My interest is in improving democracy. I believe things like Trump, or Netanyahou, or Erdogan, or most democratic backsliding is a sign of democratic incompetence.
I think most people have little to no long-term vision for the question, “What would an advanced government of the future actually look like?” How much better could the world become if governments were smarter and more capable and just produced vastly more utility for people?
There is one thing I think is a strong contender for a superior future government. It’s called sortition. The premise is simple. In elections everybody participates. In sortition, a random sample of the public is chosen to participate. The benefit of sortition is scalability. Randomly chosen people, compensated or forced to participate, can engage in politics at enormous timescales compared to the average voter. More time to ask questions. Resources to become informed. The ability to seek and hire expertise. I elaborate about alleged benefits here.
Of course there’s a lot to do. First we need to prove the hypothesis. We have reasons why we think this is good, next we need to actually go out and test it. That takes a lot of money and research. This research will add evidence in its feasibility and capability. After that, if testing determines this thing to actually be good, more money is needed to campaign in favor of it.
Trump assuredly will not be the last authoritarian to arise out of liberal elections. If you value people’s freedom, if you wish to maximize utility, we should be looking for better things out there.
As far as why things like sortition would stop Trump, competent governments that are able to make their citizens feel content and satisfied with government performance, do not tend to appeal to tyrants for aid. Moreover if sortition is actually an effective way to organize people, it also might be an effective way to organize the Democratic Party.
Another powerful feature of sortition is its potential ability to create Democratic Legitimacy without going through the bureaucracy of government. For example, a Citizens’ Assembly can be potentially created through private funding, or through a referendum. A Citizens’ Assembly could be used as a presidential candidate selection system, and could delegitimize Trump or any other un-endorsed candidate.
Even if this is a “long-termist” project, the resources needed to say, test sortition, or launch a Citizens’ Assembly, are only in the millions of dollars. The economic benefits could be immense. Imagine a government that’s only 5% more efficient at increasing utility… that’s hundreds of billions of dollars of value per year. If the will was there, testing could happen immediately and we’d have results out before the end of Trump’s term.
Of course this won’t happen, not because it’s infeasible, but because there’s not yet funding, because sortition is mostly unheard of, because the idea hasn’t reached the ears of funders. Or if it has, the funders have just written it off for unknown reasons. Tractability is a typical excuse I hear, yet I’m not sure how sortition is any less tractable than any other long-termist project out there.
My interest is in improving democracy. I believe things like Trump, or Netanyahou, or Erdogan, or most democratic backsliding is a sign of democratic incompetence.
I think most people have little to no long-term vision for the question, “What would an advanced government of the future actually look like?” How much better could the world become if governments were smarter and more capable and just produced vastly more utility for people?
There is one thing I think is a strong contender for a superior future government. It’s called sortition. The premise is simple. In elections everybody participates. In sortition, a random sample of the public is chosen to participate. The benefit of sortition is scalability. Randomly chosen people, compensated or forced to participate, can engage in politics at enormous timescales compared to the average voter. More time to ask questions. Resources to become informed. The ability to seek and hire expertise. I elaborate about alleged benefits here.
Of course there’s a lot to do. First we need to prove the hypothesis. We have reasons why we think this is good, next we need to actually go out and test it. That takes a lot of money and research. This research will add evidence in its feasibility and capability. After that, if testing determines this thing to actually be good, more money is needed to campaign in favor of it.
Trump assuredly will not be the last authoritarian to arise out of liberal elections. If you value people’s freedom, if you wish to maximize utility, we should be looking for better things out there.
As far as why things like sortition would stop Trump, competent governments that are able to make their citizens feel content and satisfied with government performance, do not tend to appeal to tyrants for aid. Moreover if sortition is actually an effective way to organize people, it also might be an effective way to organize the Democratic Party.
Another powerful feature of sortition is its potential ability to create Democratic Legitimacy without going through the bureaucracy of government. For example, a Citizens’ Assembly can be potentially created through private funding, or through a referendum. A Citizens’ Assembly could be used as a presidential candidate selection system, and could delegitimize Trump or any other un-endorsed candidate.
Even if this is a “long-termist” project, the resources needed to say, test sortition, or launch a Citizens’ Assembly, are only in the millions of dollars. The economic benefits could be immense. Imagine a government that’s only 5% more efficient at increasing utility… that’s hundreds of billions of dollars of value per year. If the will was there, testing could happen immediately and we’d have results out before the end of Trump’s term.
Of course this won’t happen, not because it’s infeasible, but because there’s not yet funding, because sortition is mostly unheard of, because the idea hasn’t reached the ears of funders. Or if it has, the funders have just written it off for unknown reasons. Tractability is a typical excuse I hear, yet I’m not sure how sortition is any less tractable than any other long-termist project out there.