notes-groupDecisionMaking-politiciansAsTribalNonLeaders

I just had the idea that perhaps some of the attributes of modern politics can be explained with the following theory:

(a) people were evolved to live in small or medium-sized tribes in which they are acquainted with everybody. This instinctual programming is still present

(b) people are instinctively loyal to their tribe

(c) people are instinctively prone to hierarchy and fall into line to people above them in the hierarchy (except when they are trying to move up by challenging others)

(d) people are instinctively distrustful of people outside of their tribe, although they are not so distrustful that they will never deal with them

(f) modern social structures, including corporations, nations, and political parties, are in part structured to co-opt this instinctual programming to fool individuals into recognizing the group as the tribe, and therefore offer more unquestioning obedience

(f) but this doesn't completely work because you are supposed to be acquainted with everyone in your tribe, and these groups are too large for that

So, one can now look at democratic politicians as having the goal of causing as many people as possible to think that the politician is in their trible.

Strange things that this explains:

• Even intellectuals have a strange propensity to not change their political views very much in response to argumentation and information. This does not make sense if you imagine that people are choosing their politics based on thinking. This is because in the old days, an individual wouldn't benefit from voluntarily changing tribal affiliation, so the capability to decide that intellectually simply isn't built in. You'd only change tribal affiliation if you were exiled or lost a war or something, e.g. only if you were forced to live amongst another tribe. To reiterate: the instinctual machinery for choosing tribal affiliation doesn't care about policies, because in the old days you had no opportunity to choose a tribe based on its policies.
• However, in modern politics, issue stances have become a way of identifying between tribes. If someone wants to raise taxes, they must be a Democrat. I conjecture that this has an effect similar to meeting someone in the wilderness and seeing by the type of clothes that they are wearing which tribe they are a part of. It's NOT the issue itself that moves people, it's the learned association between issue and various tribes. If someone is running in a Republican primary and they want to raise taxes, this hurts them not because the other people are thinking, well, I agree with him on other things but not on that, but the importance of this issue may outweighs those; it hurts them because this activates the He's Not One Of Us instinct.
• Politicians seem to have to alternate between saying nothing except optimistic, patriotic platitudes so that no one hates them, and saying incendiary things that make others hate them but riles up their supporters. If they were trying to convince rational voters that they were good decision-makers, this would seem to be a bad way to go about it -- they never give you evidence that they are thinking at all except when they are trying to be incendiary, at which time they tell you loudly that their reasoning is irrational. But it makes sense if you think of their goal of causing as many people as possible to think the politician is in their tribe. Tribes are about people, not policies. Politicians say incendiary things because attacking other tribes demonstrates that you must be in the tribe that is enemies with those other tribes. The rest of the time they just basically talk about random things optimistically to give them a chance to use language which implies that you and they consider each other to be in the same group. They try not to discuss issues rationally because this can't help (the tribe-identification instinct doesn't care about policies) and it can hurt (if they happen to disagree with you on an issue that you associate with your tribe).
• Everyone seems to ridicule politicans, but to ferverently support their politicians against their opponents. This is because, if someone in your tribe is against someone from another tribe, you root for your guy, even if they are not very high in your tribal hierarchy. E.g. if you are a Republican, you would vote for a mediocre Republican over an excellent Democrat. But once that mediocre Republican is in a position of power over you, you resent it because they should be below you, not above.

Some more thoughts:

• You cannot expect people to present a common front with their politician if they are not in their party -- they feel they are in a different tribe. If anything, their instincts are to disagree with them just to show that they are not in their faction.
• In corporations and one-party states, people's instincts tell them that either they are all in the same tribe, or that there are two tribes, 'management' and the 'proletariat', and that one tribe has won a war and subjugated the other. Both of these situations are more 'natural' than democracy in the sense that they mimic commonly-occuring situations in the old days. In both of these situation, people's instincts will for the most part be telling them to obey and support the leadership (except that in the subjugated scenario, a subjugated person would suddenly switch to rebellion mode if there seems to be a chance to succeed). (note to readers: despite this 'unnaturalness', i am not claiming that one-party states or instinctual obedience are desirable, in fact i think quite the opposite; i'm just trying to analyze things within this framework)
• The multi-party democratic system has various unhealthy aspects:
  • It is inherently divisive, creating party loyalties and divisions over platform issues where there may not be any inherent division or disagreement.
  • People's rational view of the issues, and their appraisal of the candidates' decision-making ability, have very little effect on the outcome. Therefore, it is common for candidates who are not good at actually running things to get elected.
  • It does not mesh well with our instincts for someone who is ridiculed by one's tribe to be in a position of power over the tribe. Yet that is the outcome of the system.

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consequences for AC:

• mb sortition is a good idea after all
  • mb sortition but with the voters having a way to recall chosen ppl whom they really dont like
  • or mb, b/c recall might be unkind, sortition but with the voters chosing their fav candidates from some pool
• ppl respect credentialed experts -- mb have more of those. Being a CEO of a large corporation is a sort of credential, too.
• argues for have either approval voting or score voting with e.g. 3 choices
• requiring majority or supermajority voting to replace a leader may be a good idea, to prevent a 'minority tribe' from getting its leader into the position -- but may be a bad idea from the standpoint of allowing someone who is ridiculed to be in charge
• mb term limits are a mirage -- otoh mb ppl like Putin are a natural danger, so term limits are even more important. or mb even have term limits that can be waived with tons of support through all channels
• mb find a voting system that requires a majority of the opposition to support the winning candidate, too?
  • e.g. voting continues until a candidate wins an absolute majority; after that, they must further increase their vote to 1/2 of what the other guy got (mb just a supermajority would be sufficient here tho?)
    • or: could use Council affiliations and require that each member of a Delegate council is accepted by reps of each other faction
  • this would expose the system to the 'without a government' problem that plagues parliamentary systems, though, which the tribal model says is serious
• the tribal model says that the "many small parties" problem that parliamentary systems have is in fact a problem and is serious
• the Councils are a good idea; but i worry that the Delegates are institutionalizing divisive party factions even more, and the Delegate Council participation requirement might just train them to be good little politicians
• mb some sort of filtering system, where candidates declare their positions, voters declare their acceptence of positions, voting continues until enough candidates pass the filter? but what if candidates lie?
  • Mb the stances that candidates take that they are filtered upon become actual votes if they are selected?
    • Eg perhaps the 'stances' are the actual past voting record from the Forum and if same bills come up in Senate or House afterwards, the candidate is bound to vote he same way (because they were selected based upon filtering upon those votes)
• hmmm... liquiddemocracy with an anti-mass campaigning rule, i.e. you can only accept influence from 150 different ppl -- but wouldn't this simply be manipulated by parties?
• each delegate must be accepted into Council by a supermajority of the other Delegates -- o/w the sponsoring Delegation must send someone else -- but the Council cannot start without all the seats filled-- would be better for them to prescreen rather than reject after election to protect the feelings of the sponsoring delegation -- but then if they like the incumbent they would reject all challengers, making challenge impossible -- so mb supermajority recall before challenge in that case?
• mb something as simple as having the entire results of each election (not each candidate) being accepted by a supermajority -- o/w the old government stays in power
• mb a body with unlimitted number of members as long as all are supported by a supermajority