Constitutional law as a separate category with higher standards to make a change is the textbook way of making a law that isn’t so easily un-made (that and international treaties). But of course making a change to the constitution requires a stronger consensus to begin with—and probably in most cases you could use that strong consensus to pass a law with immediate effect.
I don’t expect “this amendment shall require a unanimous vote to be repealed” would be a valid thing to include though—a regular amendment going through the normal process could still simply say “no it doesn’t” and supersede the previous amendment.
People may also have a sense that constitutional law has a specific proper role, and that making provisions that aren’t to do with the fundamental architecture of how the government works is outside of that remit and thus unwise. So using it to change the voting system would be on-brand, but making arbitrary other changes would be susceptible to an accusation of “that’s not what the constitution is for”, in the battle for public opinion.
Setting up financial products in such a way that the future government would be fiscally incentivised to follow through seems more promising, but might be more difficult to persuade current voters to go along with. Those inclined to oppose might find it easy to spread fear/doubt of anything too novel and unfamiliar; call it a trillion dollar future debt bomb or whatever. And you can try to explain that the “bomb” only goes off if the future government reneges on the current government’s commitment, but “if you’re explaining you’re losing” and “you get about five words”.
I see your point about constitutionality, but I think something such as the electoral system falls within its remit, which was my recommendation. But yeah, I would have no problem with extending the uses of the constitution, although I know that others would.
I agree that the financial product is more promising, because of its generality. The interesting thing is that even if they issue the asset with the intention of breaking the promise, they lose basically nothing in net present terms (because those cashflows 50 years into the future are discounted by 1+d to the 50th power). Thus it wouldn’t be a mistake to do it (even while planning to renege). Since it’s equivalent to issuing regular perpetuities in terms of how much money a given debt would raise, it’s outright incorrect to call it a “bomb”. They don’t have to pay $1T all at once at the 50-year mark, it’s just that the present value of the debt will be worth that amount (assuming the same discount rate is the same as it was upon issuance).
Don’t get me wrong, I get that “if you’re explaining you’re losing”. But LessWrong, of all places, should be an area to discuss such ideas, and not have it dismissed out of hand simply because “People are too stupid/lazy/disinterested to get it”. I don’t think we should restrict our posts to 5 words or fewer. I don’t think we should avoid novel ideas. And I don’t think we should avoid politics.
The fact that everyone said Trump had no chance in the 2016 election shows that people basically don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to political plausibility. No offence meant. I just don’t see any value in such guesses, when they’re so often wrong, and they stifle ideas.
On the point of explaining/losing and only having 5 words, I don’t mean anything in the region of “you shouldn’t have posted this for discussion” or that your posts about it here should be limited to 5 words. Only that I expect there would be major communications challenges if someone were to attempt implementing any of these ideas as actual political strategies, and that this would need to be anticipated and accounted for.
I’m also realising I fatally misread your post about perpetuities; quite right, calling it a “bomb” would be inaccurate.
Constitutional law as a separate category with higher standards to make a change is the textbook way of making a law that isn’t so easily un-made (that and international treaties). But of course making a change to the constitution requires a stronger consensus to begin with—and probably in most cases you could use that strong consensus to pass a law with immediate effect.
I don’t expect “this amendment shall require a unanimous vote to be repealed” would be a valid thing to include though—a regular amendment going through the normal process could still simply say “no it doesn’t” and supersede the previous amendment.
People may also have a sense that constitutional law has a specific proper role, and that making provisions that aren’t to do with the fundamental architecture of how the government works is outside of that remit and thus unwise. So using it to change the voting system would be on-brand, but making arbitrary other changes would be susceptible to an accusation of “that’s not what the constitution is for”, in the battle for public opinion.
Setting up financial products in such a way that the future government would be fiscally incentivised to follow through seems more promising, but might be more difficult to persuade current voters to go along with. Those inclined to oppose might find it easy to spread fear/doubt of anything too novel and unfamiliar; call it a trillion dollar future debt bomb or whatever. And you can try to explain that the “bomb” only goes off if the future government reneges on the current government’s commitment, but “if you’re explaining you’re losing” and “you get about five words”.
I see your point about constitutionality, but I think something such as the electoral system falls within its remit, which was my recommendation. But yeah, I would have no problem with extending the uses of the constitution, although I know that others would.
I agree that the financial product is more promising, because of its generality. The interesting thing is that even if they issue the asset with the intention of breaking the promise, they lose basically nothing in net present terms (because those cashflows 50 years into the future are discounted by 1+d to the 50th power). Thus it wouldn’t be a mistake to do it (even while planning to renege). Since it’s equivalent to issuing regular perpetuities in terms of how much money a given debt would raise, it’s outright incorrect to call it a “bomb”. They don’t have to pay $1T all at once at the 50-year mark, it’s just that the present value of the debt will be worth that amount (assuming the same discount rate is the same as it was upon issuance).
Don’t get me wrong, I get that “if you’re explaining you’re losing”. But LessWrong, of all places, should be an area to discuss such ideas, and not have it dismissed out of hand simply because “People are too stupid/lazy/disinterested to get it”. I don’t think we should restrict our posts to 5 words or fewer. I don’t think we should avoid novel ideas. And I don’t think we should avoid politics.
The fact that everyone said Trump had no chance in the 2016 election shows that people basically don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to political plausibility. No offence meant. I just don’t see any value in such guesses, when they’re so often wrong, and they stifle ideas.
On the point of explaining/losing and only having 5 words, I don’t mean anything in the region of “you shouldn’t have posted this for discussion” or that your posts about it here should be limited to 5 words. Only that I expect there would be major communications challenges if someone were to attempt implementing any of these ideas as actual political strategies, and that this would need to be anticipated and accounted for.
I’m also realising I fatally misread your post about perpetuities; quite right, calling it a “bomb” would be inaccurate.
Okay cool. And you didn’t misread it the first time, I had to heavily edit it to make it clearer.