One possibility that occurred to me a while back is to just make congress a random sample of the population.
Huh. This is an interesting idea. I think I’d be okay with this if it were coupled with some kind of mandatory high school course(s) that ensure some minimal understanding of how the legislature worked. (Congress could be sampled from people who have a high school diploma).
Edit: Maybe a better idea—government provides a free/and/or/discounted college level degree, available to anyone. (or “degree-segment”, which can be applied toward general ed for regular Bachelor’s Degrees). The courses include economics, logic, public speaking, at least some sciences, etc.
People who do well (“well” being relative, of course, let’s say at least B+ish) are entered into the Congressional Draft. I think this would do a decent (at least as good as current system) of ensuring that Congress consists of people who have SOME idea of what they’re doing, don’t need to spend money or time on campaigning, and actually want to be there.
Do people think this would increase or decrease the quality of the U.S. Congress?
(If it’s a concern for you, for the time being assume the funding for the free college courses comes by removing funding from another program you don’t like)
Edit Again: Nvm, it was pointed out to me that with no long term accountability, new congresspeople would almost instantly be owned by wealthy interests, at least as badly as they are now.
I think anything that starts to go down the ‘intelligent/educated have more power’ route is missing the most important elements of democracy. Not only are you cutting out large parts of the population, but these would inevitably have locality/race/income correlations that made the whole thing even uglier. Probably even gender correlations.
Not to mention the problem that people have to choose to take it, and I’m not convinced that wanting to have that power is a good sign that you should. You might have a disproportionate number of ideologues/slight megalomaniacs. Not to mention the ‘tragedy of the commons’ issue mentioned elsewhere.
Huh. This is an interesting idea. I think I’d be okay with this if it were coupled with some kind of mandatory high school course(s) that ensure some minimal understanding of how the legislature worked. (Congress could be sampled from people who have a high school diploma).
Edit: Maybe a better idea—government provides a free/and/or/discounted college level degree, available to anyone. (or “degree-segment”, which can be applied toward general ed for regular Bachelor’s Degrees). The courses include economics, logic, public speaking, at least some sciences, etc.
People who do well (“well” being relative, of course, let’s say at least B+ish) are entered into the Congressional Draft. I think this would do a decent (at least as good as current system) of ensuring that Congress consists of people who have SOME idea of what they’re doing, don’t need to spend money or time on campaigning, and actually want to be there.
Do people think this would increase or decrease the quality of the U.S. Congress?
(If it’s a concern for you, for the time being assume the funding for the free college courses comes by removing funding from another program you don’t like)
Edit Again: Nvm, it was pointed out to me that with no long term accountability, new congresspeople would almost instantly be owned by wealthy interests, at least as badly as they are now.
Upvote for “Decrease”
Upvote for “Increase”
I think anything that starts to go down the ‘intelligent/educated have more power’ route is missing the most important elements of democracy. Not only are you cutting out large parts of the population, but these would inevitably have locality/race/income correlations that made the whole thing even uglier. Probably even gender correlations.
Not to mention the problem that people have to choose to take it, and I’m not convinced that wanting to have that power is a good sign that you should. You might have a disproportionate number of ideologues/slight megalomaniacs. Not to mention the ‘tragedy of the commons’ issue mentioned elsewhere.
Downvote for Karma Balance