I expected that the footnote would tell us how statistics tells us why a small sample size, if truly random, could represent hundreds of millions of people. Or at least point us to a good reference. Instead, it gave different numbers for other Athenian governmental bodies.
I think this section is perhaps the most interesting so far, which is saying a lot, because the whole thing has been so interesting!! The issue of scale is at the root of the effectiveness of democratic institutions. Given what you have mentioned about the Greeks notions of democracy and oligarchy, I would guess that those arguing that sortition was just a random way to choose representatives is wrong. I would encourage you to footnote that section extensively to give readers the details each time you say “some” would say this or that.
National referendums on important issues would certainly be contentious, given both the current difficulties with voting in presidential elections and the issues use raise later in the book with the elite not wanting the rabble to have a say in important policy decisions since the elite would inevitably lose since they are a small minority. In addition, due to media capture and the amount the elite would have to lose (in power and wealth), these votes would be a circus that would be unlikely to work. However, some sort of advisory vote might work. In the end, I think your argument for citizen assemblies that are chosen by lot would be the best solution, especially for important issues.
Voluntary service for policy making is certainly an interesting idea. A criticism of sortition is that you might get folks that don’t want to or don’t have the time or background or fortitude making important decisions for the community or nation. Some sort of mixture of the two could work, if reasonably representative. To me, the key to policy making bodies is in the rules that they follow. In many cases, these bodies end up being totally internally run, with politics and power plays determining what gets on the agenda and what gets accomplished. Seems to me that the only rule that matters is the effect on the community being served, and probably the only way to keep the internal bickering to a minimum is to rotate members, as you suggest. I wondered while reading this section if AI or robots with sufficient intelligence and programmed with the good of the community as the goal could be the ultimate legislators!
I can imagine that not too far in the future that AI might be deployed to draft several competing possible policies on a particular problem... other AIs then giving arguments for and against each of those policies, and a final round of human experts with opposing views then making final arguments for and against each draft policy, with a large representative jury making the final assessment and decision (the only ones that can be trusted to reflect human values).
Speaking of voluntary service, I wonder if a quick fix to elections, at least on a local level, could be that boards and councils could be filled with a reasonable amount of volunteers who would be given the rule that their opinions on issues were not how decisions would be made, but only with the effects on the community being considered. It’s just the reality that at the local and small size level, elections for boards and councils are usually just volunteers being confirmed as members by a very small percentage of the electorate. Lots of time and cost could be saved by just having volunteers join these bodies. Even in the case of the board or council having a few more members than they are used to (if more than one volunteer for each current position applied), it should work better than currently.
I expected that the footnote would tell us how statistics tells us why a small sample size, if truly random, could represent hundreds of millions of people. Or at least point us to a good reference. Instead, it gave different numbers for other Athenian governmental bodies.
I think this section is perhaps the most interesting so far, which is saying a lot, because the whole thing has been so interesting!! The issue of scale is at the root of the effectiveness of democratic institutions. Given what you have mentioned about the Greeks notions of democracy and oligarchy, I would guess that those arguing that sortition was just a random way to choose representatives is wrong. I would encourage you to footnote that section extensively to give readers the details each time you say “some” would say this or that.
National referendums on important issues would certainly be contentious, given both the current difficulties with voting in presidential elections and the issues use raise later in the book with the elite not wanting the rabble to have a say in important policy decisions since the elite would inevitably lose since they are a small minority. In addition, due to media capture and the amount the elite would have to lose (in power and wealth), these votes would be a circus that would be unlikely to work. However, some sort of advisory vote might work. In the end, I think your argument for citizen assemblies that are chosen by lot would be the best solution, especially for important issues.
Voluntary service for policy making is certainly an interesting idea. A criticism of sortition is that you might get folks that don’t want to or don’t have the time or background or fortitude making important decisions for the community or nation. Some sort of mixture of the two could work, if reasonably representative. To me, the key to policy making bodies is in the rules that they follow. In many cases, these bodies end up being totally internally run, with politics and power plays determining what gets on the agenda and what gets accomplished. Seems to me that the only rule that matters is the effect on the community being served, and probably the only way to keep the internal bickering to a minimum is to rotate members, as you suggest. I wondered while reading this section if AI or robots with sufficient intelligence and programmed with the good of the community as the goal could be the ultimate legislators!
I can imagine that not too far in the future that AI might be deployed to draft several competing possible policies on a particular problem... other AIs then giving arguments for and against each of those policies, and a final round of human experts with opposing views then making final arguments for and against each draft policy, with a large representative jury making the final assessment and decision (the only ones that can be trusted to reflect human values).
Speaking of voluntary service, I wonder if a quick fix to elections, at least on a local level, could be that boards and councils could be filled with a reasonable amount of volunteers who would be given the rule that their opinions on issues were not how decisions would be made, but only with the effects on the community being considered. It’s just the reality that at the local and small size level, elections for boards and councils are usually just volunteers being confirmed as members by a very small percentage of the electorate. Lots of time and cost could be saved by just having volunteers join these bodies. Even in the case of the board or council having a few more members than they are used to (if more than one volunteer for each current position applied), it should work better than currently.