From: Sean Kenny (seankenny@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Mon Aug 05 2002 - 17:12:06 MDT
On Monday 05 August 2002 20:21, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 03:56:10PM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> > Lee Corbin wrote about democracy:
> >
> > I claim that you'll never find a better system (until
> > human beings are replaced by something else, or conditions
> > change drastically in some other way from what we're used to).
> >
> > ### What do you think about my favorite replacement for a (universal
> > franchise) democracy - a demarchy with selection for IQ? I bet 10$ it
> > would handily outperform any democracy, if I could only find at least two
> > more supporters to fill both chambers of my government's parliament and
> > still have a private citizen left.
>
> While I like demarchy (it is a great example of how a democracy doesn't
> have to look like the current system) I really wonder if that IQ
> selection would be advantageous. The core strength of a demarchy is that
> it provides a less biased sample of citizens to represent than the
> current crop of highly self-selected people. Some biasing measures are
> likely necessary to make the system workable, like only using citizens
> that want to participate, but what does high IQ correlate with? It
> mainly correlates with academic achievement, and while I would love to
> have more well educated politicians it is worth remembering that
> academic achievement is no evidence for sanity or competence. I would
> rather believe that it is better to have a spread of ways of thinking
> and good decision support (IMHO the biggest unsolved problem of
> demarchy).
>
> The performance of political systems should be measured in how well they
> can promote human happiness. It would be great if there were any clear
> way of doing a priori comparisions, but in the end they have to be
> tested in real life and subjected to eternal scrutiny.
and you do of course have Alastair Reyonolds new book, Redemption Ark? :)
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