• Mountainaire@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              That’s actually the original intent of the presidency, from what I recall reading: they should be a relatively normal guy who keeps Congress in check, little more. Oh, well.

          • forestbeasts@pawb.social
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            5 months ago

            I mean it’s probably leagues better than the current system where the only people who get anywhere near the presidency are the powergrubbers.

            – Frost

        • zbyte64@awful.systems
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          5 months ago

          Maybe if you don’t choose it’s a vote for a lottery to pick. If half the population doesn’t vote then the winner is a random person. So if the authorities manage to prevent people from voting then they can’t seize the system with their own pick

          • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Random? I’d hope they were at least qualified. Believe me, I wouldn’t want most of the people I know in charge of anything. I wouldn’t even trust myself with a town budget.

            • zbyte64@awful.systems
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              5 months ago

              Right, but this is a democracy we are talking about. If half of the people participating are convinced the entire selection is no better than a random pick then that is very damning.

                  • josephmbasile@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    Experts do know best in their field of expertise, that’s what makes them experts. In such a “Citizen Jury” if we lucked out and got a PhD in microbiology I would probably want that person on the FDA committee or whatever.

                    Excluding someone from the political process because they have an education is called Kakistocracy.

                  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    One of the first thing authoritarians do is eliminate or crush intellectuals. The Soviets murdered all of the Polish intellectuals. The Khmer Rouge did the same thing. Even wearing glasses made you “guilty”. They don’t want anyone who can talk back.

    • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      The word and system you’re looking for is the ancient Greek democracy, especially from Athens.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

      Ancient Greeks believed that government and positions of power must be randomly selected by a machine from a pool of candidates, and that elections are NOT democratic. That elections are always going to be corrupted by the oligarchy.