This is possibly the single largest design flaw contributing to the bad Nash equilibrium in which the US and many other governments are stuck. Every individual high-functioning competent person knows they can't make much difference by being one more face in that crowd.
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I feel like the deliberative chokepoint is less of an issue than inadequate full-time, competent advocates for divergent perspectives and needs. I want more representation, not consolidation.
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Then perhaps you need a separate elected body of government for advocates within the bureaucracy ("constituent service"). 535 legislators gets you chaos and star chambers, not diversity.
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Reasonable, especially if such advocates were empowered to research, develop, propose, and promote policy proposals. We lack policies that are not self-funding (profitable and capitalizable).
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Keep in mind that the current equilibrium is two giant pre-packaged positions, which no individual legislator has the power to defy, and that doesn't include a voice for e.g decriminalizing marijuana. Better nine viewpoints than two.
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Is the number of distinct positions/factions simply an inverse function of body size? Or do we have external or structural forces that reduce us to two factions?
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We currently have a legislature so large that it reduces to an amorphous blob with two faces. No one person we can vote out of office appears to do anything. "Congress" does it.
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First past the post voting results in the two party fringe system we have now, approval voting (or any cardinal voting system) would make the entire system be purple and there would be no real parties anymore. But your blob would still be inefficient.
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on approval voting, but it doesn’t solve for voters inability to connect issues, policies, results, and politician accountability. I like @ESYudkowsky’s elected bureaucracy, perhaps we could use them to give report cards on policymakers, providing professional accountability
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Legislatures tend to go as the cube root of population. There's a theory to explain this (by the guy who taught the first social science class I ever took). https://fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/category/electoral-rules/cube-root-law/ …
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Maybe that's more like a good size for the executive, not the legislature. If you had 9 presidents, maybe the occasional really shitty one wouldn't be such a problem.
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the cabinet is 12, which is approximately 9
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So weird to think that bodies that have the power to tax ordinary citizens ought to be run on the same principles as limited-liability corporations. Limited liability is a subsidy granted by the state that has authority to tax.
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Hmm. I have never thought of limited liability as a subsidy before. It's an interesting idea...
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Legislatures aren't about legislating. (Seriously; it follows from democracies not being about decisionmaking.)
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Agreed. The US legislature was not setup to get things done. The institution was created to get IMPORTANT things done. It is literally designed to be inefficient. And quite a few of us think that's the right way to design government.
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Isn't this usually the first thing taught in an introductory civics class in college? That democracy is inefficient, and that's good, because slow change is predictable and manageable? Not sure what Elizer is getting at.
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I think he's Canadian? The rest of the world sets their government up to do something (Parlimentary system) so it's a leap for most to understand a Presidential system.
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I would agree, except I think that was the point. Founders wanted deadlock. Only best ideas become law. 1913 onward saw a departure from this, now too much is entrenched. Need to raze Federal Register back to Amendments only.
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