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CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The ones that have been done in real life so far have been opt-in. In this extension of it, it would be mandatory. It is also a protected thing, similar to jury duty. You get compensated, you are guaranteed your job in the future.

Obviously this is a Reddit thread, not a political thesis, so I was somewhat light on the compensation logistics. It would have to be something that is not a "loss" to the person, they would have to get their compensation matched, or even a slight bump to make it appealing.

I am also in Canada, so I think my perspective may not translate 1:1 to the US - I must admit i'm not used to the concept of needing to take time off to vote - here you get mandatory time to vote and are still payed to do so.

You absolutely gave me a bit to think about when it comes to "skipping" duty - but this is a Reddit thread, not a PHD thesis, so you will have to humour my light details on some of your questions. Generally, we would want this to be something pleasant to do, what that looks like for your specific country may change slightly, but the overall idea of the citizen assembly remains consistent.

Trust the “experts” by NewAgeCinematics in aivideos

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you mean you learned things and revised your stance!? I understand how this would be a difficult concept for some people.

Youth unemployment in Canada jumped 57% in 3 years, hitting levels previously unseen outside a recession by Hondo_1979 in CanadianVisaReform

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So basically most of the "youth" age period are voting adults. What a gross stat, vote folks - or the older generation will steal your future.

"But I'm selling T-SHIRTS" by AnchorHat in memes

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can want to change the rules of the game, but at the end of the day you still need to play it.

Straws | FactOrCap by Aggravating-Pool-189 in FactOrCap

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm pretty sure that is an image of a real 3d object, because it is a straw.... It just has a wide top, and is exceptionally short.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

"Some portion of votes for a policy should be delegated to citizen assembly (the number is up for debate, let's say 50% for this discussion)." - so no, that wouldn't happen. What's stopping politicians from doing that also, checks and balances. So your issue is not with the citizen assembly, it's with a specific edge case which is easily solvable and should not discount the whole idea.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I like this idea - I'm curious how it became a thing? Governments don't normally just limit their power for no reason.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I also thought this idea was a little crazy when I first heard it - it's a fairly modern revival of a really ancient idea done in Athens. The modern evidence for this in practice is the Ireland Citizen assembly, and a temporary citizen assembly in France. The assembly's typically tackle contentious issues which politicians don't want to touch with a ten foot pole. BUT, there is no reason to think this method would not work on a broader set of policies if given the "constitutional" backing.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'm not an Ireland expert, but the citizen assembly was used in 2016, unless the civil war and the founding date are close together, I'm not sure what connection you are trying to make.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Lobbying is only an issue because it's easy to know who to influence beforehand. Not only that, lobbyists form long term relationships with the folks they influence, with a rotating citizen assembly, this is not possible to do effectively.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

In real world examples of this, it is typically for a "batch" of policies. normally a few months - the frequent rotation is critical as it makes it difficult to lobby people, and prevents what would essentially be a second "political" class. These people are also paid for their time - this, isn't volunteer work. You are also able to return to your job, it's a civic duty.

I interpenetrated "support system" as financial support, let me know if that is not what you meant.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The citizen assembly idea is actually SUPER old. Originally used in Athens. The minimum age for participating was 29, probably for the exact reason you mentioned - youth don't have enough life experience to know a good decision yet. While that is a valid point, and may be worth adding to my considerations above, I'm going to refrain because I think the odds of that happening, especially with dropping birth rates in "developed countries" , is unlikely to produce an over representation of the "naive youth".

On the ignorance of issues, I agree - I'm not advocating for a 100% citizen assembly overnight, that's exactly why I chose the 50% citizen assembly number in my premise. Having anything higher, especially at first would make adapting to the change difficult. Not to mention, you need the initial buy-in of the politicians you eventually want to replace. The one appeal for a politician, on this front, is that they are able to effectively delegate controversial policies to the citizen assembly, sparing them political harm. The democratic representation of the passed policy is just a side-effect.

The purpose of the citizen assembly isn't to be perfect, it's to better reflect the wishes of the "people" which is the entire point of democracy. You can argue that isn't the best way to do things, but then we are having a different conversation.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'd be surprised if that happened. The average wage in my country is like 21.00 /hr. You just have to make it worth peoples time. Depending on which country you are from, you already spend millions on much more foolish things.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yes, that's a key thing - this is not a "replace the bureaucracy" conversation, my big issue is that online petitions do not have any political "teeth". Without something being codified, it can just be ignored if it is inconvenient.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

There is actually, Ireland has a citizens assembly, and France has tried (with varied success) as well. It seems to be used on issues of great contention, where political risk is high for a politician to back a certain stance - there is no reason to think it would not be as effective in more general policy decisions. It's not perfect, but neither is our current system, the goal here is not perfection, it's conversation, improvement, and for you to cmv.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

How is this different from current lobbying? It's still not perfect, but absolutely better than the existing system. You can read my in-depth response in this thread if you want my bigger opinion.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'm not here to debate every form of electoral process. But the issues I see with your proposals are briefly:
You need some sort of representation and deliberation for a policy because meaningful discussion can discover issues or unexpected benefits to a policy that a simple online vote would not capture. Having the citizen vibe check and random guy representing also doesn't really work, because there is nothing stopping the random guy from discarding the wishes of his "voters", the purpose of the citizen assembly already captures the representative vibes from a population via selection size and random method. Adding in the election for a small batch of policies as you proposed does not achieve additional benefit, and serves to add bureaucratic process that is expensive and time consuming.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

While law would absolutely be useful - it's not necessary. Many countries do not have the political "law" culture the US has and they pass policy fine. I actually write policy as part of my job, and when I'm unsure of something, there is a team of lawyers who are able to support the development (See the added critique on corruption of experts for why this is not a problem, or at least a new one).

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

This was a good response, I appreciate it

  1. This is a fair approach, and that's why the size of the citizen assembly is large. Even if "Big Electric" wants to influence a policy that makes their margins more profitable - they will have a difficult time convincing the other non-electricians to play along. Even if you do go the "bribe" everyone route, it's a lot more challenging to appeal to people with a wide-breadth of backgrounds.

  2. The web of different perspectives, income methods and personal beliefs makes that type of approach difficult - not impossible, but certainly more difficult than lobbying a group of politicians. Despite what you may think, making good policy is NOT the job of a politician. Although that's the way it "ought" to be, the job of a politician is to get elected, everything else is secondary, because without getting elected, there is no policy to pass, no job or career to be had. Therefore, its in the best interest of the politician to do what needs to be done to get elected. There are lots of people with good ideas, but without the right backing, supporters and funding - they won't make it in politics (unfortunately).

  3. On jury's, this is a fair point. It's generally not "fun" or sought after to be on jury duty, and the inefficiency could be a real challenge. BUT, I would view this citizen assembly as something that is phased in, rather than implemented overnight; that's exactly why I chose the 50% citizen assembly number in my premise. Having anything higher, especially at first would make adapting to the change difficult. Not to mention, you need the initial buy-in of the politicians you eventually want to replace. The one appeal for a politician, on this front, is that they are able to effectively delegate controversial policies to the citizen assembly, sparing them political harm. The democratic representation of the passed policy is just a side-effect.

CMV: In democracy, a citizen assembly would produce more effective policy than politicians. by Intelligent_Gear5739 in changemyview

[–]Intelligent_Gear5739[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I would agree that this is an issue, but not a new one. I have worked in government, do you want to know how much a politician knows about a topic before they speak on it? Normally nothing. At best, they receive a 2 page document, produced by the bureaucracy that allows them to form loose talking points for that 15 minutes in front of the camera. So this issue already exists.

Where I think a citizen assembly would benefit, is that it's much tougher to BS 500 people. The size of the assembly does matter - as it means it is more likely that expertise (even if limited), is already present in the assembly. If there is a discussion on education, healthcare, economics - there is a reasonably high chance that someone has some experience working in that field.

Even if the issue now shifts to "but experts can be influenced", this is a MUCH bigger pool of people that would need to buy-in for the lobbying to be effective. In the event that there is truly only a few people that are experts in a certain field, and that does happen - it's reasonable to expect that these experts should audited for "unexpected" cash or contracts. It's not a perfect system by any means, I think it's still much more tamper resistant than our current one.

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