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Comment by clavalle | Hacker News Reader

Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years? If so, we need to raise the average significantly.

Also, this would put enormous power in the hands of lobbyists and bureaucrats; a demographic that is not exactly brimming with the diversity that this 'solution' attempts to put in place.

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I think the solution is just to ban lobbying as it currently exists. I ran across an interesting argument about a month ago basically saying that, legally, there are things we can own but not sell, like a spleen, because the societal consequences of allowing people to sell their organs are so disastrous. They made the point that maybe you should similarly have the right to lobby your congressman but that you wouldn't have the right to sell that capability.

So no lobbying from EFF or Natural Resources Defense Council?

The EFF wouldn't need to lobby if Comcast/Google/etc. didn't lobby

How about the NSA? EFF needs to lobby.

I disagree. Laws like CFAA get passed because legislators want to look tough on crime. Not, IMHO, because corporations are lobbying for them.

No. Also, no lobbying from RIAA or Exxon.

imo, eff and nrdc (and the rest) should 'lobby' the public. not congress.

I think we can get more benefit just by making all lobbying communications public.

This is a much better idea. Make it a crime to conceal this information. You can't just ban lobbying unilaterally (or even just getting paid to lobby) because it's such a fundamental aspect of democracy. Whether you have elections or sortition, you need to have the right to lobby the government.

Defence contractors on matters of national security?

Advocates for refugees or political asylees?

I'm not saying I don't like your suggestion. I'm trying to find examples where the transparency might not be likely or a positive development. And then ask: how would you handle those cases? Specific carveouts? Time-delayed disclosures?

The societal consequences of an organ market might not be so bad: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/12/or...

Lawyers, salespeople, and lobbyists are all good things when used well. I'd be in support of more transparency, but lobbyists are working for causes you believe in and would not be if there weren't some method in place for organizations to speak with their political representation.

> Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years?

People are judged everyday by their "statistical average" with consequences that can stick around for many years (long jail terms) or be permanent (death sentences). While the criminal jury system is not perfect, it appears vastly more functional than Congress at present.

The article also mentions Aristotle, and he identified three dimensions of discourse: logos, ethos and pathos. While elected congressmen may be a little better at logic (it's not like they're all rocket scientists), they appear to be quite deficient in ethics and not similar enough to the average constituent to truly empathize. Losing a bit of logos for big increases in ethos and pathos seems like a pretty good deal to me.

> Also, this would put enormous power in the hands of lobbyists

Not really, their main weapon are campaign contributions.

The difference being that the justice system generally affects one person at a time. What Congress does affects 300 million to 7 billion.

The justice system is not just one jury.

Obviously. But each official decision by a particular randomly selected jury within the justice system that carries legal weight affects one person, usually.

Each official decision by Congress that carries legal weight affects millions to billions of people.

Which is exactly I said that before more succinctly for those that cared to think about it.

> Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years?

Yes. The alternative is to open the door for systemic abuse. Randomness ensures perfect balance between all social classes and it makes it difficult for special interests to lobby the legislators. Such a system can dispense with elections and reduce the power of big media trusts. I think common people selected to serve for a short term would have much more decency than career politicians.

> makes it difficult for special interests to lobby the legislators.

It makes it considerably easier for lobbyists to lobby legislators because it sets up an even greater information and power asymmetry than it does now. Lobbyists can stick around as long as they want, will know the pressure points in the legislative system, and will have the resources available to draft legislation that works in their favor. How many people who aren't lawyers could successfully review a law and be able to understand its impacts ten years down the road? Probably not too many, and I can guarantee that the loudest and most persuasive voices legislators hear during this process will be industry experts, not their constituents.

This is the same as it is now, except that career politicians at least know how the game is played.

On the other hand Congress passes laws with thousands of pages of text they never read. How does that work better than having enough people assigned to each section?

People don't need to actually write the text, just decide on the important points. They will have professional assistance and instruction. I think we could use the same random system to select professional assistance for legislators (by random selection of domain-specific graduates).

> If so, we need to raise the average significantly.

Bingo.

The problem with good decision making here is not that it's too cognitively demanding, it's that there are perverse incentives.

Also, it is simply impossible for someone successful - like a politician - to understand the world view of those less well off.

So even if the mental abilities go down, the quality of decision making could easily go up - indeed it would be likely to.

James Fishkin is a Stanford professor who has pioneered this type of work. His approach gives decisions makers structured access to experts to help improve the quality of decision.

Lobbyists already have enormous power. I think one thing we've learned over the past 20 years is that career politicians are just as susceptible to bribes as everyone else.

Though I do agree, this concept is pointless beyond a thought experiment.

Under sortition individuals would serve a short term before returning to their original role, making them less susceptible to 'revolving door' type bribery and mutual back scratching.

It would also make sense to treat them like a jury - while you are working lobbyists would be asked not to meet with you.

Lobbyists /do/ serve a valuable function (theoretically); they offer expert advice.

Sequestering the ignorant and expecting good laws to come from that is ... optimistic.

And while serving a short term might cut out certain bribery there will be a lot more 'get while the getting is good' type bribery. Perhaps that's easier to catch? But there will be a lot more of it.

Not only that: the rest of us have our own stuff to do. How many people can put their life on pause long enough to learn everythhing they need to know to craft good laws?

I think sortition would work better if the legislators would first learn a bit about the issue they are assigned to (assuming the random selection is repeated for each individual law). It could be done as a short course where the instructors would also be selected by random from a pool of experts (people holding degrees in the field). Legislators could be tested to see if they have a grasp of the basic concepts. Only after that, they would deliberate and vote. This would make the process slower, but fortunately it can be parallelized on multiple unrelated issues. Each legislative group could act for a short period and disband.

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