Comment by jongjong | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jongjong | Hacker News Reader

I think democracy by lottery may be a good idea provided that the outcome of the lottery can be trusted. It could be done through a cryptographically-verifiable (e.g. blockchain-based) random number generator.

The average citizen is more principled and less prone to corruption than the average modern politician. I don't think it would be a problem if politicians ended up more naive as a result. Just having well-meaning politicians would be a significant step up.

That said, I think we should rely less on government intervention in the economy. We need to fix the monetary system to provide a level playing field, then once that's done, we need to trim back regulations. The way to solve the corporate monopolization problem is through increased competition. The government's primary role should be to promote maximum decentralization.

The government should not concern itself with equality of outcomes; it should only concern itself with equality of opportunities. It should not think about efficiency; it should trust the free market to take care of that.

> The average citizen is more principled and less prone to corruption than the average modern politician.

This claim needs some back up. I don't think there's an innate difference between an "average citizen" and an "average modern politician". What separates them is the opportunity, and having a system in place that works to keep people honest. I'm watching my fellow citizens litter and help themselves to "free stuff", and the behavior of freshly minted "politicians" who get voted in by disgruntled voters of formerly fringe parties (or formerly fringe wings of established parties).

I'd like to hear how you propose to keep the "average citizen" principled in the face of increased access to opportunity and power.

>I don't think there's an innate difference between an "average citizen" and an "average modern politician"

That's silly. The politician is completing in a race that they are trying to win. The citizen is just trying to live, and takes time out of their life to vote and pick someone who might (might!) have a shot at fixing some of the things that annoy them without breaking some of the things that actually work. The politician is goal-oriented, the citizen is existence-oriented.

Yes, so the politician is at least trying to understand and represent other people's views. They've made the decision to take the heat and are psychologically prepared for it.

Choosing people at random is not going to work well. Look at what happens with juries - lots of people find creative ways to get out of jury duty and that's for a way smaller commitment of time than a political term. The randomly chosen person won't want to be in government at all. Their life has just been totally up-ended through no fault of their own. Now no matter what they do, they're going to be wildly famous and wildly unpopular with huge segments of the population. All they wanted was to do their job and take care of their family, now they're getting harassed on the street by political enemies, having to go on TV, having to justify their decisions to journalists. Presumably some of the really unlucky ones will have to become ministers, but how do they even get picked?

No, the randomly chosen person has no reason to give a single damn about anything or anyone except themselves in that position. Heck half of them will be thinking: if I just refuse to turn up to work, maybe there'll be a recall and a new person will be randomly chosen.

Then take into account all the exceptions and justifiable reasons why people will be able to get out of this duty (e.g. because they're sick, because they're caregivers, because they're non-citizens, because they're mothers, because their company testifies that person is critical to their operations, etc). The ones you'll end up with are the ones who have nothing better to do. Expect the terminally unemployed to be over-represented.

So, I actually responded purely about your narrow claim, and not about picking citizens at random. I don't really have an opinion about that. Although I would point out that right now we're selecting for a certain type of person who wants to win and can take heat and craft messaging and analyze options in terms of communications spending. But narcissism, more than anything, seems required. What else drives someone to become a politician? Precious few politicians seem like they were "called" to do that work, despite wanting a more humble, quieter life. Maybe someone like Jimmy Carter? I'd say its an intriguing idea, one worth trying on a more local scale, like for mayor or city counsel. See if things fall apart. If not, try at a higher scale, and repeat.

I think quite a lot of the politicians I've interacted with (in the UK) actually do seem to believe in public service. They certainly aren't all narcissists.

> I don't think there's an innate difference between an "average citizen" and an "average modern politician".

There is a difference: politicians actively seek power. This already raises suspicions about a person, in my opinion.

Also, running for office takes money, so the average modern politician needs to raise a lot of money. How do you raise a lot of money? Make friends with rich people and do favors for them, obviously.

>> What separates them is the opportunity

Exactly. In the current system, a candidate requires substantial funding in order to run. Who has that kind of money to spend on politics? Big corporations! What sort of people would these corporations want in government?

The most valuable trait in a politician from the perspective of a big corporate donor is corruptibility (their eagerness to cater to the needs of big financial interests). They are literally put forward on that basis. If the selection process was random, then political candidates would only be as corrupt as the average person; which would not be too bad.

I don't know, it's of course very popular to bash on politicians, no one likes them. Me neither.

But at least in my country and city, if decisions were made by the average citizen, we would be living as in the 80s. Every time they remove a parking spot to make room for a bike lane or a wider sidewalk, people complain (even if in the long term, many end up seeing the benefits). Maybe it depends on the country, but at least in my place the average citizen is very, very reactionary. They want everything as it always was.

Politicians, with all their failures (we have plenty of corrupt ones here), tend to have more long-term thinking that Joe Sixpack.

Unfortunately I don't see how that would stop big industries just turning up on day two with their lobbying for the outcomes they want, and we end up in a very similar world anyway.

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