political hot take
Inspired by another thread, possibly my hottest take regarding politics: politicians are the least qualified to be making societal decisions, and a literal random selection from the population would yield better outcomes.
This is because the publicly-perceived power of any such job position selects for those with the most hunger for power and the least interest in maintaining a healthy society where everyone thrives.
So far, so anarchist - but crucially, I think that *any* political model that is built with this in mind could work, even if it is not strictly anarchist. Notably, this includes an elected executive branch where actual policymaking is done by a randomly selected set of citizens, and politicians do not have any power over *what* gets implemented.
That is, "politician" becomes a bureaucratic government job, a type of clerk and potentially advisor, rather than a position of power.
political hot take
@joepie91 isn't that how the Michigan redistricting commission works?
https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2023/12/20/random-selection-on-jan-3-to-replace-redistricting-commissioner-after-resignation
discussion re: political hot take
@sj That does not look quite like the same thing; it still seems to work with applicants.
What makes the random-selection model work, going off experiments with this so far, is that there is nothing to apply or campaign for, there is no 'party reputation' to protect, it is essentially just a civil duty that is assigned - and so 100% of the focus is on researching the actual policy problem rather than on maintaining party politics.
Essentially, there is nothing to be gained or lost personally from drawing any particular conclusion, you get compensated for your work whatever the outcome is and that outcome has zero impact on future selections (not even in an increase in applicants from a particular party for example).
political hot take (2)
(I do still feel that anarchism is ultimately a healthier long-term model, and a good goal to work towards, but I want to draw a distinction here between "things that are optimal" and "things that can work", which aren't quite the same list of things - the model described here may not be optimal but I think it can still work well enough)