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Comment by christkv | Hacker News Reader

I'm more and more convinced that parliament or congress by lottery would be more representative and functional as well as the death of all political parties as they exist today.

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How do you prevent the representatives, who are laymen with no political experience from being captured by career bureaucrats and/or lobbyists?

You could get a few people who are immune to power seeking and thus would never end up holding office otherwise.

Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury.

I mean if you really wanted to get futuristic about it you could even have a sort of crypto sortition where everyone is completely anonymous and representatives don't even know each others identity.

> Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury.

A jury also gets to hear arguments from both the prosecution and the defense. For complex trials this can last weeks/months. Presumably for the "jury" legislature that you propose, you'd want lobbyists/bureaucrats to plead their case. How do you prevent them from being hoodwinked by the lobbyists/bureaucrats? If you think that they shouldn't be able to hear arguments from lobbyists/bureaucrats, how do you prevent them from coming up with absolutely braindead policies like "haha tax cuts/spending go brrr"?

I should have been more precise. I don't have an issue with public information being accessible, in fact that's kind of necessary for any democratic deliberation. What I think is relevant is nothing going out. A lobbyist making their case openly to the public is fine, that's just speech essentially, although you can have a different discussion about the media around it.

But the important benefit of an anonymous sortition in particular to me is that there is no connection between individuals and lobbyists. You cannot trade personal favours down the line. The pernicious part to me is when the guy who regulates the arms industry gets a board seat ten years later.

Essentially what I think of as ideal is a sort of black box. Uncorrelated, impersonal, representative and random snapshot of the public opinion on an issue. Transparency is I think the worst celebrated value because it opens decision makers up for capture. If the policies are still braindead afterwards, well I think then we're democratically at our wits' end.

thats a good point

probably there would have to many kinds of concurrent reforms and adjustments to make something like that work...

some type of lobbying reform would have to take place, as well as some kind of basic reasoning/education tests for sortition... also perhaps candidates could be picked by sortition but you'd have to get a winning vote by a majority of people etc... i wonder if there are any studies/books about this kind of thing

Presumably, like in a court of law, there could be rules and restrictions about what sort of arguments you're allowed to make in front of the jury. Just like there's some evidence and arguments that are inadmissible in court, various things (Bribery, threats, ad-hominem attacks) could be inadmissible in Congress. I haven't thought through all the implications, and you'd probably need a "judge" to interpret and enforce those restrictions.

I think a bicameral system with a House of Representatives (with a much larger body, with the number of constituents per representative fixed) and the a other body (we could even still call it the Senate for continuity and familiarity) being selected by sortition the way you describe would work well, and be a good transition step

I don't think there is a benefit to any kind of bicameral system, regardless of how it is setup. A large unicameral system allows for more direct representation and should limit the influence of money when combined with term limits.

"Tyranny of the majority" seems like more of a problem for the rich and powerful, in my experience.

“Tyranny of the majority”

I dunno, I can definitely think of some times in our history when it impacted the poorest people.

I think there’s something very useful in the elections for representatives, in terms of it being an official poll of the people.

I think sortition is a really interesting concept and could work well, but I think it won’t work if it’s the only legislative body. I would be pretty starkly against that, but I would support reforms that made it the second legislative body.

If you really want a unicameral system as your top priority, I’d support a proportional representation House of Representatives.

Proportional does not work. Most European parliaments are proportional and has the same dysfunctions as the us system. The root is always the parties. They have to go.

> The root is always the parties. They have to go.

I don't really think sortition itself would kill the parties. It does seem like a good way to weaken them, but...I suspect they would find a way to survive.

I genuinely don't know of how to do away with political parties. Is there a good example of a democratic system (or a governance by the people) that doesn't have political parties?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Venice

I used to joke that, but each day makes me think it may actually do some good even if it will introduce some chaos to the process.

Stochastic democracy!

It would certainly force a more simplified system which would benefit everyone.

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