On 5/11/2012 12:20 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Wondering wrote:

That might be OK if the random drawing picked, say, Cliff Huxtable.
But
would you want a legislature full of Archie Bunkers?
---------------------------------
Sounds like you are describing the current election cycle.

So both the Democrat and the Republican (and third party if there is
one) candidates in your Congressional and legislative races are all
uneducated, racist, sexist bigots?

Just Wondering writes:
On 5/11/2012 12:20 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
Wondering wrote:

That might be OK if the random drawing picked, say, Cliff Huxtable.
But
would you want a legislature full of Archie Bunkers?
---------------------------------
Sounds like you are describing the current election cycle.

So both the Democrat and the Republican (and third party if there is
one) candidates in your Congressional and legislative races are all
uneducated, racist, sexist bigots?

you forgot religous zealots

scott

Sounds like you are describing the current election cycle.
--------------------
Wondering wrote:


So both the Democrat and the Republican (and third party if there is
one) candidates in your Congressional and legislative races are all
uneducated, racist, sexist bigots?

Nothing is ever ALL. Sorry but no cigar.

Lew

Just Wondering wrote:

Then it would not be random would it.

It absolutely could be, and if you do not understand why, then you do
not understand what random actually means. A random drawing would not
guarantee a uniform cross section. Just as it is possible to flip a
coin 4 times and get heads each time, or roll 7 with four successive
rolls of the dice, or deal a hand of cards holding three aces, a
random drawing would certainly allow a legislature full of people you
certainly would not want passing laws.

Since by definition half of all people are below average in education,
or intelligence, or experience, or any other measure of competence,
and half are below average in being susceptible to influence peddling,
bribery extortion, blackmail, a random drawing, over the long run,
would virtually guarantee that about half of the time you would get a
legislature that is below average in competence, and below average in
being susceptible to control by others with their own private agendas.

Likewise, you do not understand "average."

If ten people take a test and nine score 100 while one scores a zero, 90% of
the test takers are above average.

Since your understanding is fatally flawed, your conclusion is also.


And what about free choice? What if someone doesn't want to serve? If you
make him or her serve anyway, that's slavery. If you let them
decline service, then you've lost the randomness.

In some jurisdictions, voting is mandatory. Australia comes to mind.

HeyBub wrote:
Just Wondering wrote:

Then it would not be random would it.

It absolutely could be, and if you do not understand why, then you do
not understand what random actually means. A random drawing would not
guarantee a uniform cross section. Just as it is possible to flip a
coin 4 times and get heads each time, or roll 7 with four successive
rolls of the dice, or deal a hand of cards holding three aces, a
random drawing would certainly allow a legislature full of people you
certainly would not want passing laws.

Since by definition half of all people are below average in
education, or intelligence, or experience, or any other measure of
competence,
and half are below average in being susceptible to influence
peddling, bribery extortion, blackmail, a random drawing, over the
long run, would virtually guarantee that about half of the time you would
get a
legislature that is below average in competence, and below average in
being susceptible to control by others with their own private
agendas.

Likewise, you do not understand "average."

If ten people take a test and nine score 100 while one scores a zero,
90% of the test takers are above average.

Yeahbut - that does not contradict his point. Not defending his point, but
your argument does not contradict it.


Since your understanding is fatally flawed, your conclusion is also.


Too soon to tell.



And what about free choice? What if someone doesn't want to serve?
If you make him or her serve anyway, that's slavery. If you let them
decline service, then you've lost the randomness.

In some jurisdictions, voting is mandatory. Australia comes to mind.

Yeahbut - this is not Australia.

--

-Mike-

On Fri, 11 May 2012 12:42:33 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 5/11/2012 12:24 PM, Just Wondering wrote:
On 5/11/2012 5:42 AM, dadiOH wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 5/10/2012 9:14 AM, Han wrote:
Someone said we should go back to administration as was done in
ancient Athens (I didn't look up the details). The names of all
vote-eligible citizens would be put into a pot and someone would
blindly draw names to be assigned administrative jobs. A new
lottery would be done every so often, so there wouldn't be
entrenched administrators. The only criterion was that they had to
work for the benefit of Athens. The US is too averse of
professional administrators for fear of corruption, but corruption
by congress is allowed almost unfettered, alas. Something needs to
be done so the people will benefit eventually.
I once mentioned to my son that there should be a lottery and or a
requirement that government officials are not elected rather they are
randomly chosen. Not totally unlike jury duty.
I've been advocating the "ransomly drawn" idea for years. When I lived in
Hawaii I knew many of the legislators, bounced the idea off them. To a
man,
they thought it was a rotten idea which confirms my belief that it is
a good
one.

That might be OK if the random drawing picked, say, Cliff Huxtable. But
would you want a legislature full of Archie Bunkers?

Then it would not be random would it. And as far as I am concerned we
have worse than Archie Bunker now, Archie Bunker would be an improvement.

I'd bet a crazy, drunken, homeless man would do less damage to our
country (and more good) than some of the existing demigods posing as
CONgresscritters today.

--
In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the
necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create.
-- Raoul Vaneigem

Larry Jaques wrote:


I'd bet a crazy, drunken, homeless man would do less damage to our
country (and more good) than some of the existing demigods posing as
CONgresscritters today.

Really? That scares me...

--

-Mike-

Just Wondering wrote:
On 5/11/2012 5:42 AM, dadiOH wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 5/10/2012 9:14 AM, Han wrote:
Someone said we should go back to administration as was done in
ancient Athens (I didn't look up the details). The names of all
vote-eligible citizens would be put into a pot and someone would
blindly draw names to be assigned administrative jobs. A new
lottery would be done every so often, so there wouldn't be
entrenched administrators. The only criterion was that they had to
work for the benefit of Athens. The US is too averse of
professional administrators for fear of corruption, but corruption
by congress is allowed almost unfettered, alas. Something needs to
be done so the people will benefit eventually.
I once mentioned to my son that there should be a lottery and or a
requirement that government officials are not elected rather they
are randomly chosen. Not totally unlike jury duty.

I've been advocating the "ransomly drawn" idea for years. When I
lived in Hawaii I knew many of the legislators, bounced the idea off
them. To a man, they thought it was a rotten idea which confirms my
belief that it is a good one.

That might be OK if the random drawing picked, say, Cliff Huxtable. But
would you want a legislature full of Archie Bunkers?

You wouldn't get that with a random selection. Seems to me if a random
selection of citizens can decide a person's fate in a murder case they could
reach a reasonable consensus regarding legislation.

In the worst case, you would get a number of greedy, shortsighted,
incompetent, self serving bums. The difference between that and the current
situation is that they would only be there for one term. No pension either.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

dadiOH wrote:


You wouldn't get that with a random selection. Seems to me if a
random selection of citizens can decide a person's fate in a murder
case they could reach a reasonable consensus regarding legislation.


Random selection does not do that. Random selection creates the jury pool,
but then the selection from that pool is anything but random.


--

-Mike-

On Fri, 11 May 2012 21:19:36 -0400, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:


I'd bet a crazy, drunken, homeless man would do less damage to our
country (and more good) than some of the existing demigods posing as
CONgresscritters today.

Really? That scares me...

He's right... but he should have included our idiot-in-chief. And you
should be scared.

Gordon Shumway wrote:
On Fri, 11 May 2012 21:19:36 -0400, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:


I'd bet a crazy, drunken, homeless man would do less damage to our
country (and more good) than some of the existing demigods posing as
CONgresscritters today.

Really? That scares me...

He's right... but he should have included our idiot-in-chief. And you
should be scared.

He does scare me. Especially with November coming around...

--

-Mike-

On Sat, 12 May 2012 11:46:24 -0400, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:




He's right... but he should have included our idiot-in-chief. And you
should be scared.

He does scare me. Especially with November coming around...

Note that the price of gas is coming down as we head toward November.
The day after the inauguration it will probably be $6 a gallon.

Just like the unemployment numbers.

Everytime an election approaches they get lower, then get adjusted
afterwards.



On 5/12/2012 2:03 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Sat, 12 May 2012 11:46:24 -0400, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:




He's right... but he should have included our idiot-in-chief. And you
should be scared.

He does scare me. Especially with November coming around...

Note that the price of gas is coming down as we head toward November.
The day after the inauguration it will probably be $6 a gallon.

On 5/12/2012 5:53 AM, dadiOH wrote:
Just Wondering wrote:
On 5/11/2012 5:42 AM, dadiOH wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 5/10/2012 9:14 AM, Han wrote:
Someone said we should go back to administration as was done in
ancient Athens (I didn't look up the details). The names of all
vote-eligible citizens would be put into a pot and someone would
blindly draw names to be assigned administrative jobs. A new
lottery would be done every so often, so there wouldn't be
entrenched administrators. The only criterion was that they had to
work for the benefit of Athens. The US is too averse of
professional administrators for fear of corruption, but corruption
by congress is allowed almost unfettered, alas. Something needs to
be done so the people will benefit eventually.
I once mentioned to my son that there should be a lottery and or a
requirement that government officials are not elected rather they
are randomly chosen. Not totally unlike jury duty.
I've been advocating the "ransomly drawn" idea for years. When I
lived in Hawaii I knew many of the legislators, bounced the idea off
them. To a man, they thought it was a rotten idea which confirms my
belief that it is a good one.

That might be OK if the random drawing picked, say, Cliff Huxtable. But
would you want a legislature full of Archie Bunkers?
You wouldn't get that with a random selection.
In a random selection any combination is equally possible. For example,
take a population of 1,000 citizens, number them consecutively, than
select five of them by random. You're just as likely to draw nos.
1,2,3,4, and 5 as you are 41, 172, 394, 666 and 827. You're just as
likely to pick the five least qualified people as you are to draw any
other combination.

Seems to me if a random
selection of citizens can decide a person's fate in a murder case they could
reach a reasonable consensus regarding legislation.

First, what makes you think a jury is randomly selected from the
population at large?
Second, a jury is not just turned loose to decide a person's fate.
There are tight controls over what evidence they are presented with,
what they are instructed about the law, etc. Plus, if they get too far
out of control, the judge can enter a judgment contrary to their
verdict. Either side can appeal, etc. etc.
Third, what makes you think a random group of citizens could, or would,
reach a more reasonable consensus than elected representatives do?
In the worst case, you would get a number of greedy, shortsighted,
incompetent, self serving bums.

I can picture scenarios much worse than that.
The difference between that and the current
situation is that they would only be there for one term.

The voters, who ARE "majority rule" when it comes to electing
representatives, already have it in their power to put people in for
only term.
No pension either.

That should be the law already.
I would also require anyone who has to take an oath to uphold and defend
the Constitution to take an examination to prove they understand about
the Constitution and laws that they actually understand what that oath
means. If they can't prove they understand their oath, they shouldn't
be allowed to take it, meaning they should not be allowed to accept the
office.

On 5/11/2012 6:32 PM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Fri, 11 May 2012 12:42:33 -0500, Leonlcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 5/11/2012 12:24 PM, Just Wondering wrote:
On 5/11/2012 5:42 AM, dadiOH wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 5/10/2012 9:14 AM, Han wrote:
Someone said we should go back to administration as was done in
ancient Athens (I didn't look up the details). The names of all
vote-eligible citizens would be put into a pot and someone would
blindly draw names to be assigned administrative jobs. A new
lottery would be done every so often, so there wouldn't be
entrenched administrators. The only criterion was that they had to
work for the benefit of Athens. The US is too averse of
professional administrators for fear of corruption, but corruption
by congress is allowed almost unfettered, alas. Something needs to
be done so the people will benefit eventually.
I once mentioned to my son that there should be a lottery and or a
requirement that government officials are not elected rather they are
randomly chosen. Not totally unlike jury duty.
I've been advocating the "ransomly drawn" idea for years. When I lived in
Hawaii I knew many of the legislators, bounced the idea off them. To a
man,
they thought it was a rotten idea which confirms my belief that it is
a good
one.

That might be OK if the random drawing picked, say, Cliff Huxtable. But
would you want a legislature full of Archie Bunkers?
Then it would not be random would it. And as far as I am concerned we
have worse than Archie Bunker now, Archie Bunker would be an improvement.
I'd bet a crazy, drunken, homeless man would do less damage to our
country (and more good) than some of the existing demigods posing as
CONgresscritters today.

And I'd bet a crazy, drunken, homeless man would be more susceptible to
lobbying and influence peddling than the worst sitting Congressman you
can presently name. Putting such a person in Congress would just be
handing his vote over to those influence peddlers.

On 5/12/2012 6:11 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
dadiOH wrote:

You wouldn't get that with a random selection. Seems to me if a
random selection of citizens can decide a person's fate in a murder
case they could reach a reasonable consensus regarding legislation.

Random selection does not do that. Random selection creates the jury pool,
but then the selection from that pool is anything but random.


Even the jury pool is not a random selection. There are whole groups of
the population whose names are never included in a jury pool.

On 5/12/2012 12:03 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Sat, 12 May 2012 11:46:24 -0400, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:



He's right... but he should have included our idiot-in-chief. And you
should be scared.
He does scare me. Especially with November coming around...
Note that the price of gas is coming down as we head toward November.
The day after the inauguration it will probably be $6 a gallon.
And we should not give any President either the credit or the blame for
the price of gasoline. That price is determined by factors over which a
President has virtually no control.

Mike Marlow wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
Just Wondering wrote:

Then it would not be random would it.

It absolutely could be, and if you do not understand why, then you
do not understand what random actually means. A random drawing
would not guarantee a uniform cross section. Just as it is
possible to flip a coin 4 times and get heads each time, or roll 7
with four successive rolls of the dice, or deal a hand of cards
holding three aces, a random drawing would certainly allow a legislature
full of people
you certainly would not want passing laws.

Since by definition half of all people are below average in
education, or intelligence, or experience, or any other measure of
competence,
and half are below average in being susceptible to influence
peddling, bribery extortion, blackmail, a random drawing, over the
long run, would virtually guarantee that about half of the time you
would get a
legislature that is below average in competence, and below average
in being susceptible to control by others with their own private
agendas.

Likewise, you do not understand "average."

If ten people take a test and nine score 100 while one scores a zero,
90% of the test takers are above average.

Yeahbut - that does not contradict his point. Not defending his
point, but your argument does not contradict it.


Sure it does. If he starts with a flawed definition, "by definition half of
all people are below average in education...", his conclusion must be wrong.
He concludes, using this flawed definition, that a random drawing would
result in half those picked being scalawags, that half the elected
legislature below average in competence.

That's simply not true.

In the electorate of an example state, there may be only ONE person who is
corrupt and corrupt enough to drag the overall average down to the level of
"maybe." If the population elects 100 members to its legislature and happens
to include this rascal, you still end up with 99 righteous law makers.

"Average" is absolutely the wrong metric to use in evaluating most anything
like this.

"HeyBub" wrote in
:

"Average" is absolutely the wrong metric to use in evaluating most
anything like this.

I agree (note on the calendar!). I think one should consider median rather
than average. Median being the point at which half the observations have a
value higher, half lower than that median value. It "discards" outliers.
Of course, you need to establish whether convential statistics might apply,
such as whether or not the values symmetrically follow a bell curve.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 5/13/2012 7:54 AM, Han wrote:
wrote in
:

"Average" is absolutely the wrong metric to use in evaluating most
anything like this.
I agree (note on the calendar!). I think one should consider median rather
than average. Median being the point at which half the observations have a
value higher, half lower than that median value. It "discards" outliers.
Of course, you need to establish whether convential statistics might apply,
such as whether or not the values symmetrically follow a bell curve.

In the general U.S. population, the median and the mean are the same
point (or near enough not to make a statistically significant difference
to the final result in the example under discussion.)
And when you're taking a truly random sample taken from the general
population, you CAN'T discard outliers, or any other part of the
population, or the sample will no longer be truly random.

But you're both missing the point. The discussion is the consequence
of filling what are not elected seats in the government by a random
drawing from the population at large, which does fall nicely on a bell
curve. You're posing some "what ifs" that do not track the reality of
taking a random sample from the general U.S. population. in the long
run the aggregate of your samples will approximate that bell curve. But
any particular sample could come from any part of the curve. You could
very well get a sample consisting entirely of people in the bottom
second (or third) sigma distribution of the population at large. In
fact, given a sufficient number of samples, you would occasionally
expect that result. In other words, over the long run, selecting a
legislature by a random drawing from the general population would
occasionally be expected to populate the legislature with the worst of
the worst.

Just Wondering wrote in
:

On 5/13/2012 7:54 AM, Han wrote:
wrote in
:

"Average" is absolutely the wrong metric to use in evaluating most
anything like this.
I agree (note on the calendar!). I think one should consider median
rather than average. Median being the point at which half the
observations have a value higher, half lower than that median value.
It "discards" outliers. Of course, you need to establish whether
convential statistics might apply, such as whether or not the values
symmetrically follow a bell curve.

In the general U.S. population, the median and the mean are the same
point (or near enough not to make a statistically significant
difference to the final result in the example under discussion.)
And when you're taking a truly random sample taken from the general
population, you CAN'T discard outliers, or any other part of the
population, or the sample will no longer be truly random.

But you're both missing the point. The discussion is the consequence
of filling what are not elected seats in the government by a random
drawing from the population at large, which does fall nicely on a bell
curve. You're posing some "what ifs" that do not track the reality of
taking a random sample from the general U.S. population. in the long
run the aggregate of your samples will approximate that bell curve.
But any particular sample could come from any part of the curve. You
could very well get a sample consisting entirely of people in the
bottom second (or third) sigma distribution of the population at
large. In fact, given a sufficient number of samples, you would
occasionally expect that result. In other words, over the long run,
selecting a legislature by a random drawing from the general
population would occasionally be expected to populate the legislature
with the worst of the worst.

Correct. Sample size is important as well. Taking a sample of 12 people
from 300 million has inherently greater chance of not being
representative, etc, etc.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid