[EM] Small National Assembly. Bottom-Up government.

[Monkey Puzzle]

Michael and Fred:

Looking at the problem from a higher level, one could instead ask, what is
the problem that we are trying to address with legislatures to begin with?

One could argue, along the lines of The Wisdom of Crowds, that governing
can be compared to a genetic modeling problem.  If that is the case, the
part of government that proposes and argues new laws can be compared to
genetic diversity, while the accept or reject portion of government can be
compared to natural selection.  That would lead one to the proposition of
using Proportional Representation in the lower house, and centrist
aggregation for the upper house and executive branches.

So what is the best way to represent the lower house?

Consider http://www.thirty-thousand.org/

At one time, there was one representative for every 30K voters.  We are now
some large distance away from that.

Historically, the number of representatives per candidate approximately
followed the curve of the cube root of the population, until the number of
representatives was frozen in 1913 at 435.

Personally, I would prefer a combination of more representatives with PR,
so that almost everyone would feel that their voice was represented in the
lower house of the legislature.

The problem with the Bottom Up proposal is that it is basically a
hierarchical system like the current Democratic Party Caucuses, and winnows
away true proportional representation by discretizing at each level.  An
example of premature optimization, if you will.


 Frango ut patefaciam -- I break so that I may reveal

On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net> wrote:

> Good Morning, Michael
>
> Thank you for your suggestion that we adopt a bottom-up political
> process.  It's timely.  The fallacy of letting political parties tell us
> who we can vote for was clearly illustrated in the recent election in the
> United States.
>
> You point out that "Bottom-Up is the easy, natural, locally- organizable
> system."  I agree.
>
> It is, however, different than anything we're used to and that makes it
> difficult for many people to accept.  The fact that you recognize its value
> and call attention to it will help others see the wisdom of a process that
> lets everyone participate in selecting our representatives.
>
> You ask whether it's "worth giving up numerical majority-preservation at
> the national level to achieve those advantages."  It will also work at the
> local level.  It is worthwhile because numerical majorities are heavily
> influenced by media manipulation.  They tend to be more emotional than
> intellectual.  Your bottom-up proposal lets the people make more thoughtful
> choices.
>
> I hope others will help hone your suggestion.  It is certainly worth
> examining.
>
> Fred Gohlke
>
> ----
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>
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