[EM] why ANY pr disempowers minority voters.

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Morning, Juho

re: "Or, one more way to see it, to select those whose
      self-interest is to serve others and the whole society."

Which, as Dr. Mansbridge put it, is to select those whose gyroscopes are 
aligned with those of the people.  That is precisely what the PD process 
accomplishes because it lets the people pick their own representatives.


re: "Maybe more in some well working democracies where people
      want to have some clear alternatives to choose from."

I disagree.  The people neither need nor want "clear alternatives to 
choose from".  They know what they need and they don't need 
power-seekers to tell them what it is.  They need and want to define the 
alternatives themselves!!!!


re: "If we assume that in some society parties are somehow
      corrupt, the solution could be either to get rid of the
      parties or to fix the parties."

Well, we can't get rid of parties because, as I've said before, 
partisanship is natural and healthy.  Parties will occur because that's 
the way ideas gain strength and acceptance.

That leaves 'fixing' them.

Parties can't be 'fixed' as long as they control the candidates for 
public office.  The only way to be sure parties can't control the 
candidates for public office is to be sure the non-partisans have a 
voice in naming the candidates for public office.  The PD process 
guarantees that everyone - partisans and non-partisans - participate in 
the selection of candidates for public office.


re: "The first solution is more straight forward, but the
      second one may be more tempting if one thinks that there
      will be some hierarchical management structure anyway."

It is not clear what the first and second solutions are, but why do you 
feel "some hierarchical management structure" is necessary?


re: "Starting from an existing management structure (with
      its positive and negative features) may be easier than
      trying to build the whole structure from scratch, ..."

John Dewey told us, almost 100 years ago:

    "The old saying that the cure for the ills of democracy
     is more democracy is not apt if it means that the evils
     may be remedied by introducing more machinery of the
     same kind as that which already exists, or by refining
     and perfecting that machinery."

We need to "build the whole structure"; we need new machinery, and that 
has be obvious for a long time.  The easy way will not get us out of the 
oligarchic hole we're in.


re: "... or letting the power hungry politicians build it
      from scratch themselves without any agreed plans."

That's exactly what we've done!!!!  It's time to climb down off the 
fence and put our minds to devising a better political process.  I've 
suggested one.  Help identify its flaws.


re: "Also bottom-up election oriented approaches do have
      the risk of malicious management structure, since power
      hungry people are guaranteed to implement some sort of
      centralized management structure on top of the official
      system anyway."

Are you suggesting that we cannot remove corruption from our political 
systems because humans are corruptible?  Why should we believe such a 
canard?  Are you not being misled by the high visibility of deceit and 
corruption in our culture.  The reason for this is that party politics 
elevates unscrupulous people by design.  Once these unprincipled people 
achieve leadership they infect our society because morality is a 
top-down phenomenon.

The vast majority of humans are decent people.  They have to be, for 
society could not exist otherwise.  The idea that corruption is 
inescapable leads to the self-defeating notion that trying to correct it 
is futile.


re: "It may be better to plan it rather than let those power
      hungry self-interested people build it themselves."

Ah, yes, Juho.  You took the words right out of my mouth.  That is the 
point of this discussion!!!


re: "In any of the proposed systems we have the problem that
      we may not succeed in lifting the best people to the top
      parts of the pyramid."

You may think so, and I may think so, but our opinions are but one each. 
  There are many others whose opinions may differ from ours, and it is 
their opinion that matters - not ours.  If we give them a way to do it, 
they will lift "the best people to the top parts of the pyramid."


re: "... it may be that the most power hungry individuals
      will be elected in the triads since they have the stamina
      to keep convincing others until others will give up and
      elect that person."

We can call them "the most power hungry individuals", but if they can't 
persuade their peers - including individuals who are also "power hungry" 
- that they are the best advocates of the interests of triad, they will 
not advance.  Furthermore, and even more important, as you point out, 
the process will elect fresh faces.  However "power hungry" they may be, 
they can do nothing in our legislatures unless they can attract the 
support of the other people's representatives.


re: "I'm a bit worried about the length of the
      influencing paths."

I'm not sure what's worrying you.  In the example, a community of 25,000 
people (which we arbitrarily stopped after 7 levels), each of the 
selected people represents about 3,570 people.  What part of that is 
worrisome?


re: "In a hierarchical bottom-up system (e.g. triads) there
      would be multiple such layers (with potential to tell
      one story downwards and do other kind of actions upwards)."

How and why would they tell a 'story' downwards.  The triads' only 
purpose is to advance one of their members.  Their attitudes are aligned 
with the attitudes of those who advanced them.  They don't need to look 
back.

Fred Gohlke