More than a bunch of random people would. This is just the Left’s version of anti-intellectualism; the idea that we can solve problems by throwing random people at them, because admitting that knowledge and expertise matter is Evil.
Yes, IMO.
However this:
…is not what I mean by “collapse”.
I mean the US economy should collapse, along with a widespread acknowledgement by the public that they were duped by phony messaging, and a desire from both the general public and those in positions of power to a return to something approximating decency and rationality.
Now, I would agree with you that for this to happen organically would be the very best scenario, but I just don’t see that as remotely plausible. Every moment we avoid any consequences the country gets more stupid. We’re so overdue now that it unfortunately needs to be something big.
Why on Earth would we expect that to be the result of an economic collapse, rather than the more typical barbarism and violence?
I think it’s far less plausible that this would be the reaction to economic collapse.
Maybe. Looking at the current brood in the U.S. congress doesn’t bear out that assumption.
I think you read my whole post and I really don’t know where you get the “Left’s version of anti-intellectualism.”
I did say that politicians in any assembly can hardly be expected to have all the “knowledge and expertise” that you seem to be equating with being elected. On the contrary, they often show stunning incompetence and ignorance (certainly not limited to the U.S.).
In the early doys of the U.S. republic, many thought that the idea of political parties was a bad thing. A person should be elected on his* abilities. The world of today is many magnitudes more complex so maybe political parties were inevitable. That doesn’t mean it is the only way. I’d love to see a reform of my own parliament, but I know that it’s not going to happen. The current shitstorm in the U.S. might - might - be an opportunity to look into other ways of doing things. Maybe only to come to the conclusion that the current system is the best solution for you guys.
Dismissing other options as “anti-intellectualism” out of hand, when you use the same system in the judicial branch (i.e. jury), is in itself a sign of “anti-intellectualism.”
*No women at that point.
I’ve been super critical of the jury system for precisely that reason. Entrusting twelve random idiots whose only qualification is “didn’t manage to come up with an excuse to avoid jury service” with dispensing justice is beyond stupid.
Because it’s the sort of proposal I’ve seen plenty of times from leftists. Everyone is equal, expertise is evil elitism, and all problems can be solved by throwing large numbers of random people at them. Electrical grid needs upgrading? Just get random people to do it. Housing crisis? Having everyone just build houses. Corruption in government? Random people off the street will do fine.
I would not be so sure about that statement…
You’ve seen this this plenty of times? Where?
The fact that this particular grand jury made a decision I agree with doesn’t mean the system isn’t horrendously flawed. I’m sure I could find a single example of a dictator making a good decision, but if you said that handing absolute executive power to a single individual is a terrible idea, linking an article about a single rare policy W from Kim Jong Un would hardly be a valid counterargument.
That was six times already as per the report.
Not making a point for the whole system, it can be flawed, I know. But being so so absolute in a line like the one you made, is not accurate either.
On other forums.
Lots of things can happen as a result of an economic collapse: public disenchantment with a political philosophy is a very common effect.
Again, maybe some are taking the word “collapse” more seriously than others here? I’m not talking about the US going back to the stone age. I’m thinking more like a deep depression, for at least a year. As long as it takes.
People will get fucked off with tariffs, the corruption and grift, then maybe the lack of foreign labor, and once people are openly questioning some of the main MAGA tenets, the whole thing will unravel. It’s unlikely that what will happen next is a desire for critical thinking and listening to the evidence presented by experts, but I never claimed a win was a likely outcome. Only that MAGA blowing up spectacularly is a necessary prerequisite IMO.
Any other bumps in the road will be ignored as the US continues towards increasing ignorance. And drags the rest of the world with it.
On other forums I can find people that believe the Earth is hollow, that Obama is secretly still the (evil) President of the United States, that Speed 3 will be released in just 4 months and that birds do not actually exist, but if I tried to present any of those ideas here as something a lot of influential people are pushing and thus must be argued against, people would rightfully ask for sites that show that said idea was being put forth by anyone we should actually be concerned about.
I’ll speak as someone who (only sort of) espouses this idea.
I really do think that there are a large number of jobs that need to be done that almost anybody could do (barring disability or other infirmity). Many of these are unpleasant, such as harvesting or cleaning public spaces. I do think that we should have all citizens do this one day a week or so: what we’d lose in efficiency (people who do it all the time are more expert), we’d gain in civic engagement, and it would help a lot with social and class barriers.
If citizens can handle jury duty, they can handle a lot of what Congress does. Especially if we educate them to be capable of their civic duties.
I don’t think that such reforms are really possible in the USA, and the negative repercussions outweigh any real incentive to try them, but I don’t think it’s inherently foolish to expect citizens to do a bit more of the heavy lifting for the maintenance of their society. Nor do I think it’s impossible to set such a system up. I do think the USA is far too big for this to work here, though, even at the state level.
So it’s one of those things I think is more feasible in theory than you do, but I recognize that the practical barriers are almost insurmountable. We could and should take micro-steps towards it where possible, though.
So is it your thesis that climate change will trigger fracturing of the country? Or that it will cause major upheavals triggering massive deaths, and thereby lead to the collapse of the federal government?
Or are you looking at the political dichotomy as the driving force of government collapse and splintering?
This sounds curiously like the system of government proposed by Frank Herbert in his later Dune books. The part about principles over laws and the jury review over elections sound right off the pages of Chapterhouse.
At least this seems a little more informative of some of the process of how it works.
A huge challenge to me is the shifting of society’s mindset to think in terms of principles instead of laws. It’s a different mindset to think about what’s right based on principles versus defining lines by rules.
Just look at the example here on the SD. We started with the principle “Don’t be a jerk.” How long was it before we had to codify certain actions as being a jerk? How many times do the mods deal with protests in ATMB by “rules lawyers” who want to dance the line instead of avoid the line altogether?
What would it take to get society as a whole to transform that thought process? Even our religions that claim to be about philosophy break down into rules of what to do and not do.
Minor quibble, but myself, among other members of this board, find jury duty interesting, or, at least, a minor chore that’s the price of living in a semi-free state, kind of like voting. Though being in an all-mail-voting state, the latter isn’t bad for me at least. IOW, we don’t try to get out of jury duty, but it’s very possible we’re the minority.
And equally anecdotally, I’ve never heard anyone outside rando internet crazies saying this. Not that you’re one of those crazies, but those sorts of feelings come from “bootstrap/power of the common man” claims on both sides of the spectrum.
(@Czarcasm does a better job of addressing it, but again, wanted to re-affirm AND point out it’s not exactly a leftist ONLY POV)
Not wrong, but to expand this point a bit, the politics of the Bene Gesserit work because each individual is so carefully educated, trained and culled. And each Reverend Mother is in a way, an entire population to itself - they have ample experience of all the ways things can go wrong, the desires of the masses, and the consequences. Combine that with the earlier points, and it’s practically a society of Philosopher-Kings.
Except I don’t like the adversarial trial system all that much. Too much focus on winning over finding the truth. So much effort goes into fighting over what can and can’t be admitted as evidence. Science is decided by whose expert is more likeable. Too many times a plea bargain is pushed on people, not because they are guilty, but because the risk of trial could be much worse. Sometimes prosecutors won’t pursue cases or give plea deals to protect their case record versus pursuing justice.
Any system for passing laws or for evaluating the results would be a similar mess, every bit as bad as the two-party system. We need a system about truth, not about winning.
That does sound better. If the results are binding. If they are collected and then ignored or discarded, then it is just a distraction.
If the US economy collapses to the degree you mean, the global economy will collapse. Then there will be deaths in the millions for sure, if not all Americans.
And even if the US economy tanks, the forces that brought us MAGA ands the collapse of our government will still be at work. They won’t suddenly shut up because tariffs drive up prices and government services dwindle. They will still be spinning their lies about what is causing the failure of their policies to usher in the golden age. They will still be pushing an ideological agenda that puts people last. They still will be blaming the other. They may just blame all those other countries for having their economies tank and thus dragging us down. Cause arrow reversal is a great technique for deflecting blame.
And many of the people who have bought into the lies so far will not be able to see through it. The simple lies are easier to swallow than the complex truths. Especially when you’ve gotten used to the taste.
Ecosystem “failure” (or more accurately, reconfiguration) will create very serious problems for a whole lot of people. People support a government because it makes their lives less bad, but if the Earth itself is making their lives more bad and the government is seen to be floundering or doing unhelpful things, the people will turn against it and it will fall. And if fossil fuels are seen to be a significant part of the problem, that makes the government’s struggles harder, because it needs that mobility to maintain its reach.
The ecosystem, though, is global: the US will be dealing with its local problems on a global scale and will simply reach the point where it cannot keep up. Kind of like fighting a war on multiple fronts. I think that, in the end, the people will find it easier to cope on smaller scales first and will see the federal government as over-extended.
The system we have is not the only way of doing things. I share your dislike of the adversarial system and envision panels that would have more lattitude in crafting decisions (e.g., “We will approve your project if you agree to these conditions and mitigations”, which might lead to additional hearings and negotiations).
And panels might be drawn not from the gross jury pool but from a pool of citizens who agree in advance to sit on a panel. In which case, society would have to be organized in a way that potential panelists would easily be able to serve, without limiting the pool to certain types of people (who for whatsoever reason have the spare time).
Which means we need a human nature which values truth above winning. Good luck with that.
I assumed they were referring to Inquisitorial judicial systems, as can be found throughout most of Continental Europe for example, since they were contrasting the system with Adversarial systems like the US and other common law countries have.