On Mar 7, 2008, at 0:03 , Fred Gohlke wrote:
Good Afternoon, Juho
(I just noticed that I have another message from you, in another area.
I will copy it and respond as quickly as I can, probably tomorrow.
I'm
inexpert at navigating this site, but learning. flg)
In the message I'm responding to, you raise several important issues.
IMPROVEMENT
You mentioned several reasons why improving our political system is an
uphill battle. I would add the complexity of human nature as another.
Overcoming them is difficult, but "A trek of a thousand miles begins
with a single step." In my view, the first step is to seek
understanding.
I tend to think that often the understanding is also the most crucial
step. I mean that after such understanding and model is found that it
covers all aspects and players and can be accepted by all, then
people tend to think that actually it is obvious and it is natural to
follow the model. The practical implementation of the model is then
just straight forward work.
The forces that guided our political development over the past 200
years
are clear enough. So far, we've tended to think of them as
inevitable.
We've failed to examine them analytically for the purpose of
deflecting the worst of them. (I had the privilege of sitting in on a
political science course last year. It described many of the
blemishes
in our political process, historically and present, but did not
address
them from the perspective of learning to correct them. Neither, to my
dismay, did it encourage such an intellectual approach.)
We did not reach our present situation by accident. If we are to
improve, we must learn to anticipate and inhibit the forces that
derailed The Noble Experiment. It will be a long, hard road, not
to be
completed in my lifetime, but that is no excuse for not making the
first
"... small steps forward."
LARGE GROUPS
You make the excellent point that, under the method I outlined, large
groups will succeed better than small groups. Warren Smith made the
same point to me, privately. Where you suggest partisan dominance, he
used advanced math to show that, based on purely racial attitudes,
whites would dominate blacks. The rationale supporting some of
Smith's
mathematical terms were obscure, but I don't doubt the conclusion. I
have no doubt the attitudes of the largest group of voters will
prevail.
However, the group that prevails will not be party and will not be
race.
It will be society (at least, insofar as society is reflected in the
electorate) ... and the most common attitude in society is a desire
for
tranquility.
Note that also the current two-party system of the USA has similar
characteristics. The society will be run by the representatives of
the largest faction. One could say that in a two-party system the
opinions of the parties are not fixed but must move to follow the
median opinion of the voters. If party X loses several elections in a
row due to some particular opinion, it must change that opinion to
better reflect the opinion of the voters to get the required 51% of
the votes (in sufficient number of states).
One alternative to allowing the largest faction to take control is to
elect the representatives proportionally (and possibly also to use
coalition governments instead of single party governments).
Society is us. All of us; our friends, relatives, co-workers,
neighbors
and acquaintances. We have partisan feelings, we are influenced by
our
family, our race, our education, our national heritage, our age, our
health and our status, but none of these are greater than the fact
that
we are, in toto, decent, law-abiding people. Society could not
exist if
we were not.
Yes. I believe the level to which the citizens feel that the society
is their own and tend to live in line with the ideal model is very
important. Well working societies have high values, and low vales
mean a non-working society. It is a question if people want to
respect the rules of the society and see them as a set of rules that
have been jointly agreed.
This is the large group that will prevail; these are the "whites" in
Smith's equations; these are the people whose attitudes will
triumph ...
if they are given a voice and a choice.
A healthy society behaves like this. One must however watch the
politicians so that they will not start driving their own personal
interests. I mean that one should encourage the kind of behaviour you
describe but one can not trust that the imperfect society would
always take that route. Especially in politics the risks of
corruption are not very far.
There are also risks in allowing some single group to take strong
control. => Maybe better to include also the minority opinions in the
process some way.
GROUP SIZE and PERSUASION
You suggested larger groups and fewer layers. I am not averse to
such a
change, but would like to describe the rationale for using a group
size
of three.
At the initial level, when the entire electorate meets for the first
time to select one member of a their group to represent the other two,
there will be three kinds of participants: (1) those who do not
want to
be selected, (2) those willing to be selected, and (3) those seeking
selection. In any group where all three participants do not want
to be
selected, the triad will not make a selection and all three
participants
will be eliminated.
Thus, among the groups that actually make a selection, the people who
are selected will either be people who want to be selected or
people who
are willing to be selected. This is not to say that each person
must be
of one type or the other, but rather that each person will be
somewhere
on the continuum from those willing to be selected to those wishing to
be selected.
For simplicity, we will assume that the desire to be selected is
equivalent to a desire for public office and that the people we
mention
as examples are at one end of the wish-willingness continuum or the
other. The reality is infinitely more complex but the results will
differ only in degree from what we learn by thinking about the kind of
people who are at the hypothetical poles.
We must also note that the attitudes we've mentioned may not be
static.
Although, generally, a person seeking public office is unlikely to
become a person willing to serve, a person willing to serve might be
transformed into a person seeking public office:
[If person-willing-to-serve (A) feels person-seeking-office (B) is
not a
good choice, (A) may seek to persuade the group that (A) or (C) is a
better choice. Such an effort moves (A) closer to being a
person-seeking-office because, if A will not support B, the chance
that
A will be chosen increases.]
Based on this assessment, we can say that people who advance to the
next
level either persuaded the other members of their triad to select them
or they relied on the other members to select them. The difference is
the extent to which they used persuasion to achieve selection.
In a pyramiding process of the type under discussion, it is reasonable
to think that active seekers of public office will succeed more
frequently than passive ones. Thus, after several iterations of the
process, we can anticipate that each member of a triad will be a
person
seeking public office. Under such circumstances, the art of
persuasion
assumes mounting importance. Those making the selection want
desirable
qualities in the person they choose. Those seeking selection will try
to persuade their peers they possess the qualities sought.
When persuasion occurs between two people, it takes place as a
dialogue
with one person attempting to persuade the other. In such events,
both
parties are free to participate in the process. The person to be
persuaded can question the persuader as to specific points and present
alternative points about the topic under discussion. In such
circumstances, it is possible that the persuader will become the
persuaded.
When persuasion involves multiple people, it occurs more as a
monologue
with one person attempting to persuade the others. The transition
from
dialogue to monologue accelerates as the number of people to be
persuaded increases. The larger the number of people, the less free
they are to participate in the process. As the number of people to be
persuaded grows, the individuals among them are progressively less
able
to participate in the process. They can not question the persuader as
to specific points or present alternative points about the topic under
discussion. In such circumstances, it is impossible for the persuader
to become the persuaded.
Viewed in this light, we can say that when selecting public
officials, a
system that encourages dialogue is preferable to one which relies on a
monologue. Discussion can best be encouraged by having fewer
people in
the "session of persuasion". Because of the need for a definitive
decision, I believe the best group size to encourage active
involvement
by all participants is three. In working toward a functional system,
other aspects of the matter are sure to arise. Group sizes of 5,
or 7,
or 9 may be found to offer more advantages.
This was a quite good justification. Definitely small groups and
close contacts make it easier for many people to express their opinion.
Small groups may also have problems like strong individuals simply
running over the less aggressive and less confident ones. A bigger
group can also provide safety against strong individuals. (This leads
me to think if systems where similar minded people would be allowed
and encouraged to jointly form groups that represent them and then
together present their viewpoint.)
It is also possible to try to improve the behaviour of the
(potentially larger) groups (to avoid monologues and other strong
individual related problems) by setting some clear rules and
procedures for them.
In short, the method with groups of three has some clear advantages
but there are also problems. Search of optimal parameters should
continue.
One general comment. It is typical that people of category 3
("seeking selection") are overrepresented in a political system
(representatives and civil servants). I tend to think that a
political system that would favour more category 2 candidates
("willing to be selected") would be a happier one.
REGIONALITY
You wondered whether the concept would have a regional bias. I
intended
that it should. Presumably, we would develop software to randomly
assign voters to groups while preferring geographic proximity. This
offers the advantages you outline and causes the least disruption for
the electorate. It also supports the idea that the first fruits of
the
process are officials for the local community.
PARTISANSHIP
You raise a couple of questions of partisanship; whether "... it is
possible that the party influence will infiltrate the system from top
down ..." and "... if there are some groupings/parties at the top
level,
the candidates at one level below could make their affiliations
clear ..."
To take the second first, there is no top level until the level below
has made its choice. There are, indeed, previously elected people
with
partisan attitudes. Candidates in the process might indicate their
approval and support for those people. If they do, the others in
their
triad will decide for themselves whether they agree, and will make
their
selections accordingly. That is the purpose of the system.
One interesting property of the proposed system is that current top
level representatives, even if very popular, have a high risk of not
being re-elected. At any level two (rather randomly selected) persons
can decide to elect someone else instead of this this possibly well
known and popular person. I guess it is your intention to have some
this type of randomness in the process. This certainly diminishes the
party power (since traditional parties can be characterized as being
a collection of and led by a set of well established representatives).
The need to categorize the representatives is still there and some
new kind of party structure may well be established. Maybe the act
that there may be a strong circulation of the representatives can be
considered to be a positive property (if the old system is seen as
too stagnant).
As to the first, the matter is more open to challenge. For my part, I
think it will be incomparably more difficult for existing parties to
"infiltrate" (or corrupt) the Active Democracy process than what we
presently endure.
In the first place, there is no infrastructure. There is no
organization or "fund raiser" to act as an intermediary for
corruption.
You define fund raising as a form of corruption. I agree that money
easily corrupts the process. There may be also other means to get rid
of excessive power of money (not necessarily requiring this
particular method to be used).
If all selections are done in small groups that efficiently
eliminates some forms of marketing (and thereby reduces the power of
money). There may however be lots of positive and negative
campaigning at party level. Even though the election in the small
groups is quite random the statistical effect of general marketing
must despite of this be significant.
Those who would peddle corruption can not do so en bloc as they do
now; they must do it individually and directly. When those they
seek to
suborn have been chosen by their peers (at least in part) for their
perceived integrity, approaching them will not be easy.
When candidates don't have to "sell their soul" to a political party,
when they owe their advancement to nothing but their own intellect and
ability, I believe most of them will reject, and probably denounce,
influence peddlers.
There must be some tendency to go in this direction. But on the other
hand the candidates may still get also benefits from being affiliated
with a major party. And the parties may be ready to adopt any "semi-
randomly" elected new representatives in their ranks.
I don't doubt that we'll occasionally have a
deceitful public official, but he'll be operating in a goldfish bowl.
It won't be as easy to keep it hidden as it is now.
THE LONG CHAIN
The possibility that "... the highest level decision makers do not
listen to the lowest level voters ..." need not come to pass: "The
process is inherently bi-directional. Because each elected official
sits atop a pyramid of known electors, questions on specific issues
can
easily be transmitted directly to and from the electors for the
guidance
or instruction of the official." The extent to which this
capability is
enabled depends on the way the process is implemented.
Is the system expected to allow any representative to be changed at
any time?
Being a "pawn" at the bottom of the pyramid may not give the voter a
very good position to change his/her candidate at the top. Of course
also in more traditional systems one single vote doesn't mean much.
In terms of the length of time from the beginning of an election cycle
through the multiple levels, we can say with certainty that it will
not
be as long as the present two-year travesty.
Wow! That turned out to be more than I expected to write. I'm not
certain I've given an adequate response to the issues you raised, some
of which were quite subtle. I hope we can continue to examine these
questions and that others will bring their expertise to bear.
Yes. The proposed method is at least a very interesting extreme set-
up that presents a clear alternative to current methods. Good
viewpoint for analysing also other methods. It is also possible to
try to seek similar impacts on the political system also by using
some other alternative techniques.
One of the biggest impacts that I see this method having on the
current typical models in the more random nature of the election. The
leading party members may well not be re-elected.
One key property of the method is also that it is not proportional
but tends to favour the strongest opinions (it s possible that 90% of
the representatives would be from one party (if there would still be
two parties, or other two clear groupings) instead of the now typical
51%-49% situation in the USA).
Juho
Fred
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