Equality by lot

2012 review – statistics

14 Responses

1. 

   keithsutherland, on December 22, 2012 at 6:11 pm said:

   And many thanks to Yoram for enabling it all.

   Happy Christmas!

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2. 

   Yoram Gat, on December 23, 2012 at 8:10 am said:

   Thanks, Keith – and thanks for keeping Equality by Lot lively!

   Merry Christmas to all.

   Also: It is still not too late to suggest items for the end-of-the-year summary post.

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3. 

   Campbell Wallace, on December 23, 2012 at 10:53 pm said:

   I didn’t know that happy christmases were allowed to atheistico-pagan-nostalgic-sortitionists.

   The figures look good, but, to be gloomy, I wonder how many of the “page views” are people who read some substantial part of a page, and how many just say “what’s this crap?” before clicking on something else. I’ve also wondered whether the “followers” figure isn’t grossly inflated by my blunderings with the “Notify me” buttons at the bottom. If I’m there multiple times, Yoram, my apologies, and please delete all but one of me (should I say us?).

   On the other hand, if there really are outside people reading the blog, and getting interested then !! HOORAY !! in mega-quotes. Let’s hope they have a say!

   Best wishes to all, in any case.

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4. 

   Yoram Gat, on December 24, 2012 at 7:45 am said:

   > I didn’t know that happy christmases were allowed to atheistico-pagan-nostalgic-sortitionists.

   We’re trying to keep an open forum and open minds.

   > The figures look good, but,

   I am not making any claims. We are very very far off from the point where I would claim that the idea of sortition is gaining momentum within the general public.

   I am guessing, however, that comparison with previous years is meaningful, so there is some growth in visits, I think.

   > I’ve also wondered whether the “followers” figure isn’t grossly inflated by my blunderings with the “Notify me”

   The “notify me” goes into a different category of followers, so, no, this is not a problem for the statistics.

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5. 

   Campbell Wallace, on December 24, 2012 at 5:30 pm said:

   A thought prompted by the statistics.

   It’s difficult for someone seeing this site for the first time to get an idea of what we’re on about. The links at the top of the page “About the Kleroterians” “Contributors”, “What is sortition” certainly help, but I was wondering if it would be a good idea to have a page accessible via a link next to them giving a potted outline, perhaps in graphic or tabular form, of the models we propose? (Models plural because some of our differences appear irreconcilable) Something along the lines of:

   Model P: Simple sortition for simple people. (or some such)
   Applicable at national or regional level.
   Bodies:
   1 Parliament, approx 500 members, chosen by lot from entire population, 10% renewed every six months. Full time; members paid.

   2 Salary Board, approx 100 members, chosen by lot once every two years, from entire population, not salaried, term of office limited to time necessary to fix parliamentarians salaries.

   3 Committees, number and duties set by parliament, members initially chosen by lot within parliament, but subject to removal by vote of parliament at any time.
   Further Information:

   Model Q: Multi-body Sortition
   Applicable at National, regional, or local level.
   Bodies:
   1 Agenda Council, 10 to 20 members, chosen by lot to serve for 3 years. Selects proposals to be considered for legislation.
   2 Bill Drafting Panel, chosen by . ./for (time)/from (pool) /remuneration /duties
   etc, etc

   Model R: Mixed Allotted and Elective Assemblies
   Applicable:
   Bodies:
   Body 1: x members, /Chosen . ./time/paid/duties
   Body 2: etc, etc

   The outline details of each model could be given by those who favour them, and should be as concise as possible, the references should contain all the in-depth stuff.

   The potted descriptions could be preceded by a preamble that sets out the points we do agree on and (briefly) the advantages of sortition. I feel we should leave our criticisms of each others’ models off this page, they are well represented elsewhere.

   Perhaps we should include a note saying that details like numbers of members, terms of service, etc are given as an indication, and not meant to be set in concrete.

   Would this be worth doing?

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6. 

   Yoram Gat, on December 24, 2012 at 6:37 pm said:

   Campbell,

   The “What is Sortition?” page is meant to be the introduction page. Personally, I don’t think that coming up with detailed proposals is useful. The details are not that important and, at least to me, but I believe to many others, tend to be boring. Interestingly, sortition supporters tend to come up with institutional programs of varying degrees of details, but I don’t think this would appeal to a wide audience.

   (Of course, this is just my opinion – if the majority here thinks otherwise and can agree on a document, I’ll post it.)

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7. 

   keithsutherland, on December 27, 2012 at 8:23 pm said:

   I agree with Yoram. The first thing with newcomers to sortition is to introduce the idea and explain why it isn’t completely crazy. To do that we need a short blurb on the origins of democracy in classical Athens and also a taste of the research on the epistemic value of decision making by a group of ordinary people. Detailed proposals (with all the resulting arguments) are only of interest once people agree that there is a general case for selection by lot. It’s also the case that some people working in the field (Conall and Barbara being obvious examples) are more interested in distributive justice than sortition as a way of appointing a government. That perspective hasn’t been heard much on this forum, but that’s mainly on account of the interests of frequent posters. But if we don’t want to constrain the debate the introduction needs to be very general.

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8. 2012 review – sortition-related events « Equality by lot, on December 29, 2012 at 7:40 pm said:

   […] were 100 posts on Equality-by-Lot in 2012. Reviewing those posts, here is what appears to me most […]

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9. 

   Campbell Wallace, on December 29, 2012 at 10:14 pm said:

   In a minority of one, again! I must be doing something right.

   >”The details are not that important and, at least to me, but I believe to many others, tend to be boring”

   >”Detailed proposals (with all the resulting arguments) are only of interest once people agree that there is a general case for selection by lot.”

   My thinking was to give something concrete as examples, with as few details as possible, and stressing that different approaches are possible. It’s a damn sight easier to understand the notion of “horse”, for example, by looking at one than to figure out what a quadripedal herbivorous ungulate with no rumen might resemble.

   I also think we should first point out the glaring problems with current versions of elective “democracy”, and we shouldn’t be afraid of being strident in doing so, since plenty of people will agree.

   >”we need a short blurb on the origins of democracy in classical Athens and also a taste of the research on the epistemic value of decision making by a group of ordinary people.”

   Important as these are to those who are already interested, I have a feeling that both of these are a huge turn-off to most people who come fresh to the site.

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10. 

    keithsutherland, on December 30, 2012 at 2:33 pm said:

    I’m puzzled Campbell, surely you need to explain the “why” of sortition before going into details of how it might be implemented. The point is that ordinary people can decide things as well as elite groups and this was once considered to be the keystone of democracy. This is also something we can all agree on — what would really turn off newcomers is Yoram, Campbell and Keith slugging it out over the details of what sortition can and cannot do. And we don’t need to use words like “epistemic”, we can always explain this in simple English.

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11. 

    Yoram Gat, on December 30, 2012 at 7:30 pm said:

    Campbell,

    Defining sortition is pretty easy, and selecting parliament using sortition provides a concrete example. I do agree that hammering on the problems of elections is a must. I do agree that detailed theory is not a good idea. I think mentioning Athens is useful, but I may be wrong about this – we should try to check this out.

    In any case, when I created the “What is Sortition?” page I asked for input from visitors to the this blog. It is not too late – we can collaborate on trying to improve the current version if you wish.

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12. 

    Campbell Wallace, on December 30, 2012 at 10:02 pm said:

    >”surely you need to explain the “why” of sortition before going into details of how it might be implemented.”

    Certainly. And ” hammering on the problems of elections” is a large part of that.

    >”what would really turn off newcomers is Yoram, Campbell and Keith slugging it out over the details of what sortition can and cannot do.”

    Again, yes, definitely. The fact that there’s rather a lot of slugging it out elsewhere is one reason for my suggestion. There’s a lot we do agree on, and I thought it might be good to have a page that brings that agreement to the fore, even when it’s only an agreement to differ.

    The idea was to present the models in as brief a form as possible. The reason I suggested more than one model is that I don’t think we will ever agree on a single one, although we do agree on at least some principles. Having several models would let Keith, for instance, present his ideas in a summary without a lot of silly quips from me (for instance), and vice versa. (I thought that maybe Yoram and I could agree on a single summary, since I think we’re fairly close.)

    However, it was just an idea, and if you others don’t think there’s merit in it, let’s forget it.

    >”when I created the “What is Sortition?” page I asked for input from visitors to the this blog.”
    Yoram, this (Nov 2011) was before CW’s Great Awakening, which happened in the musty depths of his mind, in black ignorance of this blog, just like mushrooms growing in a damp cellar. I might take you up on the invitation to suggest some input to the “What is Sortition” page, or maybe to a “Why sortition” page.

    As I write this the “What is sortition” tab seems to have disappeared; I suppose this is routine maintenance?

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13. 

    keithsutherland, on December 31, 2012 at 8:31 am said:

    The What is Sortition tab is still there. The main problem with the short summary is the conflation of lawmaking and executive officeholding. The Athenians kept the two things entirely separate. As the description in the text refers to Congress, the easiest way to fix it would be to change the title to “Sortition — lawmaking by jury” and to change the second part of the first sentence of the second paragraph to read “lawmaking was in the hands of a jury of citizens selected by lot”. There are only one or two regular posters on this forum who propose selecting government executives by lot. As for outlining a range of proposals this would be too complicated and divisive — I’m unhappy with hyping up the Callenbach and Philips proposal (even though it’s printed back to back with my own), but can accept it because it’s a freely available online resource and will appeal to novices in this field.

    I wonder also if there should be a separate paragraph devoted to the use of the lot as a form of distributive justice? If so Conall ought to write it. Ditto for the Dowlen/Stone argument for sortition as a means to protect the political system from corruption and factionalism. This would then cover all three perspectives on sortition: (1) descriptive representation, (2) social justice and (3) arationality. Although there is some overlap, Conall, Ollie and Peter have little faith in (1), so it’s best to keep all three functions separate.

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14. 2013 review – statistics | Equality by lot, on December 20, 2013 at 2:12 pm said:

    […] Below are some statistics about the fourth year of Equality-by-Lot. Comparable numbers for last year can be found here. […]

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