Oops. I did not know the process was that selective. Quickly looking up the French Wikipedia, I see the French system is much less selective (it picks up “only” 3 times too many random candidates).
Now there are also other cases where random assemblies (a couple hundred people, I believe) were conjured to make important decision: election rules in one case (didn’t work out the first try), and GMO in the other (the unanimous conclusion was “looks somewhat risky, and we don’t see the benefits. No, thanks.”).
By the way, we could imagine something between a fully random assembly, and a fully elected one. (This is totally not my idea) Run free elections, where everyone is candidate (no choice). Let people chose, say, 3 people they believe would be good at making the relevant decision (like writing a constitution). We can suggest criteria, such as being good, well tempered, can change one’s mind… Now look how the votes are distributed. You can exclude the bottom fifth by assuming many people there are probably not so good. You can also exclude the top fifth to remove fame bias, and exclude authority figures (journalists, professional politicians…). Now you pick a couple hundred people at random among the rest, and propose them to participate in the assembly. Most will accept. Now let them write what they must, and if the decision is important enough (like a constitution), run a referendum, just to be sure. (People are overwhelmingly likely to accept it, but you never know.)
Oops. I did not know the process was that selective. Quickly looking up the French Wikipedia, I see the French system is much less selective (it picks up “only” 3 times too many random candidates).
Now there are also other cases where random assemblies (a couple hundred people, I believe) were conjured to make important decision: election rules in one case (didn’t work out the first try), and GMO in the other (the unanimous conclusion was “looks somewhat risky, and we don’t see the benefits. No, thanks.”).
By the way, we could imagine something between a fully random assembly, and a fully elected one. (This is totally not my idea) Run free elections, where everyone is candidate (no choice). Let people chose, say, 3 people they believe would be good at making the relevant decision (like writing a constitution). We can suggest criteria, such as being good, well tempered, can change one’s mind… Now look how the votes are distributed. You can exclude the bottom fifth by assuming many people there are probably not so good. You can also exclude the top fifth to remove fame bias, and exclude authority figures (journalists, professional politicians…). Now you pick a couple hundred people at random among the rest, and propose them to participate in the assembly. Most will accept. Now let them write what they must, and if the decision is important enough (like a constitution), run a referendum, just to be sure. (People are overwhelmingly likely to accept it, but you never know.)