What if we voted for people who were qualified?
That is a thing. It's called technocracy. It's a system where people work at jobs they're qualified for.
That's actually how current democracy is done and it doesn't work, like, at all
The Metal Worm If current democracy doesn't work then tell me why you aren't disappearing for saying that as you would in the USSR criticizing the totalitarian government 🤔
Wyatt Bakke If you think democracy is limited to being able to say whatever you want, your standards are pretty low. I'm saying democracy isn't working because people don't trust the politicians, they don't feel like they're being heard. They don't feel like what they think matters to those they elected to take decisions aka corrupt politicians who only care about power.
If you don't trust somebody you know or knew, you don't deserve to trust your politicians. We all make mistakes, you just have to accept that. As if the people who complain about it themselves don't realize that all they care about is maintaining their current standard and improving their position just as the politicians.
It seems ideal to combine random selection with election, the ability for the people to select from a set of candidates. We could:
- randomly select a set of candidates (X per office)
- give them each a fixed amount of campaign resources and don't allow fund raising
- require each to get roughly equal coverage time from the media
- ensure debates are held and rules enforced (e.g. time limits per response)
- let the affected constituents vote from amongst the available candidates
This has the advantages of random selection (no more career politicians willing to sell out to stay in office) without the downside of just assigning offices randomly. If a complete psycho is randomly selected as a candidate, odds are that there would be better candidates selected to campaign for the same office, and that should be exposed through the campaign process, giving the psycho less of a chance of of being elected. Our current system doesn't prevent this because narcissistic psychos can have huge campaign budgets and receive grossly unequal media coverage (for ratings).
Most interesting.
And I believe it would work.
If something works or not depends on completing a purpose, which depends on someone's opinion. The problem with that is ethical, everybody will still be forced to participate at gunpoint.
in the ideal system, their are no gun points
except maybe the public's wrath
Sortition ignores that a staff of professionals behind the scenes are actually writing these laws on behalf of the politicians and cross checking to make sure that there aren't contradictions between the new and existing laws. Politicians also pick up knowledge as well as they do their jobs.
Sortition replaces the politician and his/her staff with what amounts to a jury. This jury cannot rely too much on professionals (staff or bureaucrats) because then the staff/bureaucrats would be in control. The jury would become a rubber stamp. So, the legislative jury is going to have to actually write laws itself.
Law is a profession not unlike plumbing. Majority of it is grunt work that relies on knowing the mechanics of how laws and government work. What would you think if a non-plumber designed a plumbing system and then insisted it was as good as if a plumber had designed it? I used to live in such a house and experienced the sewage backups firsthand.
Expertise matters. If you consider George W. Bush and Donald Trump to be of roughly the same raw intelligence and roughly the same political goals, George W. was at least aware of the mechanics of laws and government before taking office. As a result, he did better at being president than Trump is doing.
A legislative jury might have the best intentions, but our sewage is going to back up.
emawerna, furthermore, I’m extremely opposed to the age quota idea. I don’t want some 18 or 25 year old who hasn’t watched their country repeat mistakes go up there and decide that mistake sounds like a great, fresh idea.
I’d prefer a modification of our current system: keep electing politicians but give citizens more power to kick them out if they turn out to be corrupt or inept.
I’m speaking from a place where I’m watching Justin Trudeau jerk Canada around. 2019 can’t come soon enough.
Politicians are professionals who believe strongly in their principles and in helping the people that elected them, keep it as it is.
When the sink is broken, why not sort random people instead of calling the plumber? So they can do what they think it's better! Sounds great.
Leonardo why do you think any politician is more qualified than a plumber to work as a representative?
big guy he’s saying the opposite
Yeah but you’ve got a choice between 2 plumbers that both just want your money and are more than happy to flood the house in the process. That’s the current state of things.
Not a perfect solution but there’s validity in getting shot of career politicians that have alterer motives than the betterment of society
Sean Macneil yes, the fundamental thing is that a person has choice. If there is a plumber that floods your house, you can choose not to pay him. And get his company to pay for the damage.
This is called responsability, and everyone who works has to deal with it. Politicians too.
Actually it does sound great. They may flood the first guy's bathroom, but probably not the next, and definitely not the 10th. The other randomly selected plumbers are the exact same condition. Netting not a small sample of "plumbers," instead a large sample of "people" that know how to be plumbers.
The moment he said "introduce it in schools" & it hit me: what about those people who do NOT want responsibility? People ditch jury duty. Why would they be willing to drop everything they're doing and go to Parliament to do even more important things that might even kill people if they do them wrong? This method also fails to take into account that not all people have the abilities and skill sets for it. What will happen the day the randomly selected members are all equally incompetent inspite of the group being demographically representative? Illiteracy and lack of higher education are very real problems in a lot of places. Just because a sample is representative doesn't mean it will work well. If for example there's a large ghetto or slum big & populous enough to warrant it's own constituency and the people there form their own governing body, they might just leave things worse off than when they started because they don't know how to fix things or because they end up becoming corrupt. Similarly if you have a large affluent neighbourhood governing body, they might give themselves tax benefits and other priveleges that their status doesn't warrant them having, like government subsidies on necessities. Any system can be exploited. Humans are just that selfish. The only place this will work perfectly is exactly the same place it was invented: a small but well-educated & developed region where everyone knows almost everybody else personally or at least knows about them. Not just sortition specifically, but democracy itself gets weaker and less satisfactory the larger and less developed the area under it becomes.
There is still a glaring flaw here. This model could be successful if applied to a racially homogenous society, but that is rarely the case in democracy. Arguments over representation are still inevitable. Even if reps are selected proportionately by race, the population will still argue over ancestral claims. Each race needs to have its own politics, lands, and resources that are resistant to external influence. Linguistics and ideology also need to be accounted for and need to have controlled representation.
This is a really interesting idea. I’d suggest a couple of modifications:
Restrict the random selection to people with at minimum a GED
keep who it is secret ideally consider sequestering them from the general public while in power not from news and media just from those who’d use bribery, threat or violence to influence their vote.
The problem is not the democracy or politician, the problem is the society where we live. The value that we give our kids. This is wat make us and our live in the next years.
Interesting venue to make such a proposition on...
Of course this "randomly selected group" would have to include those citizens who cannot properly read and write in English and those who do not even know what a "TED talk" is - and if they did, would certainly not choose to listen to one!
You will also be dealing with an overly large percentage of room temperature IQ's... as well as those who have not cracked a book since high school. (where they learned all about geography :)
Great idea! NOT!
Like the movie Idiocracy!
You'd have to develop a culture that has a higher degree of intellectuals and faith in the institution.
That said I'd trust average people over politicians any day.
I feel like lobbyists would find a way around this, somehow.
- how should we live together ?
- liberal democracy might be the answer
- the ideal of democracy is different from the reality
- political characters and structures are distorted
- 2 choices : choose a new regime or repair it all
- sortition : choose random people and put them in the Parliament
- choose a representative sample
- he argues that diversity can overcome ability
- he takes the example of an athenian device to prove legitimacy
- how to remake democracy ? experiment with sortition in schools or in assemblies, create a movement, create a second chamber of citizens
This is a great way to make the Hunger Games a reality.
I wish being a politician paid as much as fast food.
No one is allowed to quit, they are randomly selected, and the better they do for the community the sooner they can go back to their old life!
How much linguistic gymnastics does it take to convince tens of thousands of listeners that it's a good idea to put control of the entire nation in the hands of random people instead of elected people, or qualified people? That the nation's nukes should be at the whim of your Logan-Paul loving neighbor? How about the masses that LOVE Catching up with the Kardashians?
I don't loathe society in general, I don't have a complex of 'ugh society is composed of idiots' -- it's not. BUT if you select randomly, as is being suggested, you pull in some portion of people who are absolutely unqualified and then give them world-swaying power. This is exactly how you demolish a country overnight, or cause extinction of an entire species via global nuclear war. But hey, it's anti-American so TED publishes it gladly.
I agree with this sortition he speaks of because it would at least make people more involved in the government instead of feeling powerless like we do now.
What about a mix of both? One assembly of people be a partition democracy and another assembly of people be experts that get voted in in the normal fashion. Both assemblies would have to work together to get things passed, and you’d have a mix of the common folk (potentially less corruption, more down to earth) and experts (more informed decisions, perhaps more dispassionate).