TLDR: “weighted republican meritocracy.” Tries to discount the votes of people who don’t know what the hell they’re voting for by making them take a test and wighting the votes by the scores, but also adjusts for the fact that wealth and literacy are correlated.
Occasionally, I come up with retarded ideas. I invented two perpetual motion machines and one perpetual money machine when I was younger. Later, I learned the exact reason they wouldn’t work, but at the time I thought I’ll be a billionaire. I’m going through it again. The idea seems obviously good to me, but the fact that it didn’t occur to much smarter people makes me wary.
Besides that, I also don’t expect the idea to be implemented anywhere in this millennium, whether it’s good or not.
Anyway, the idea. You have probably heard of people who think vaccines cause autism, or post on Rapture Ready forums, or that the Easter Bunny is real, and grumbled about letting these people vote. Stupid people voting was what the Electoral College was supposed to ameliorate (AFAICT), although I would be much obliged if someone explained how it’s supposed to help.
I call my idea republican meritocracy. Under this system, before an election, the government would write a book consisting of:
multiple descriptions of each candidate, written by both vir and vis competitors. Also, voting histories in previous positions, alignment with various organizations, and maybe examples where the candidate admitted, in plain words, that ve was wrong.
a multi-sided description of, or a debate about, several policy issues.
econ 101 (midterm)
political science 101 (midterm)
the history of the jurisdiction to which the election applies.
critical thinking 101.
Then, each citizen who wants to participate in the elections would read this book and take a test based on its contents. The score determines the influence you have on the election.
Admittedly, this will not eliminate all people with stupid ideas, but it might get rid of those who simply don’t care, and reduce the influence of not-book-people.
A problem, though, is that literacy is correlated with wealth. Thus, a system that rewards literacy would also favor wealth. So my idea also includes classifying people into equal-sized brackets by wealth, calculating how much influence each one has due to the number of people in it who took the test and their average score, and adjusting the weight of each vote so that each bracket would have the same influence. Thus, although the opinions of deer stuck in headlights would be discounted, the poor, as a group, will still have a voice.
This may be enough reason to dismiss the proposal. If something like that may exist, it would be better if someone who has at least some chance of being impartial in the election designs the test.
And how exactly do you plan you keep political biases out of the test? According to your point 2, the voters would be questioned about their opinion in a debate about several policy issues. This doesn’t look like a good idea.
The correlation between literacy and wealth seems a little problem compared to the probability of abuse which the system has.
I said that the book would be authored by the candidates, each one covering each issue from his own POV.
That may be better, I misunderstood you because you said also that the government would write the book.
But still, I have almost no idea how the test could look like. Would you present a sample question from the test, together with rules for evaluation of the answers?
8) What does candidate Roy Biv blame for the failure of the dam in Oregon? a. Human error b. Severe weather conditions c. Terrorist attack d. Supernatural agents
16) According to the Michels study, quoted on p. 133, what is the probability that coprolalia is causally linked with nanocomputer use? (pick closest match) a. 0-25% b. 26-50% c. 51-75% d. 76-100%
What problem is this trying to address? Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter makes the case that democracies choose bad policies because the psychological benefit from voting in particular ways (which are systematically biased) far outweigh the expected value of the individual’s vote. To the extent that your system reduces the number of people that vote, it seems to me that a carefully designed sortition system would be much less costly, and also sidesteps all sorts of nasty political issues about who designs the test, and public choice issues of special interests wanting to capture government power.
The basic idea of a literacy test isn’t really new, and as a matter of fact seems to have still been floating around the U.S. at late as the 1960s
And why do you claim this is “republican meritocracy” when it isn’t republican per se (small r)?
Erm, from that link, I understood that “sortition” means “choosing your leaders randomly”. Why would I want to do that? Is democracy really worse than random?
“And why do you claim this is “republican meritocracy” when it isn’t republican per se (small r)?”
Probably because that word doesn’t mean what I think it means. I assumed that “republican” means that people like you and me get to influence who gets elected. Which is part of my proposal.
Democracy might be worse than random if the qualities needed to win elections are too different from those needed to do the work.
Democracy might be better than random because democracy means that the most obviously dysfunctional people don’t get to hold office. This is consistent with what I believe is the best thing about democracy—it limits the power of extremely bad leaders. This seems to be more important than keeping extremely good leaders around indefinitely.
That is indeed what systematically biased voters imply. Because so many people vote, the incentive for any one to correct their bias is negligible—the overall result of the vote is not affected by doing so. Also consider that an “everyone votes” system has the expense of the vote itself and the campaigns.
Probably because that word doesn’t mean what I think it means.
Ok, it wasn’t clear that you were talking about voting within a republic from the initial post.
Well to begin with I don’t think a person needs to know even close to that amount of information to be justified in their vote and, moreover, a person can know all of that information and still vote for stupid reasons. Say I am an uneducated black person living in the segregation era in a southern American state. All I know is one candidate supports passing a civil rights bill on my behalf and the other is a bitter racist. I vote for the non-racist. Given this justification for my vote why should my vote be reduced to almost nothing because I don’t know anything else about the candidates, economics, political science etc.?
On the other hand, I could be capable of answering every question on that test correctly and still believe that the book is a lie and Barack Obama is really a secret Muslim. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve met who have taken Poli Sci, Econ (even four semsesters worth!), history and can recite candidate talking points verbatim who are still basically clueless about everything that matters.
“Well to begin with I don’t think a person needs to know even close to that amount of information to be justified in their vote and, moreover, a person can know all of that information and still vote for stupid reasons.”
So which is it?
“Given this justification for my vote why should my vote be reduced to almost nothing because I don’t know anything else about the candidates, economics, political science etc.?”
Uh… both. That is my point. Your voting conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient.
Because the civil rights guy has pardoned a convicted slave trader who contributed to his gubernatorial campaign, and the “racist” is the victim of a smear campaign. Because the civil rights guy doesn’t grok supply and demand. Because the racist supports giving veterans a pension as soon as they return, and the poor black guy is a decorated war hero.
Well the hypothetical was set in segregation era South, but maybe this wasn’t obvious, but I was talking about someone running on a platform of Jim Crow (and there were a ton of southern politicians that did this). It seems highly plausible that segregationism is a deal-breaker for some voters and even if this is their only reason for voting they are justified in their vote. It doesn’t seem the least bit implausible that this would trump knowledge of economics, veterans pensions or even the other candidate being racist (but not running on a racist platform). But my point is just that it is highly plausible a voter could be justified in their vote while not having anything approaching the kind of knowledge on that exam.
There are lots of singles issue voters- why for example should someone whose only issue is abortion have to know the candidates other positions AND economics AND history AND political science etc.???
Edit: And of course your test is going to especially difficult for certain sets of voters. You’re hardly the first person to think of doing this. There used to be a literacy test for voting… surprise it was just a way of keeping black people out of the polls.
“Your voting conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient.”
That’s not my goal. I merely want to have an electorate that doesn’t elect young-earthers to congress.
“Well the hypothetical was set in segregation era South, but maybe this wasn’t obvious, but I was talking about someone running on a platform of Jim Crow (and there were a ton of southern politicians that did this). It seems highly plausible that segregationism is a deal-breaker for some voters and even if this is their only reason for voting they are justified in their vote.”
I’m not sure why the examples I gave elicited this response. I gave reasons why even a single-issue voter would be well-advised to know whom ve’s voting for. And besides, if an opinion is held only by people who don’t understand history, that’s a bad sign.
“Edit: And of course your test is going to especially difficult for certain sets of voters.”
That’s why I made the second modifier. And there could be things other than wealth factored in, if you like—race, sex, reading-related disabilities, being a naturalized citizen...
What your system actually does is make it less likely that unorganized people with fringe ideas will vote. If there’s an organization promoting a fringe idea, it will offer election test coaching to sympathizers.
On second thought, I didn’t say what I meant. What I meant was that your approach will fail to discourage organized people with fringe ideas. They’ll form training systems to beat your tests.
Unorganized people with fringe ideas will probably be less able to vote under your system.
That the inteligent and well informed tend to be rich isn’t a problem, as this doesn’t affect their voting habits (according to Caplan).
However, your system undermines the role of voting as a check on Government; I’m fairly sure you could end up being tested on ‘cultural relations’ rather than economics.
TLDR: “weighted republican meritocracy.” Tries to discount the votes of people who don’t know what the hell they’re voting for by making them take a test and wighting the votes by the scores, but also adjusts for the fact that wealth and literacy are correlated.
Occasionally, I come up with retarded ideas. I invented two perpetual motion machines and one perpetual money machine when I was younger. Later, I learned the exact reason they wouldn’t work, but at the time I thought I’ll be a billionaire. I’m going through it again. The idea seems obviously good to me, but the fact that it didn’t occur to much smarter people makes me wary.
Besides that, I also don’t expect the idea to be implemented anywhere in this millennium, whether it’s good or not.
Anyway, the idea. You have probably heard of people who think vaccines cause autism, or post on Rapture Ready forums, or that the Easter Bunny is real, and grumbled about letting these people vote. Stupid people voting was what the Electoral College was supposed to ameliorate (AFAICT), although I would be much obliged if someone explained how it’s supposed to help.
I call my idea republican meritocracy. Under this system, before an election, the government would write a book consisting of:
multiple descriptions of each candidate, written by both vir and vis competitors. Also, voting histories in previous positions, alignment with various organizations, and maybe examples where the candidate admitted, in plain words, that ve was wrong.
a multi-sided description of, or a debate about, several policy issues.
econ 101 (midterm)
political science 101 (midterm)
the history of the jurisdiction to which the election applies.
critical thinking 101.
Then, each citizen who wants to participate in the elections would read this book and take a test based on its contents. The score determines the influence you have on the election.
Admittedly, this will not eliminate all people with stupid ideas, but it might get rid of those who simply don’t care, and reduce the influence of not-book-people.
A problem, though, is that literacy is correlated with wealth. Thus, a system that rewards literacy would also favor wealth. So my idea also includes classifying people into equal-sized brackets by wealth, calculating how much influence each one has due to the number of people in it who took the test and their average score, and adjusting the weight of each vote so that each bracket would have the same influence. Thus, although the opinions of deer stuck in headlights would be discounted, the poor, as a group, will still have a voice.
What do you think?
This may be enough reason to dismiss the proposal. If something like that may exist, it would be better if someone who has at least some chance of being impartial in the election designs the test.
And how exactly do you plan you keep political biases out of the test? According to your point 2, the voters would be questioned about their opinion in a debate about several policy issues. This doesn’t look like a good idea.
The correlation between literacy and wealth seems a little problem compared to the probability of abuse which the system has.
And why do you call it a meritocracy?
“And how exactly do you plan you keep political biases out of the test?”
I wouldn’t. I said that the book would be authored by the candidates, each one covering each issue from his own POV.
“And why do you call it a meritocracy?”
Because greater weight is given to those who understand whom they’re voting for and why. And can read. And care enough to read.
That may be better, I misunderstood you because you said also that the government would write the book.
But still, I have almost no idea how the test could look like. Would you present a sample question from the test, together with rules for evaluation of the answers?
8) What does candidate Roy Biv blame for the failure of the dam in Oregon?
a. Human error
b. Severe weather conditions
c. Terrorist attack
d. Supernatural agents
16) According to the Michels study, quoted on p. 133, what is the probability that coprolalia is causally linked with nanocomputer use? (pick closest match)
a. 0-25%
b. 26-50%
c. 51-75%
d. 76-100%
What problem is this trying to address? Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter makes the case that democracies choose bad policies because the psychological benefit from voting in particular ways (which are systematically biased) far outweigh the expected value of the individual’s vote. To the extent that your system reduces the number of people that vote, it seems to me that a carefully designed sortition system would be much less costly, and also sidesteps all sorts of nasty political issues about who designs the test, and public choice issues of special interests wanting to capture government power.
The basic idea of a literacy test isn’t really new, and as a matter of fact seems to have still been floating around the U.S. at late as the 1960s
And why do you claim this is “republican meritocracy” when it isn’t republican per se (small r)?
Erm, from that link, I understood that “sortition” means “choosing your leaders randomly”. Why would I want to do that? Is democracy really worse than random?
“And why do you claim this is “republican meritocracy” when it isn’t republican per se (small r)?”
Probably because that word doesn’t mean what I think it means. I assumed that “republican” means that people like you and me get to influence who gets elected. Which is part of my proposal.
Is democracy really worse than random?
I don’t think the matter has been well tested.
Democracy might be worse than random if the qualities needed to win elections are too different from those needed to do the work.
Democracy might be better than random because democracy means that the most obviously dysfunctional people don’t get to hold office. This is consistent with what I believe is the best thing about democracy—it limits the power of extremely bad leaders. This seems to be more important than keeping extremely good leaders around indefinitely.
Sortition worked quite well for ancient Athens. Don’t knock it.
That is indeed what systematically biased voters imply. Because so many people vote, the incentive for any one to correct their bias is negligible—the overall result of the vote is not affected by doing so. Also consider that an “everyone votes” system has the expense of the vote itself and the campaigns.
Ok, it wasn’t clear that you were talking about voting within a republic from the initial post.
EDIT: ADDRESSED BY EDIT TO ABOVE
Well to begin with I don’t think a person needs to know even close to that amount of information to be justified in their vote and, moreover, a person can know all of that information and still vote for stupid reasons. Say I am an uneducated black person living in the segregation era in a southern American state. All I know is one candidate supports passing a civil rights bill on my behalf and the other is a bitter racist. I vote for the non-racist. Given this justification for my vote why should my vote be reduced to almost nothing because I don’t know anything else about the candidates, economics, political science etc.?
On the other hand, I could be capable of answering every question on that test correctly and still believe that the book is a lie and Barack Obama is really a secret Muslim. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve met who have taken Poli Sci, Econ (even four semsesters worth!), history and can recite candidate talking points verbatim who are still basically clueless about everything that matters.
“Well to begin with I don’t think a person needs to know even close to that amount of information to be justified in their vote and, moreover, a person can know all of that information and still vote for stupid reasons.”
So which is it?
“Given this justification for my vote why should my vote be reduced to almost nothing because I don’t know anything else about the candidates, economics, political science etc.?”
Because the civil rights guy has pardoned a convicted slave trader who contributed to his gubernatorial campaign, and the “racist” is the victim of a smear campaign. Because the civil rights guy doesn’t grok supply and demand. Because the racist supports giving veterans a pension as soon as they return, and the poor black guy is a decorated war hero.
Uh… both. That is my point. Your voting conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient.
Well the hypothetical was set in segregation era South, but maybe this wasn’t obvious, but I was talking about someone running on a platform of Jim Crow (and there were a ton of southern politicians that did this). It seems highly plausible that segregationism is a deal-breaker for some voters and even if this is their only reason for voting they are justified in their vote. It doesn’t seem the least bit implausible that this would trump knowledge of economics, veterans pensions or even the other candidate being racist (but not running on a racist platform). But my point is just that it is highly plausible a voter could be justified in their vote while not having anything approaching the kind of knowledge on that exam.
There are lots of singles issue voters- why for example should someone whose only issue is abortion have to know the candidates other positions AND economics AND history AND political science etc.???
Edit: And of course your test is going to especially difficult for certain sets of voters. You’re hardly the first person to think of doing this. There used to be a literacy test for voting… surprise it was just a way of keeping black people out of the polls.
Also, the curriculum I gave is the least important part of my idea. I threw in whatever seemed like it would matter for the largest number of issues.
“Your voting conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient.”
That’s not my goal. I merely want to have an electorate that doesn’t elect young-earthers to congress.
“Well the hypothetical was set in segregation era South, but maybe this wasn’t obvious, but I was talking about someone running on a platform of Jim Crow (and there were a ton of southern politicians that did this). It seems highly plausible that segregationism is a deal-breaker for some voters and even if this is their only reason for voting they are justified in their vote.”
I’m not sure why the examples I gave elicited this response. I gave reasons why even a single-issue voter would be well-advised to know whom ve’s voting for. And besides, if an opinion is held only by people who don’t understand history, that’s a bad sign.
“Edit: And of course your test is going to especially difficult for certain sets of voters.”
That’s why I made the second modifier. And there could be things other than wealth factored in, if you like—race, sex, reading-related disabilities, being a naturalized citizen...
What your system actually does is make it less likely that unorganized people with fringe ideas will vote. If there’s an organization promoting a fringe idea, it will offer election test coaching to sympathizers.
“What your system actually does is make it less likely that unorganized people with fringe ideas will vote.”
Why’s that?
On second thought, I didn’t say what I meant. What I meant was that your approach will fail to discourage organized people with fringe ideas. They’ll form training systems to beat your tests.
Unorganized people with fringe ideas will probably be less able to vote under your system.
It seems you edited your comment after I responded, which indeed makes it look like a non-sequitur.
I posted it incomplete by mistake.
That the inteligent and well informed tend to be rich isn’t a problem, as this doesn’t affect their voting habits (according to Caplan).
However, your system undermines the role of voting as a check on Government; I’m fairly sure you could end up being tested on ‘cultural relations’ rather than economics.