
The Flaw at the Heart of Democracy - pseudolus
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190318-can-we-reinvent-democracy-for-the-long-term
======
cmurf
It's hardly controversial that _future generations are disenfranchised in the
same way that slaves or women were_. It becomes almost instantly controversial
to say it still is this way, exploitation is the design, violence is the only
sure equalizing solution while still not arriving at equality, justice works
too slowly, and elections only serve to make a population complicit with the
bad choices of its leaders.

Is random selection of leaders really an effective substitute for voting? Are
elected leaders, in the aggregate, consistently worse than 50/50 chance?
Random selection must be even more contrary to aristocracy than voting,
because voting permits the vestiges of aristocracy to persist. If leadership
selection were really random, you'd expect aristocrats to be elected equal to
their percentage of the population. It wouldn't entirely disenfranchise them,
which is to say they wouldn't be treated the same way they've sought for
generations to treat the majority.

But then, do we really understand randomness? It's a really interesting idea,
but I sooner expect aristocratic tendencies to blow up the world before
allowing any further diminishing of their power.

~~~
Not_a_pizza
Randomness could easily be more fraudulent than voting, because who could
possibly prove that it failed?

~~~
cmurf
Right. Faith based randomness won't cut it. And how do you authenticate
random? You'd have to prove it was fraud, in effect prove a negative.

------
js2
FWIW, there is at least one 2020 U.S. presidential candidate running on the
idea of intergenerational justice, which is a term I hadn't heard before this
election cycle.

