From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Fri May 28 2004 - 05:34:11 MDT
> I have been trying to work out a system I call the
> Random Mandarin which would be a debugged form of
> democracy. Some science-fiction writers have suggested
> ideas of this sort, but not gone into much detail that
> I know of.
My friend George Christos, when I lived in Western Australia, wrote a
paper on what he called the "Random Parliament" system, very similar to
what you propose. He circulated it in the Australian government but
predictably enough it never got any traction.
One problem with the plan is the extent to which non-elected powers
actually control the government --- e.g. in the US, the
military-industrial complex, and the health care industry. Randomly
selected parliamentarians who are ignorant of politics may become dupes
for the permanent civil servants and government-contractor leeches who
feed them information and *actually* run things...
-- Ben G
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