New sortition videos

Posted on March 11, 2017 by Brett Hennig

Here’s two new short sortition videos. The first is about my new book:

and the second is promoting the G1000 project which the Sortition Foundation plans to hold in Cambridge this September:

And a final reminder that next week I’ll be touring the UK promoting both of these in Brighton, London, Bristol, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Cambridge. I hope to see some of you there!

Filed under: Sortition | Tagged: video |

3 Responses

Yoram Gat, on March 12, 2017 at 9:16 am said:

Hi Brett,

Nice! Short and to the point.

One point that should be clarified is the explanation for why elections do not work as a democratic tool. You seems to be offering “the power of the purse strings” (2:15) as an explanation. This is a standard explanation, but it is a red herring. It misleads people down the false path of campaign finance reform: thinking that if campaign finance is well regulated the problems with elections will go away. This is fundamentally wrong and this mistake undercuts the power of the solution that you offer (sortition).

It is better to emphasize that elitism is inherent in electoralism and that electoralism must therefore be replaced, rather than fixed. Presumably, that’s what “the end of politicians” means…

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keithsutherland, on March 12, 2017 at 12:33 pm said:

Yoram,

>It is better to emphasize that elitism is inherent in electoralism and that electoralism must therefore be replaced, rather than fixed. Presumably, that’s what “the end of politicians” means.

Yes, that’s why I refused to publish Brett’s (otherwise excellent) book.

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keithsutherland, on March 12, 2017 at 1:45 pm said:

PS By way of clarification this is because I don’t believe that elections and politicians should be completely replaced by sortition. This is certainly Yoram’s position and I’d be curious to know if anyone else (apart from Terry) agrees with him. Brett seems reluctant to nail his colours to the mast on a public forum.

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