Introduction of arbitrariness into governments

[slacker]

Governments are quickly co-opted by the ambitious with superior political skills. I propose that a government built with a strong dose of intentional arbitrariness might be better suited to combat this problem.

Applied to republics, gerrymandering can be countered by making computers the decision-makers. Individuals are assigned randomly to certain electoral seats. Some seats might randomly have more/less electors for a particular election. Some seats are randomly chosen to use first-past the post, while others are randomly chosen to use proportional representation.

The diversity of the electorate may be artificially amplified - i.e., in one election, all the U.S. citizens born in St. Petersburg, Russia have their vote values amplified by 10,000.

This same addition of randomness can be applied throughout the entire government: votes in the legislative, the determination of bills being passed, the assignment of budgets, and so on.

Of course, the computers will be targeted for abuse - this can be countered by havely a highly decentralized network of computers with traps/redundancy/decoys built throughout the system.

I'd like to apply other techniques as well/instead, but I haven't been able to come up with many other options for better methods of rapid, self-healing reform in government.

[Claverhouse]

Who will program the computers ?


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[slacker]

Well, a revolution is a likely precondition, since the new model has to be imposed, most likely in a desperate nation that's suffered many disasters - so the programming will most likely be performed by revolutionary cohorts.

It's important to not leave any trojan horses, so maybe the programmers will be executed after completing their work. Or, the system can be designed to self-evolve and protect itself.

[macr0]

This entire notion reminds me of one of my favorite video games "Dues Ex" in which the main character must decide at the end if he is going to merge with an AI to govern the world.

The notion of machine-controlled government would definately have to take into consideration ethics.

The root concept is called "Friendly AI" over at the Singularity Institute (http://www.singinst.org/).

I know the founder of that institude has written many, many papers on friendly AI and supposed implementations.

Unfortunately, I have never had the inclination to read them.

[Krill]

Governments are quickly co-opted by the ambitious with superior political skills. I propose that a government built with a strong dose of intentional arbitrariness might be better suited to combat this problem.

Applied to republics, gerrymandering can be countered by making computers the decision-makers. Individuals are assigned randomly to certain electoral seats. Some seats might randomly have more/less electors for a particular election. Some seats are randomly chosen to use first-past the post, while others are randomly chosen to use proportional representation.

Makes sense.


The diversity of the electorate may be artificially amplified - i.e., in one election, all the U.S. citizens born in St. Petersburg, Russia have their vote values amplified by 10,000.

The major issue here is that you're having a relatively small amount of people gaining a great influence over their peers, without any real proper justification. This is the same problem you mentioned above with people getting into power merely by having certain political skills.


This same addition of randomness can be applied throughout the entire government: votes in the legislative, the determination of bills being passed, the assignment of budgets, and so on.

I think it ought to be limited to rearrangement to votes (like in your original example). Making things too random just, well, makes the whole process rather arbitrary and meaningless. Keep introducing a bill to make slavery legal and eventually you'll get enough votes to pass it.


I'd like to apply other techniques as well/instead, but I haven't been able to come up with many other options for better methods of rapid, self-healing reform in government.

The main problem is that people like the Westboro Baptist Church could potentially gain power for a period of time. Unless you add qualification to the random processes, there may be issues where an unethical minority takes over for a short period, perhaps even dismantling such a computer system, physically.

[slacker]

Okay, a few changes/clarifications:

1. Voters can only elect representatives, not supreme leaders (president/governor/mayor). The system should also bias toward more vs. less representatives. This should eliminate usurption by extremists, since only a few representatives are likely to be radical, and even if they are, it's very unlikely that they would share the same issues.

2. The voters who have their weights inflated or deflated will be kept secret before the election. Also, the effected voters are chosen by arbitrary properties (vs. birthplace, etc. in my earlier example). This results in two positives: 1. voter turnout should increase (a lottery-like chance of having your vote count more) 2. politicians are likely to skew their strategies toward winning a higher percentage of votes (there's no guarantee, but winning by true "lower margins" subjects one even more to the vagaries of arbitrariness). And some seats will be "weird", i.e. one seat shared by 5 representatives who exercise various percentages of that vote.

3. Good points about the introduction of arbitrariness into post-electoral processes. For now, I'll move to a model that assumes that election mechanics are entirely controlled by the computer system, leaving the governing to the politicians. In the long run though, the computer system should still have the ability to "interfere" in government, to protect itself - equip the computer with strong pattern recognition programs and bias against patterns, such as repeat bills or voting blocs, etc.


Makes sense.
The major issue here is that you're having a relatively small amount of people gaining a great influence over their peers, without any real proper justification. This is the same problem you mentioned above with people getting into power merely by having certain political skills.

I think it ought to be limited to rearrangement to votes (like in your original example). Making things too random just, well, makes the whole process rather arbitrary and meaningless. Keep introducing a bill to make slavery legal and eventually you'll get enough votes to pass it.

The main problem is that people like the Westboro Baptist Church could potentially gain power for a period of time. Unless you add qualification to the random processes, there may be issues where an unethical minority takes over for a short period, perhaps even dismantling such a computer system, physically.