I like how the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy handled it. Put the person who least cares to be in charge in a position of ultimate power without telling them so. My memory is fuzzy, but I believe this is roughly how it was set up as far as the king of the universe went.

The main issue is that you have people as professional politicians who are really in it to advance their career. There is no escaping this in any currently proposed system. Those in power are paid to be, and by doing better (more tyranny, pandering to popularity contests by doing unsensible things etc) they get more money and more power.

Part of the problem is that voters don't actually know what is good for them long-term. We are very short-sighted and political standpoints are even more so because of the limited office terms. We are extremely short-sighted and often show extreme apathy or ignorance or both. In the hypothetical situation of a better system you would have an extremely intelligent person given a flat wage that ensured a comfortable and prosperous lifestyle, and poor decisions or avoiding work would deduct from this. There would be no donations from large corperations to push their agenda. They would not exactly want to be in power, they would have been placed there by some unbiased mandatory testing system. It would be their civic duty to serve in the best interests of the area they were in charge of while maintaining long-term vision of their decisions.

This is of course not really feasible, but aspects of it -are-. Making an optional testing system and remove elections entirely. People who want power must compete to see who is actually the most fit to lead. The problem with this is in determining the testing criteria. As it is there isn't really a choice in who gets elected, it is always between two or three well established groups who play against eachother to get fear votes and they crush all the smaller parties under heel.

Anyway, there is no perfect system, but the current system is not really a good forward looking one and I believe that in the very distant future, generations from now there may be an element of "fitness to lead".

The primary issue with my "system" is that even intelligent groups of people without a personal bias disagree on the correct course of action on serious matters where there is no optimal solution. But it does eliminate the greed and public popularity aspects which are pretty serious problems. The entire system I proposed would have to be completely transparant to the public, all documents made public, payments public. This is to ensure corruption doesn't worm its way in.

[Edited by - M2tM on March 31, 2009 7:06:01 PM]

Quote: Original post by Bregma
Democracy is a terrible system.

All the alternatives are even worse.

QFE. At least at the big-government level.

There are often much better alternatives to democracy at lower levels, I'll be the first to admit. There's a reason the military, companies, and so many other organizations aren't run as democracies. At best, they might borrow a few pages from it's notes.

Quote: Original post by MaulingMonkey

Quote: Original post by Bregma
Democracy is a terrible system.

All the alternatives are even worse.

QFE. At least at the big-government level.

There are often much better alternatives to democracy at lower levels, I'll be the first to admit. There's a reason the military, companies, and so many other organizations aren't run as democracies. At best, they might borrow a few pages from it's notes.

I have to agree with this. It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that no form of government works well on a large-scale. I haven't quite become an anarchist yet (and no, Mith, I'm not kidding), but I think we'd be a lot better of with *no* central government and lots of small, weak local governments.

Quote: Original post by Mithrandir

Quote: Original post by meh
BTW the system of government you probably would like is a Meritocracy.

Who decides what is considered meritorious?



Example; in most software companies I've worked, non-CS management has always had a strong preference for "code monkeys", people who have no true understanding of what they are doing, but simply pound on a bit of code until it looks like it works right, then they disappear to pound on another project, repeat ad nauseum. These people seem to be extremely deserving of merit, often because they can produce immediate results.

Problem lies in their methodology though. Usually with code monkey droppings, the slightest requirements change will break the entire pile of crap and cause it to collapse. By that time the monkeys have already moved on and have pounded feces into 3-4 other projects already.

Quality developers take time to analyze problems and create a proper solution that is robust enough to handle potential requirements changes. This takes skill and most importantly, time. From a management perspective these developers appear less meritorious because they cannot get initial results as fast as the monkeys. Instead their work only pays off over time when requirements inevitably change.


So you've got two criteria here. Immediate short term results that will be woefully shoddy in the long term vs long term quality results. Which is more meritorious?


Turns out you need people to figure that out. But who decides who comes up with the criteria then? Ah, back to democracy.

I do realise that, I was making a suggestion to the original poster. ;)

There's also the issue of the Peter Principle in that long term success in previous positions is no guarantee of success in a new one.

Quote: Original post by Myopic Rhino
It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that no form of government works well on a large-scale. I haven't quite become an anarchist yet (and no, Mith, I'm not kidding), but I think we'd be a lot better of with *no* central government and lots of small, weak local governments.

I agree as well.

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by Myopic Rhino
It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that no form of government works well on a large-scale. I haven't quite become an anarchist yet (and no, Mith, I'm not kidding), but I think we'd be a lot better of with *no* central government and lots of small, weak local governments.

I agree as well.

I'm not quite that far off the beaten path, although the idea of micro-nationalism (as I call it) certainly intrigues me. Sadly, there are a lot of problems to be addressed, the most obvious being the reason that many of these large governments came to be in the first place -- if you don't consolidate power, some tyrant with an army larger than yours will conquer and take over. Things like criminal and suspect extradition can also get... messy.

I do think we could use *a lot less* central government, however.

There are more than 300 million people in the United States and half of them think we only need enough government for 100 million...

Quote: Original post by MaulingMonkey

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by Myopic Rhino
It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that no form of government works well on a large-scale. I haven't quite become an anarchist yet (and no, Mith, I'm not kidding), but I think we'd be a lot better of with *no* central government and lots of small, weak local governments.

I agree as well.

I'm not quite that far off the beaten path, although the idea of micro-nationalism (as I call it) certainly intrigues me. Sadly, there are a lot of problems to be addressed, the most obvious being the reason that many of these large governments came to be in the first place -- if you don't consolidate power, some tyrant with an army larger than yours will conquer and take over. Things like criminal and suspect extradition can also get... messy.

I do think we could use *a lot less* central government, however.

I also agree here. The UK is a prime example of this - a few years ago Scotland was given its own parliament, and certain powers were devolved. Part of the argument for doing so was "how can a government in London decide what is best for Scotland". The same can be taken even further - how can the scottish parliament make a decision that equally benefits both Edinburgh and the remote Scottish Isles? One size doesnt always fit all. Stronger powers for councils and regional governments would go some way to solving this - but then your adding an extra layer of bureaucracy.

Back to the original topic - personally I would have voted for the other party. One of your friends policies was to reduce carbon emmissions on campus. Personally I dont buy into the whole greenhouse gasses causing global warming thing, and am sick of companies constatnly preaching about their green schemes in an attempt to please a few tree-huggers. IMHO reducing campus emmissions is a complete waste of time and that cash would be far better spent on more computers and improved study resources. Secondly, when I attended uni I was not entitled to any financial support, due to parents earnings. Therefore I have no interest in raising standard of living or anythign like that.

University is all about having a good time - your friends seem to be taking it far too serious and need to chill a little. Enjoy a fun time at uni before the stress and hassle of real life kicks in.

The other party may have been campaining for issues they have no control over, but it is still a valid campain point. A vote for them shows you support a better freshers week, whether they can change that or not doesnt matter. Look at all the protesters currently in London over the G20 summit. None of the people stood there have the power to change anything, but by being there and showing they support the cause makes it far more likely that the government will listen.

If your friends won then there is little chance of the university improving freshers week, it would indicate everyone is happy with it as it is. With the other party winning, it shows people think it is inadequate, so there is a greater chance of it now being improved.

And thats why they get my vote.

Quote: Original post by MaulingMonkey

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by Myopic Rhino
It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that no form of government works well on a large-scale. I haven't quite become an anarchist yet (and no, Mith, I'm not kidding), but I think we'd be a lot better of with *no* central government and lots of small, weak local governments.

I agree as well.

I'm not quite that far off the beaten path, although the idea of micro-nationalism (as I call it) certainly intrigues me. Sadly, there are a lot of problems to be addressed, the most obvious being the reason that many of these large governments came to be in the first place -- if you don't consolidate power, some tyrant with an army larger than yours will conquer and take over. Things like criminal and suspect extradition can also get... messy.

I do think we could use *a lot less* central government, however.

Plus you lose the efficiencies of economy-of-scale with things like health care, road work, construction, police, etc.

Every government wants these things, it doesn't make sense to have thousands of separate instances.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
There are more than 300 million people in the United States and half of them think we only need enough government for 100 million...

Are you talking about the half that believes that about 1 out of every 3 Americans is so helpless that it requires 2 out of every 3 Americans to give up more than half of the fruits of their labor to support the helpless one?