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Comment by jleyank | Hacker News Reader

"Longer terms for politicians leads to better government. If legislators were elected for terms of 9 or 11 years then the democracies would enjoy much better leadership than what they currently get."

Then by simple reasoning, the best government possible would be to elect them for life - they'd never have to pander again. Yeah, there's a /s missing, but I think you'd get better government by attracting better people than those interested in being in government. Perhaps term limits, certainly limits on lobbying or donations, anything to make corruption harder and (somehow) make results attainable.

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>Then by simple reasoning

yeah, but more complex reasoning might suppose that for some things there might be a sweet spot, that is to say the efficiency might rise for a number of years, but then decline.

Or, to add complexity, longer terms would improve some measures and worsen others, each measure having its own sweet spot.

Then it's left to each stakeholder to weigh the importance of each factor to them. To find the global optimum you then need to weight the relative importance of each stakeholder and each opinion held by each.

Impossible, of course!

Edit: that's not even including how all of these assessments vary over time, and also the peoples' expectations and predictions of the future variation, even if all of the above is known at one point in time.

>Or, to add complexity, longer terms would improve some measures and worsen others, each measure having its own sweet spot.

So maybe there shouldn't be a signle government? But e.g. elect a "government for economy", "government for internal affairs", "government for education" etc?

From the essay:

"Finally, I’ll add a different kind of example, an example we mentioned in an earlier essay: it is worth noting that during the debate over the Brexit treaty, from 2016-2020, the Tories in the House Of Lords were far more reasonable and rational than the Tories in the House Of Commons. This example is especially interesting since we are comparing people who belonged to the same political party. The only difference between them is that one group was free to think about the long-term consequences of the treaty, while the other group was under pressure to pander."

> The only difference between them is that one group was free to think about the long-term consequences of the treaty, while the other group was under pressure to pander.

I agree that's the difference, I don't think it comes from the term length though. The lords are toothless so it doesen't make sense to apply your presure/lobying there. Also some percentage of them weren't politicians before being named in the lords.

I think of this as the "If one beer is good, ten beers must be even better!" fallacy.

It probably has a formal name that I won't look up right now.

I’m not exactly sure if this is formally defined, but at the very least it seems like black and white thinking, e.g. more = good, less = bad, therefore more + more must be good too.

It ignores the nuance of what happens as the quantity grows.

If I stay awake for two extra hours, I can get more done in a day. Conclusion: I’ll stay up 24 hours/day for maximum efficiency.

The supreme court while not a directly elected body, is selected by elected officials. They are selected for life and for the most part are less partisan and less pandering. On the other hand, they are there for life.

For elected officials, I would like longer terms for members of the house of representatives to have longer terms but with an option to get kicked out, if they severely underperform or go against their mandate --but kicking them out should take 60% rather than simple majority to avoid the threat of agitators who constantly would threaten recall elections. Just like calls to the 25 amendment should have to go through a non-partisan committee made up of independents to decide if an official should be removed --not just because the opposition does not like the official.

This is it quite so true in the us now, which will hurt the reputation of the supremes and harm political unity/involvement. Gotta pick “good people” for these kinds of jobs rather than flunkies.

>>> members of the house of representatives ... to get kicked out

That is in the federal constitution for Senators. Or it was until the lobbyists took over by pretending things would be better if Senators are beholden to lobbyists instead of being recalled by States.

https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/inte...

Good read, for those interested in going back to what worked better. "George Mason argued that state legislative selection gave states the power of self-defense against the federal government."

It is often said that the USA Supreme Court is politicized because it is chosen by elected officials, whereas in Britain the recommendations for the high court is made by legalists, and therefore the British high court is less political.

Length of terms is not the sole parameter.

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