I think your blogpost and this article would both be improved by the following procedure:
Start reading at the beginning. For every sentence, ask yourself: Will this make sense to a reader who has read only the foregoing material? If not, rewrite and/or restructure to make the answer yes.
Two random examples. (1) In this article: “NOTE 1. I anticipate this objection.” What objection? (I infer from context that it’s something like “Aren’t you at risk of having the country governed by idiots and madmen?”. But there’s nothing immediately preceding “NOTE 1” that either says that or seems to provoke the reader to say it. (2) In the blogpost: unless I missed it, there is no explanation of just how the “random citizens” (note: in this article you say RC stands for something else, which I’m guessing is a mistake) and “experts” are chosen, nor of other obviously-crucial things like: are they paid?, can they refuse to serve?, can their employers make it difficult for them to serve?, etc. (Which can make a huge difference to how representative your legislative bodies are.)
Indeed, probably too much in my own head. This was a first attempt at explaining a system I understood and not enough consideration was given.
I could have put those notes at the bottom as post scripts once someone had a half decent understanding of the system. Indeed, I stuffed up between random and regular citizen, they are about the same thing in my mind, as they don’t need to have any qualification.
It was a lengthy step I skipped to describe how they were chosen. Basically a person needs to be within the normal range for intelligence to be an Regular/Random Citizen selected for any level of government. Going into a thousand and one possibilities about what that means seems silly. This is a draft based around my wanted to explore sortition, not a ready to go system which is meant to be adopted.
Same goes for experts. They will be either leaders of industry or PhD’s in their field. All related disciplines for a given field will register upon completion of a PhD. Take for instance agriculture. Scientists from various fields from food policy to soil science to agricultural ecology would be put into the pool of candidates available for expert selection.
I think the short term sub-committes who write laws are more akin to juries in terms of the time they serve. Others are more like being drafted into military service at the higher levels. Unlike an actual draft where huge percentages of the population are effected, this is only a few thousand people, many of whom would probably earn more money working in the legislative. Those who wouldn’t earn more...well there is some price to living in a democracy, I never said personal interest or pure capitalism at the expense of freedom was a good idea or a huge part of this proposed system. Just like in military service, job positions will be held for the person while they serve.
They are paid, they cannot refuse to serve unless they can show extreme hardship to their interests. The highest level who vote on laws stay where they are, but get staff. They’d rent out an office for three years and have some helpers, just like congresspeople in the US right now have staff.
Same goes for experts. They will be either leaders of industry or PhD’s in their field. All related disciplines for a given field will register upon completion of a PhD. Take for instance agriculture. Scientists from various fields from food policy to soil science to agricultural ecology would be put into the pool of candidates available for expert selection.
Many leaders of industry don’t have PhD’s. What’s the process which you want to use to select them?
Why shouldn’t a clever politics professor simply hand out 1,000,000 PhD’s to people who share similar politics as himself to get people into your expert commision?
I think your blogpost and this article would both be improved by the following procedure:
Start reading at the beginning. For every sentence, ask yourself: Will this make sense to a reader who has read only the foregoing material? If not, rewrite and/or restructure to make the answer yes.
Two random examples. (1) In this article: “NOTE 1. I anticipate this objection.” What objection? (I infer from context that it’s something like “Aren’t you at risk of having the country governed by idiots and madmen?”. But there’s nothing immediately preceding “NOTE 1” that either says that or seems to provoke the reader to say it. (2) In the blogpost: unless I missed it, there is no explanation of just how the “random citizens” (note: in this article you say RC stands for something else, which I’m guessing is a mistake) and “experts” are chosen, nor of other obviously-crucial things like: are they paid?, can they refuse to serve?, can their employers make it difficult for them to serve?, etc. (Which can make a huge difference to how representative your legislative bodies are.)
Indeed, probably too much in my own head. This was a first attempt at explaining a system I understood and not enough consideration was given.
I could have put those notes at the bottom as post scripts once someone had a half decent understanding of the system. Indeed, I stuffed up between random and regular citizen, they are about the same thing in my mind, as they don’t need to have any qualification.
It was a lengthy step I skipped to describe how they were chosen. Basically a person needs to be within the normal range for intelligence to be an Regular/Random Citizen selected for any level of government. Going into a thousand and one possibilities about what that means seems silly. This is a draft based around my wanted to explore sortition, not a ready to go system which is meant to be adopted.
Same goes for experts. They will be either leaders of industry or PhD’s in their field. All related disciplines for a given field will register upon completion of a PhD. Take for instance agriculture. Scientists from various fields from food policy to soil science to agricultural ecology would be put into the pool of candidates available for expert selection.
I think the short term sub-committes who write laws are more akin to juries in terms of the time they serve. Others are more like being drafted into military service at the higher levels. Unlike an actual draft where huge percentages of the population are effected, this is only a few thousand people, many of whom would probably earn more money working in the legislative. Those who wouldn’t earn more...well there is some price to living in a democracy, I never said personal interest or pure capitalism at the expense of freedom was a good idea or a huge part of this proposed system. Just like in military service, job positions will be held for the person while they serve.
They are paid, they cannot refuse to serve unless they can show extreme hardship to their interests. The highest level who vote on laws stay where they are, but get staff. They’d rent out an office for three years and have some helpers, just like congresspeople in the US right now have staff.
Many leaders of industry don’t have PhD’s. What’s the process which you want to use to select them?
Why shouldn’t a clever politics professor simply hand out 1,000,000 PhD’s to people who share similar politics as himself to get people into your expert commision?
Who has the power to evaluate the request and make the decision whether something is a hardship?
Or more crucially: Can their employers fire them for not doing what the employer wants when they serve?
Yup, that too.