one could film one’s whole life for several years before going into politics in order to prove virtue, quick-wittedness, and a lack of any ill-intent. These would seem to be desirable properties of leaders of countries
Somehow this idea horrifies me. This would select for leaders who are absolute normies, so that nothing they ever do is controversial in any way… which seems almost impossible considering all the things that are controversial or could be described as controversial if the journalist tries hard enough… so the winners would be absolutely bland people. (Or psychopaths with perfect self-control, if such thing is possible.)
Furthermore, most people would not be willing to pay such high price, which would select for people believing—many years in advance—that it is realistic for them to become presidents, so the price is worth paying. What kind of people are those? Either insanely overconfident ones, or people from highly privileged backgrounds. In some sense, this doesn’t make the situation much worse than we have today (I think most American presidents were one big family, even if they had different surnames), but in some sense it would make it official.
Also, there are ways to destroy your competitors if they use such strategy. (And this option is only available to well-connected candidates, because they cannot organize the attack themselves; they must have a supporter organize it for them, while keeping them plausibly in the dark.) For example, there are questions that allow no good answer (each answer is either obvious false or extremely unacceptable to some part of society), so you just need someone to follow your competitor and bother them with that type of question. Or just keep asking them to donate money to heartbreaking causes, until they run out of money. Possibly many other options.
Somehow this idea horrifies me. This would select for leaders who are absolute normies, so that nothing they ever do is controversial in any way… which seems almost impossible considering all the things that are controversial or could be described as controversial if the journalist tries hard enough… so the winners would be absolutely bland people. (Or psychopaths with perfect self-control, if such thing is possible.)
Furthermore, most people would not be willing to pay such high price, which would select for people believing—many years in advance—that it is realistic for them to become presidents, so the price is worth paying. What kind of people are those? Either insanely overconfident ones, or people from highly privileged backgrounds. In some sense, this doesn’t make the situation much worse than we have today (I think most American presidents were one big family, even if they had different surnames), but in some sense it would make it official.
Also, there are ways to destroy your competitors if they use such strategy. (And this option is only available to well-connected candidates, because they cannot organize the attack themselves; they must have a supporter organize it for them, while keeping them plausibly in the dark.) For example, there are questions that allow no good answer (each answer is either obvious false or extremely unacceptable to some part of society), so you just need someone to follow your competitor and bother them with that type of question. Or just keep asking them to donate money to heartbreaking causes, until they run out of money. Possibly many other options.