Re:The Corrosion of High School Debate
by anigbrowl on Tuesday October 10, 2017 @05:08PM
(#15445330)
The judge is God first and foremost
What could possibly go wrong :-/
One might argue that the jury system in legal cases functions primarily as a check upon the risks of corruptible judges, whether that corruption takes the form of mere bribes or appeals to intellectual vanity. But of course once you go down the democratic route, the temptation to appeal to the emotions of the poorly-informed creates a new set of problems.
Another part of the problem that I feel the author overlooked is the default dualism of debate, with all nuance and complexity reduced to one option or the other. This is reflected in the either/or nature of litigation and referenda, where the preference for a clear majority decisions encourages the sort of gamesmanship that undermines institutional participation int he first place.
Lately I've been exploring alternative decision-making systems and one that has captured my interests is designed for moderate-size groups (up to a couple hundred people) in a two-step process: people slit into smaller groups to originate proposals, then vote as a large group to rank them. the key difference is that participants get 3 votes, so they can advance up to 3 proposals they consider worthy, or put all 3 votes behind a single issue they care passionately about.
Of course any system is subject to manipulation once formalized, this approach seems to generate greater collective satisfaction with pluralistic outcomes (emphasis added because I haven't fully researched it yet).
What could possibly go wrong :-/
One might argue that the jury system in legal cases functions primarily as a check upon the risks of corruptible judges, whether that corruption takes the form of mere bribes or appeals to intellectual vanity. But of course once you go down the democratic route, the temptation to appeal to the emotions of the poorly-informed creates a new set of problems.
Another part of the problem that I feel the author overlooked is the default dualism of debate, with all nuance and complexity reduced to one option or the other. This is reflected in the either/or nature of litigation and referenda, where the preference for a clear majority decisions encourages the sort of gamesmanship that undermines institutional participation int he first place.
Lately I've been exploring alternative decision-making systems and one that has captured my interests is designed for moderate-size groups (up to a couple hundred people) in a two-step process: people slit into smaller groups to originate proposals, then vote as a large group to rank them. the key difference is that participants get 3 votes, so they can advance up to 3 proposals they consider worthy, or put all 3 votes behind a single issue they care passionately about.
Of course any system is subject to manipulation once formalized, this approach seems to generate greater collective satisfaction with pluralistic outcomes (emphasis added because I haven't fully researched it yet).