Research Suggests Politicians Are More Likely to Be Psychopaths
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
> In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.
Athens was a literal minority patriacharcy of landlords, and I don't say that to be contentious or a social justice warrior, etc. just to blandly point out a dull truth.
Its not like we have the modern equivalent of the ancient chinese civil servant exam so that civil servants at least have some basic level of competency. Picking at random cannot possibly be any worse than what we have, it would reduce corruption and would create the incentive to invest more in the education of the general public.
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Politics, and the our modern. electoral processes in particular, selects for psychopathy since, all else being equal, the charming psycho candidate is more likely to win and level up (to a more prominent election contest).
If there are five election levels (school board -> state house -> house -> senate/governor/president) each with a small bias, by the time a candidate reaches the top he's been fairly well selected for total PoS.
all other political appointments should be ranked choice or like that parliament system where if x party gets 30 percent of vote they get to appoint 30 percent of the positions.
It would beat the part
Make it a grass roots constitutional amendment campaign in the US.
Then, the problem solves itself because the political career no longer becomes a viable power grab. And money interests can’t work fast enough to buy favors.
A secretary problem setup would eliminate the worst candidates while removing the traditional political gauntlet that selects for lizard people. Purely random also works as there is still a general election.
It's an inherent problem with a society I think. That it gives them something to climb, to get control of.
It only makes sense that the ruling class will be full of lizards. And the most dedicated lizards will be on top.
I guess this is a society-engineering problem. How to make a lizardproof society?
Title asserts "research suggests" yet neither cites nor mentions any actual research while quoting commentary from a social magazine article.
This is low quality fodder for gossip.
I just look at those behaviors as huge billboards that broadcast what's wrong with that person (as long as it's a stranger; if they're not a stranger it's a completely different story)
Lets make it into a normal job. 40 hrs per week, an expectation of privacy for those in the role and their families, and remove the cameras from the debating chambers so they can actually speak their minds instead of grandstanding for the home audience. Reduce the length of elections to 2 months max so that campaigning isn't a full time job in itself too
Empathy is important. Sure, too much of it, like anything else is bad. But not showing it at all is worse.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.