Solutions From The Multiverse

Solving Energy, Architecture, and Elections: Earth Lasers, Cathedrals, and Sortition | SFM E95

Adam Braus & Scot Maupin Season 2 Episode 41

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Imagine limitless, virtually free energy from geothermal fusion lasers! This episode explores groundbreaking advancements in geothermal energy, spotlighting a revolutionary laser technology capable of drilling through the Earth's crust to tap into superheated rocks. We discuss the transformative potential of setting up geothermal power plants anywhere, examine the risks like potential volcanic activity, and compare this to other futuristic energy solutions such as wave power and plasma-based fusion energy. Join us for a deep dive into the practicality and environmental impact of these pioneering technologies.

Next, we shift our focus to a fascinating debate: Are grand cathedrals still relevant today? One side argues that these architectural marvels offer sublime beauty and spiritual experiences akin to natural wonders, using the Cathedral of the Light in Oakland as a modern example. The other side questions whether the resources invested in such monumental structures could be better spent on practical community improvements like planting trees or addressing homelessness. We explore both perspectives, weighing the inspirational value against ethical considerations of funding such projects.

To wrap things up, we delve into political reform with a discussion on sortition—randomly selecting representatives as an alternative to traditional elections. Could this method democratize politics and reduce the influence of money? We discuss the potential benefits, like eliminating partisan conflicts and making political roles more accessible, alongside the risks, such as having unqualified candidates. We also consider sortition's application beyond politics, in contexts like companies and cities. Tune in for thought-provoking insights that challenge conventional thinking on energy, architecture, and governance!


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Comments? Feedback? Questions? Solutions? Message us! We will do a mailbag episode.

Email:
solutionsfromthemultiverse@gmail.com
Adam: @ajbraus - braus@hey.com
Scot: @scotmaupin

adambraus.com (Link to Adam's projects and books)
The Perfect Show (Scot's solo podcast)
The Numey (inflation-free currency)

Thanks to Jonah Burns for the SFM music.

Speaker 1:

Well, hey, hey, hey, funny seeing you here in the Multiverse Transportation Network Transit Hub.

Speaker 2:

It's where I hang out. It's cheaper than Starbucks. It's the hang Cheaper than any other hang for the Wi-Fi. I just come for the Wi-Fi.

Speaker 1:

They have very fast Wi-Fi. Oh yeah, At the hub oh great, that's right I I have a. I've been reading the news. I don't think this is a whole solution episode, but I've been reading the news about this uh, geothermal fusion laser thing. Have you heard about this? Uh? Geothermal fusion laser so they took the lasers that they use to heat up hydrogen doing to do fusion, sure, and they think this guy at mit was like shooting it at random shit for fun he was like hey, I wonder what sounds good, sounds good.

Speaker 1:

And he figured out that it burns through rock faster than a drill does like faster than like a drilling rig. Okay, and so they're using it now to try to drill through the Earth's crust down to the magma. Oh, and if you can do that, then you can make geothermal power plants anywhere in the world. Right and geothermal power plants are just free energy.

Speaker 2:

All you have to do is shoot a laser down to the core, the center of the earth.

Speaker 1:

That's it, oh, well, that doesn't seem that bad. Not the center, it just has to go through, like uh, 10 to 20 kilometers of rock it just has to breach volcano level.

Speaker 2:

So you have to create a hole, you have to down to where the lava is, which, famously, is what makes volcanoes happen.

Speaker 1:

So you think this might cause volcanoes? It sounds like you're creating volcanoes, right, but it's not really down to magma. It's down to what are called superheated rocks.

Speaker 2:

What are those?

Speaker 1:

Those are between the magma, like the liquid magma and like the cool crust. There's like you know, the magma heats up the bottom of the crust a lot. Are they solid? They're solid, but they're like 600 degrees Okay, and then you can just dump water down the hole and then the water boils immediately Because it's 600 degrees Sure, or hotter, 800 degrees 1000 degrees. And then the steam comes up. And you catch, the steam runs, a turbine makes electricity it always just makes steam it's always steam it's always boil water and turn a fan.

Speaker 2:

That's all this is that's it. You're using freaking lasers. You're using lasers Again. We have nuclear power. What do we do with it? We heat up water. We turn a fan with steam. We have lasers. What are we going to do with these lasers powerful enough to go to the like to cut through a planet and we're like cool, we're going to use it to heat up water and turn a fan.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's so okay, I have two. Do you want two sorts of energy that don't turn a fan with steam? I have two yes one is a way to go. Wave to the bicycle wave power, wave power, so wave power. The thing bobs up and down, and as it bobs up and down, yeah, it turns a thing that makes electricity. So it's not a steam with a fan, right, it's up and down, right and as it goes up, it turns one way it's the same thing.

Speaker 2:

It turns the other way. It's moving the fan with the with particles okay, I've got one that is sci-fi there is a fusion.

Speaker 1:

There's a fusion energy company in the bay here that has tons of money. They're called, uh, they're called, uh uh, helium, okay I like it already.

Speaker 1:

Nothing about steam helium shoots two fusion reactions at each other that's what I'm talking about when the fusion reactions hit, they compress, creating a ton of fusion, a lot of fusion. They were doing a little fusion out there on the edge, then they could do a lot of fusion in a lot of fusion. They were doing a little fusion out there on the edge, then they could do a lot of fusion in the center, the energy they release as fusion becomes plasma.

Speaker 1:

Plasma has a magnetic effect. They then harness that magnetic effect directly and create electricity. No fan, no steam. Now see, was that so hard? Was that so freaking hard?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and guess what color the fusion so hard? Was that so freaking hard? Yeah, all right. And guess what color the?

Speaker 1:

fusion is. Guess what color? The fusion is Bright pink. Yes, it's bright pink.

Speaker 2:

Tang, well, better be.

Speaker 1:

So it looks like total sci-fi.

Speaker 2:

Woo Woo Ectoplasm.

Speaker 1:

It's ectoplasmic Dads. Okay, now I'm happy.

Speaker 2:

That's okay.

Speaker 1:

Now that, but I'd rather do geothermal, because all that fusion stuff is very complicated. Where are you getting all this water that you're pouring down? You're probably going to pour down bottled water, aren't you? There's plenty of water. You're going to get individually bottled waters and then you're going to throw those bottles.

Speaker 2:

You're not even going to recycle them. You're probably going to throw them in a landfill aren't you Throw them in a landfill?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I think there's a terrible plan out of it. If you have free energy everywhere, that's good. That's good. So you could and actually you know the guys who are doing this, don't reactors that apple made for me expensive energy, that's oh sorry I didn't realize I had the cheap planet laser energy which is that's the thing. That's the thing there.

Speaker 2:

So they still have to figure out a few engineering problems, though I learned how long you think it's going to take before someone uses those and like bolts them onto the front of a of a car, uh-huh, and then like just starts driving around lasering things in half that's.

Speaker 1:

That would be a danger, wouldn't it? It's the big, it's one of the biggest right, I don't well, maybe, uh, the biggest danger to this.

Speaker 2:

There aren't very many dangers to this okay, jurassic park, you, you make it, you make a laser that's powerful enough to cut through the earth, and you didn't ask, you didn't stop to ask what happens if someone points it at, not the earth, it, can cut through the earth at 60 like like 10 centimeters an hour okay, how fast does it cut through? Say like you know a goose, how fast, very quickly, yeah, it'd be okay, it'd be very hot, it's a hot laser.

Speaker 1:

This is a hot laser, okay, but I don't think it goes very far, like you have to be right up against the rock to burn through it oh yeah, lasers are notorious for limited like length they definitely don't continue so you think that maybe these guys are creating like a death heat ray, like literally what the bad guys have?

Speaker 2:

in what does it sound?

Speaker 1:

like lord of the world, of war of the worlds it sounds like yes I think that's what they're creating I'm well, they've already created.

Speaker 2:

I was saying, this already exists. They saw all they've done is.

Speaker 1:

They've taken that technology and they just pointed at rock, that's it yeah, so this already all exists.

Speaker 2:

Dude the that val kilmer movie real genius.

Speaker 1:

I've never seen it making a big way heat ray in that too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they make a big laser.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, never mind. But yeah, I'm very hopeful. This is what now has given me more hope than anything else that we might actually be able to not completely destroy the entire Earth with climate change.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Because this technology sounds very credible. The other thing about it that's really cool is they can dig it anywhere. So where do they want to dig the holes?

Speaker 2:

Antarctica.

Speaker 1:

No, that makes no sense.

Speaker 2:

Although there's a lot of water there, it's the coldest place.

Speaker 1:

You get the hottest stuff and then you, you mix them together and mix electricity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, yeah, a little tropical, a little Antarctica spot.

Speaker 1:

No, they want to take established coal power plants that are already coal power plants are they want to take established coal power plants that are already coal power plants they're already running coal and then just drill down and replace, make the, because the fins are already spinning with steam right, so there's already the water and everything's all there. Spin it up so this they could just, instead of burning coal, they could just start using the superheated rocks.

Speaker 2:

Right, and if you have these super powerful lasers, you can take over a coal mine, no problem. You just go in there, point the laser, everybody put down, go, everyone get down, stop mining, right, stop mining. And everyone come back up and, um, you know, take a break, it's not a mine, it's a power plant, but I know what you mean yeah, I got you stop putting coal into that furnace yes and everybody start shooting this laser down.

Speaker 1:

Oh, we could do it as a heist movie. We should do it as a heist movie.

Speaker 2:

We should do this solution for real in, yeah, in a movie, yeah yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

Well, that was just like a side solution okay, I like your side solution, we can talk about another one you got another side solution for me.

Speaker 2:

I got, I got side I got so many solutions.

Speaker 1:

It's just crazy I just I feel like they're always big and then I want to do the big ones, I don't want to do the small ones maybe I should just do two other small ones, just do two more small ones. What do you think?

Speaker 2:

give us a smattering, okay here's a little small one.

Speaker 1:

We should build more cathedrals. We should have never stopped building cathedrals hmm, okay, a hard disagree.

Speaker 2:

So solutions are. So the cathedrals are the solute this. Okay. Now what is it a pro? Hmm, okay.

Speaker 1:

Hard disagree. So the cathedrals are the solution. Okay, now what's the problem that cathedrals solve?

Speaker 2:

There's not one, they create them. They create problems.

Speaker 1:

No, I think they solve problems. So here's what I think. Here's what I think.

Speaker 2:

I think a cathedral, so this is where I got this idea.

Speaker 1:

I was walking in Muir Woods, which is a beautiful forest. Oh, they have like a forest, one right, and they call it a cathedral, a forest cathedral, because when you're there it feels like you're in a cathedral, but it's all trees, which made me think. Wait a second. If people in one of the most beautiful places in the world say this feels like a cathedral, then that means cathedrals are some of the most beautiful places in the whole world and you can't make mere forest, like mere woods is thousand years old. You can't make it. But we could build a cathedral. Cathedrals can actually be built. So what you're saying is you can build more places that make you feel as good as you feel in mere woods. Let's do that. That would be more cathedrals so let's build.

Speaker 2:

They're saying. I think you're reverse applying this logic. They're saying that what they're experiencing in the woods is like a, like a religious-ish type experience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that they're feeling just by the nature of where they're at because the soaring trees and then trees, and the beautiful canopies and the light filtering in and the association with where that's what cathedrals do, what is a Well?

Speaker 2:

no, that's not what cathedrals do Cathedrals have soaring walls Okay.

Speaker 1:

Light the light comes through Beautiful ceilings Okay. I think we like cathedrals because they resemble grandiose, sublime places in nature. No, they're so we should build more of them. They should be everywhere. We should be able to walk into cathedrals any counterpoint.

Speaker 2:

They're enormous monuments to excess and terrible eyesores and they should be. Yes, and they should you're saying, you're not existing as much. The ones that are around, fine, go look at them, keep them maintained.

Speaker 1:

We don't need to build more so if you lived by Notre Dame, Notre Dame in.

Speaker 2:

Paris, you would not go in and just enjoy how beautiful it is.

Speaker 1:

Well, they'll refurbish it. I'm sure I'd go, look at it, you'd go inside and you'd say this is goddamn beautiful, this is sublime.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'd say like wow, it's an impressive thing.

Speaker 1:

So why don't we?

Speaker 2:

build more. Let's build more of them. Why do we stop? I also went to Buckingham Palace and thought that was impressive, but I don't think we should build more palaces.

Speaker 1:

But palaces don't really give you. No one says Muir Woods feels like a palace, they say it feels like a cathedral.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but they're just talking about the idea of having a quiet religious experience that is then associated with. Where would that happen? In a cathedral, but that's not saying that cathedrals all have that. I don't think there's a-.

Speaker 1:

Let's build them, then let's build them, build cathedrals. Yeah, let's build more cathedrals. Why don't we just build more nice woods?

Speaker 2:

You're taking the wrong lesson. We should be planting more trees and building more large wooded areas. That's more useful than a bunch of buildings that are based on old designs from like a thousand years ago.

Speaker 1:

So that's the thing. They don't have to be old. We could make new cathedrals, but they have the same effect. There you go.

Speaker 2:

There's a new one in Oakland that's right around Lake Merritt. Have you been to that one?

Speaker 1:

No, no, do you know about this? No, I don't think so.

Speaker 2:

It's like a giant it's called I think called Cathedral of the Light or something. It looks completely different. It's a giant glass structure with glass and concrete. Have you seen this place? Oh, I'm seeing the pictures now. It's on Lake Merritt.

Speaker 1:

It's highly rated. Yeah, it does look really beautiful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, the outside doesn't look beautiful, the inside looks beautiful. They're both. The outside looks like a weird.

Speaker 2:

It is weird, but it's impressive. But yeah, it's beautiful because it's been built with tons of money. That's how you build beautiful structures.

Speaker 1:

Nothing wrong with that. Where does the money go? Well, okay let's.

Speaker 2:

Why don't we, why don't we, why don't we trace back where's that money come from? Uh oh, we, I mean people gave it to the church?

Speaker 2:

I don't know okay, we don't have to get down this, because I will definitely get I will definitely get into my zone but, like the money comes from people who give it, the people who give it, the people who give it based on to me, false promises and sort of stuff, where it's like you need to do this to help, and then the money is also retained through a system of we don't have to pay taxes and we sort of skirt, so we have lots of this cash flow.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all granted, all granted, but let's just say how else? Who else?

Speaker 2:

could you give? How else would you use?

Speaker 1:

tons of money to help people other than building a giant elaborate structure.

Speaker 2:

What giving it to? In unhoused, unhoused problems that, why would?

Speaker 1:

I agree. I agree. Yeah, we should build housing too. I'm not saying this is not in. This is not like saying like, oh, the pie is the adam who says we should help unhoused people.

Speaker 2:

I know this is not me.

Speaker 1:

This is different than the Adam who says we should be building a million cathedrals per square block. So let me put it this way. This is interesting to me. People generally consider the age of cathedrals right, the age of cathedrals when all over Europe people were building like tons of cathedrals all over.

Speaker 1:

Europe people were building like tons of cathedrals. Like you go to the Cathedral of Seville, the Mont-Mont-Dame, or you go, there's cathedrals all over. People generally consider that totally crazy. Like now, in modern times, people are like that's totally crazy. Yes, why would you spend like a huge part of your GDP just building these enormous structures that don't do anything right? They don't like make money for corporations or house people or do anything.

Speaker 2:

Why would someone do that? Because we're humans and we act based on cause and effect and motivation. So why?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think, because they were like the most amazing thing you could experience in your life then Going into one was like amazing, the same way, going to mere woods, which very few people in the world can do is go to mere woods because it's only here in north, northern california that is certainly an opinion.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so you think it's all about power and like manipulation of the people you're saying like a thousand years ago, why do I think that the church had a iron grip on people and people wanted to build the cathedrals.

Speaker 1:

They wanted to. They said this is great, let's build the cathedrals, right? They loved it same thing with the pyramids. Did you know that the pyramids were not built with slave labor? That's false. I learned that recently I did. They were not built with slave labor connected people who were built the pyramids were were workers who were paid. Okay, they showed up to work because they were paid.

Speaker 1:

They were paid mostly in beer but, they showed up, got paid in beer and you know, hauled the rocks around and made the pyramids because they thought it was amazing.

Speaker 2:

They thought it was great to have pyramids so the people who built it a thousand years ago built the cathedrals were because the people who worked in the cathedrals said you should probably do this or else you might go to hell forever, and doing this will help you, not do that I don't know about the rich people.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you don't think they were saying that. I think everybody believed it. I don't think it's like some people convinced other people I think everybody was like we should build this giant and they said.

Speaker 2:

They said you know well, if you're say you know a person who does some bad things, there is a way to get around that you could like give us a lot of money and then you'll not be on the record for having done those bad things. And guess what? People who were rich also did bad things. And then they would give lots of money and then the people who worked in the cathedrals would say guess what I see, you're not you're not on the record for those bad things anymore.

Speaker 1:

This is what's called a marxist. This is marxism. Right religion is the opiate of the masses. You know it's a class power interpretation, but I'm just, I'm just suggesting maybe there's also an aesthetic.

Speaker 2:

You're wondering how could, how could cathedrals have come about? To me it is very plain and I go oh, it makes absolute perfect sense and there's no wonderment involved.

Speaker 1:

But under that. Ok, I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm saying under that interpretation. Let's say that is exactly what happened. There was powerful cabal of priests and they were able to. Ok, then I don't think what you would expect is you would see cathedrals. What I think I would expect you would see would be extremely ornate, beautiful priest houses and palaces, like palaces for the priesthood. That's what you would see. But cathedrals, they're not palaces. They're not comfortable. They don't have feather beds. They're they're not palaces. They're not comfortable. They don't have feather beds.

Speaker 2:

They're just big rock structures they don't have. Like my friend, you know you might be confused. Have you ever been to cold?

Speaker 1:

you know cold it is in a cathedral, it's not like a nice, you know luxurious place to live. Have you been to Vatican City? Okay, vatican, yes, yes, but not all.

Speaker 2:

Have you been to Vatican City? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been to Vatican City. Okay, so you might be confused then, but I'm so sorry. Part of being a priest is you take a vow of poverty, my friend, so you can't personally own a bunch of stuff and have a bunch of lucrative things, but oh, oh, but if you happen to work somewhere, that is baller like I'm talking gold inside it.

Speaker 1:

You don't own any of it, but you get to use it all right.

Speaker 2:

But here's the thing I'm poor. Here's the thing. Look, I'm a poor priest, but here's the thing you talk about the Vatican. This is just my super powerful workplace with all of my ornate jewels, but guess what?

Speaker 1:

Cathedrals, but cathedrals, which I'm not talking about Vatican City, I'm talking about cathedrals the Cathedral of Seville, Notre Dame, et cetera. Those are not luxurious places that priests got to live and wrap themselves in wonderful cloth and have big fires in the hearth and enjoy the big meals.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, that's not what they were used. Nobody was having a good time with Gothic architecture, okay.

Speaker 1:

Well, just admit, just admit. Admit, though, there's something there, because if your explanation was definitely the whole picture, then you would only see, like you know, palaces for the princes or for the priests. The priests would have had these palaces, the monasteries would have been golden beautiful monasteries, but they don't have that, but they don't have that.

Speaker 2:

They don't have that. They give fancy churches.

Speaker 1:

Okay, new solution.

Speaker 2:

Yes, next.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, how about? Okay? Have you have you heard of randomly picking representatives instead of voting for them, like jury duty? So like no like for instead of if you said like if you said like we're gonna, okay, let's say, let's say for the city, we want City Council members, right. What do we do now? We vote for them, so everybody runs an election and votes for them, right. But what if we just picked from a hat?

Speaker 2:

But who's in the hat?

Speaker 1:

People who wanted to be in the hat, or people who were nominated to be in the hat. So you'd nominate, so people would get like maybe you know, depending on the size of the city, like San Francisco is like 750,000 people Maybe if you're in a district, like you're in district nine, or you do citywide elections for 10 people, it's 700,000, maybe you need to get 20,000 signatures. So if you can get 20,000 signatures, then you're in the hat. Or maybe 10 or 5,000 signatures you get 5,000 signatures, then you're in the hat and then you can be picked at random to become city council member. This is an interesting thing.

Speaker 1:

It fixes money in politics right off the bat. No money in politics, because no one has to run elections. There are no elections, you just get your signatures, which is doable. You just walk around and get signatures and then it's just picked brand random, so no one can be influenced with money.

Speaker 2:

This seems like it has tons of holes in it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, yeah, it seems like it has tons of holes. It solves money in politics, though, does it? Though tons of holes in it?

Speaker 2:

okay, yeah, yeah it seems like it solves money in politics. Though it's a solution, though it's true, but it misses it. You lose the ability to vote for like the person you want to represent, you don't need to vote. Well, yeah, if two people are wildly different, you would probably want to express your opinion that you want one or the other. What if, president, would you just like it to be a random person for whoever?

Speaker 1:

Well, I don't, maybe for president, maybe for president doesn't work. That's why I stuck. I started with city council.

Speaker 2:

I know, but I'm I'm starting at the top. Would president, would you want it to be that way?

Speaker 1:

I think the maybe the way you would apply this to president is you would say the electoral Congress is picked at random, and then they decide who's president, that would be cool, but what if they decide so, if you leave?

Speaker 2:

and what if they decide differently than the people one?

Speaker 1:

the people wouldn't vote. We wouldn't even ask the people.

Speaker 2:

I mean, if you were applying this, eliminating voting well, we're eliminating money in politics it sounds like you're eliminating the voting and you're making it, concentrating it to like a small number of people, which to me who are chosen at random as like, easier to uh, easier to corrupt. You know corrupt about when you put, when you concentrate power into fewer hands, then corruption becomes easier to do so what if the, what if the electoral congress was like?

Speaker 1:

I don't know how many people are in the electoral congress now, but what if it was like 500 people?

Speaker 2:

But what's the benefit of having just random people selected for a job, like just pulled out of the hat?

Speaker 1:

Because right now, to be president, you have to be like a multimillionaire.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Right, multi-millionaire and to be even considered for any kind of position of power. You have to raise tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy people.

Speaker 1:

And so wealthy people get their chance to bribe the people because we make them run elections, whereas if you said we're going to pick, let's say, the city council member example, we're just going to pick, you have to get 5,000 signatures. Anybody can get 5,000 signatures. A nurse, a part-time, you know, a preschool teacher could get 5,000 signatures, no problem. Okay, right, and then they could. And then they could throw their, get their hat in the in the thing and get their name in the hat, and then maybe they're picked. And now we have a preschool teacher is because they wanted to be in their good, that people believed in them.

Speaker 1:

They, they'd be, you know it sounds like chaos, it sounds like absolute chaos but it might be less bribery and fewer like entrenched interests, but also less if everything gets kind of like the person doesn't the you, presumably you rise and learn something as you do politics, and it's just. As you do elections or as you hold office, Because people often say there's two jobs of being a politician running for office and actually holding it, so this would eliminate the need to run elections.

Speaker 1:

You don't need to run an election, you just get your signatures and then you get.

Speaker 2:

you're there and now you have a lot of you could just make it so that you can only run for election, you know, like five weeks before the election. You can't do it seven months ahead.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I see so it concentrated, just like japan does. You mentioned that before so if you concentrated. You can't run, but even then you could. People would be doing all the planning and all the horse trading during the time before and then they would all run elections after. It would still be the same like, hey, come and talk to me.

Speaker 2:

You're the guy, you're the guy we're going to talk. It doesn't seem pulling someone at random and then stopping with the voting part of it. I feel like we need to maximize the voting part, not minimize it. It feels like we need more selection, not less. But I see what you're saying. Where a random person would be, it would be less corruptible in the system. But like that person is going to be wildly unprepared for whatever the job it's it's.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. Maybe they need to get like. Maybe they need to get like. Maybe they need to get like 10 000 signatures. It's not gonna change.

Speaker 2:

That's pretty hard because then if I'm gonna have, if I'm a radio show with millions of people, that's not a thing that exists anymore. But if I'm like, if I have a bunch of people, you're a podcast I as a lark, I have us all write in different people's names and then we've got that person now as a one in whatever chance of getting holding office for like a serious thing that's, people would do it as a so it sounds like there's some, there's some, there's some you're kind of getting to that You're kind of well.

Speaker 1:

So you're talking about two sides. So I like this, because you're saying once, on the one side they might not be, they might not actually be capable of doing the job, on the other side you might, people might be able to sort of monkey with the system and cause negative, negative outcomes or like unintended outcomes. So let's just imagine we can solve the second part, cause that's you know, you just structure it so that that can happen, right, but the first part, the first part though, I think it. No. Yeah, I mean, you just make rules about, you know who can what signatures count, and dah, dah, dah, dah. I think you could probably get rid of that.

Speaker 1:

But the other part, I think, is interesting. You raised, so they just aren't qualified. So what if they? If you get chosen this way, you then have to go to a six month or even a year long schooling where you're paid the whole time and you have to attend school, get trained for a year how to hold office, and then you start a year after you were picked. That's kind of interesting. Or six months boot camp, six-month boot camp.

Speaker 2:

Let me just make sure I have this laid out the steps. So you are drafted by the state and then sent to a re-education camp. This is what you're talking about. And then once you have been properly instructed then you are allowed to come back and exercise power in the way that you have been taught. That's right. Ah I see.

Speaker 1:

What's wrong with that part?

Speaker 2:

And there are no longer any pesky voters, so I see what you are talking about sounds like pure freedom.

Speaker 1:

Well, I don't understand. Why isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Is this episode going to be on July 4th? Are we doing a July 4th episode right now?

Speaker 1:

So if you, had a six-month training, a boot camp that taught you what your ethics requirements are and how to do bills and how to vote for things and the history of the city.

Speaker 2:

But the complaint is going to be that you're being instructed by the state, you're being re-educated by the state.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I guess because the state provides. But I mean, it's just all public information how to pass a bill, what the history of the city is Right, what the different roles are the different ministers.

Speaker 2:

That's all referenced at it.

Speaker 1:

You could just, you could just look up that stuff yeah, but you were saying they wouldn't be qualified to hold office. Okay give a boot camp, give a boot camp where you run them through the kind of standard boom, boom, boom, boom boom. You know processes that they're gonna have to know, and then you know maybe it's only three weeks, or 10, 10 weeks, maybe it's a short boot camp yeah, do you like a civics lesson?

Speaker 2:

it's basically just civics. Oh yeah, totally. I've never had public speaking before in my life, so six months should be able to make you don't?

Speaker 1:

what do you? You don't have to do public snow that much.

Speaker 2:

Not a leader like a head of state.

Speaker 1:

They would never well, maybe they get a little bit of public speaking training, but I mean, they can just release press releases hard, it's not hard, but here you know you might want to explain how to do that, you know we have our like the day at school where they have the student be the principal for the day and they're like this is principal, so-and-so, but it's not.

Speaker 2:

you know, like they're just yeah, they get that, they won that as part of their pizza priority, like Right.

Speaker 1:

So this is what's called sortition.

Speaker 2:

What is?

Speaker 1:

What we're describing. It's a known thing. It's called sortition.

Speaker 2:

Who knows about it?

Speaker 1:

It's a Wikipedia article and everything.

Speaker 2:

Sortition.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this is when you pick public officials or jurors using random representative sampling. Oh yeah, and it's been used in multiple times in history at ancient athens, lombardi and venice in the 12th and 18th century, florence in the 14th and 15th century in the enlightenment, in switzerland, current current day modern application. People have used it in a jury selection okay, that's as well as that's what I said jury.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like yeah, it's like jury selection. Uh, it's also been used in military conscription as one method of awarding us green cards I think this is how mr beast decides who to get oh draft drafting money to draft.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, random is draft military drafts, random right university classes and residences randomly placed within organizations. Sortition has been potentially helpful in large organizations to govern themselves democratically without the use of elections. So say, you have like a co-op with 200 employees and you don't want to host elections which might create sort of divisions, partisan divisions. You just say anyone who can get you know 50, 20 signatures or 30 signatures gets put in a hat and then they all that someone gets picked here now there's no, there's no.

Speaker 2:

You know elections that yeah, absolutely, we're the blue party.

Speaker 1:

We're the red party. You know, and tear the company apart absolutely no problems could arise from this.

Speaker 2:

So completely unrelated. Completely unrelated.

Speaker 2:

Just imagine that I came over to your house, right, and so I'm going to make dinner and I put all the things you have, I list them on little slips of paper and I put them in a hat and then I pull out of that hat. Everything you have in your kitchen space is edible right. Like all the all your food. It's edible right. So then I just pull out a few things and I start making them together. So you know, we have some random, you know, peanut butter and, uh, salmon and probably like walnuts, okay, okay.

Speaker 2:

And maybe some peas and pineapples mixed together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and blueberry sauce on top of mustard.

Speaker 1:

So what? It's representative. You want a representative democracy. You want there to be complete diversity of opinions.

Speaker 2:

That sounds like a good meal to you, because I just randomly got it out of the sorting hat of the available options.

Speaker 1:

I'm just going to ignore that. So it also has a few other names lotocracy, lotocracy, litocracy, as in lotto, like lottery toccarcy. It also is called a demarchy. Demarchy, like the rule, like demo, like democracy. But dem Arche just means the rule.

Speaker 1:

The rule. Well, arche means the rule of, so demarchy would be the rule of the demos, which is like democracy. It's basically an analog to democracy. Same thing. Some people who are these theoreticians of this say that people should not be volunteers. Anyone who volunteers should not be allowed to do it, because we don't want people who want power to be in positions of power. We want people who kind of don't want to be it should be the ones who actually are forced to do it.

Speaker 2:

That is cool when it works out, but it's not cool. Yeah, you get someone who's completely unsuited, like I go, I don't want to be a firefighter, and you go, then you're the perfect firefighter. I go no, then you're the perfect firefighter. I go no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to be a firefighter, I'm the wrong guy, right?

Speaker 1:

Anyways, I like sortition. I think we should use it. I don't think we should use it for everything, but I think we should use it more. I think people should be like huh, how should we govern this thing?

Speaker 2:

And we yeah sortition that's a good fit.

Speaker 1:

Let's do it like. People should be more open to that, especially maybe in the case of companies. That's a good one.

Speaker 2:

It's like omakase, but it's for elected office. Isn't omakase rigidly prescribed? Well, it's just letting the chef. It's letting the chef. Oh, the chef gets to just do whatever.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well that's not really what sortition is at all, but well, the sorting hat is the chef in my now. Don't, don't poke my analogies, it would be a random we're talking about a random number generator. Is the is in charge now the random number generator? Ah, the sorting hat is like a will we don't want that, ai lords no, not AI, that would also be a will.

Speaker 1:

We want random numbers, literally randomness, like you just roll a dice. You know there's true random list algorithms you could use. You know there isn't provable randomness. That's. I'm a computer science professor, so I know this. There's no such thing as provable randomness. You can never prove that something's entirely random. But there is not me, though. Not me I do so I still like super random stuff sometimes you do so, you, you do so you could maybe be Sometimes Adam.

Speaker 2:

I'm so random, you are so random, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:

You're so random sometimes.

Speaker 2:

Adam, you would not believe how random I am sometimes.

Speaker 1:

I am just like I just come out, Tell me the most random thing you've done.

Speaker 2:

I just do something that's so random I couldn't even think about it right now, Right now.

Speaker 1:

this is what you're saying is pretty random.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, I don't think so, that's so random.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we did three mini episodes, three mini solutions today. It's good we did.

Speaker 2:

It's good and everyone's good except the cathedral one.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, we did fusion laser drilling. Yes, we did build more cathedrals because they're great and there should be more of them, and it's a great way to make more jobs for people.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's a great way to make more jobs. Yeah, great jobs.

Speaker 1:

And beautification of cities, also tourism. People love to visit the city, go to the cathedral. That's what everyone does in Europe. They go to the city, visit the cathedral, it's what everyone does. So we could do that here and and then we did sortition, randomly picking representatives to govern groups of people, whether small or or maybe larger. Maybe a small city could do it, or a big city could even try a little sortition. Maybe school board could be done by sortition, which might be nice, might be easier why don't we do it on like a battleship, maybe who, maybe somebody?

Speaker 2:

battleship sort. Maybe somebody else gets to be the, someone else gets to be the general today, you know who's the captain now. I'm the captain now. Oh the movie.

Speaker 1:

I'm the captain now. You're good at figuring out times when sortition would not work.

Speaker 2:

What.

Speaker 1:

There are many times when it would work very well. I am definitely not intentionally doing that.

Speaker 2:

Adam, you are.

Speaker 1:

You are.

Speaker 2:

I just wanted to do my.

Speaker 1:

Captain phillips thanks everybody for coming to solutions from the multiverse thanks everybody.

Speaker 2:

You will be presenting the captain more solutions or solution.

Speaker 1:

Maybe we'll go back to just one at a time next week.

Speaker 2:

Thanks everybody thank you, see you next time. Bye, thank you.

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