two hundred and fifty years ago, the United States was small and uncertain. It was experimenting with a bizarre, Roman-era style of government called “democracy”, and nobody knew if it would really work
Somewhat over-stating the uniqueness of that “bizarre” idea—it’s not like democracy was wholly unknown in the span between Antiquity and 1776.
Also I don’t know if the exact text here matters when the end-goal is a video, but in case it copies through to a transcript or subtitles or something, there are little things like “Singaporians” (Singapor[e]ans) and “singapore’s economy” (lowercase s)
Re: democracy, yeah, we debated how exactly to phrase this. People were definitely aware of the democracies of ancient Greece and Rome, and democracy was sometimes used on a local level in some countries, and there were sometimes situations where the nobles of a country had some sway / constraints over the king (like with the Magna Carta). But the idea of really running an entire large country on American-style democracy seems like it was a pretty big step and must’ve seemed a bit crazy at the time… IMO, it would seem as least as crazy as of like if a large country today (like, say, Chile after it voted to rewrite its constitution, or a new and more-united version of the European Union, or a future post-Putin Russia trying to reform itself) did something like:
Deciding to try out direct democracy, where instead of a Senate or Parliament, legislation would be voted on directly by the people via a secure smartphone app.
Deciding to try out prediction-market-based governance, where economic policy was automatically adjusted in order to maximize some national GDP-like metric according to the principles of “futarchy”.
Deciding that they would select their political leaders using the same method as medieval Venice used to select their Doge. (“Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine, and the nine elected forty-five. These forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who elected the doge.”) And maybe to base a bunch of other parts of their political system off of random selection (“sortition”) -- not just jury members in trials but also members of parliament, or using sortition to poll a random 1% of the population about important issues instead of having everyone vote on issues, etc.
Somewhat over-stating the uniqueness of that “bizarre” idea—it’s not like democracy was wholly unknown in the span between Antiquity and 1776.
Also I don’t know if the exact text here matters when the end-goal is a video, but in case it copies through to a transcript or subtitles or something, there are little things like “Singaporians” (Singapor[e]ans) and “singapore’s economy” (lowercase s)
Thanks for catching that about Singaporeans!
Re: democracy, yeah, we debated how exactly to phrase this. People were definitely aware of the democracies of ancient Greece and Rome, and democracy was sometimes used on a local level in some countries, and there were sometimes situations where the nobles of a country had some sway / constraints over the king (like with the Magna Carta). But the idea of really running an entire large country on American-style democracy seems like it was a pretty big step and must’ve seemed a bit crazy at the time… IMO, it would seem as least as crazy as of like if a large country today (like, say, Chile after it voted to rewrite its constitution, or a new and more-united version of the European Union, or a future post-Putin Russia trying to reform itself) did something like:
Deciding to try out direct democracy, where instead of a Senate or Parliament, legislation would be voted on directly by the people via a secure smartphone app.
Deciding to try out prediction-market-based governance, where economic policy was automatically adjusted in order to maximize some national GDP-like metric according to the principles of “futarchy”.
Deciding that they would select their political leaders using the same method as medieval Venice used to select their Doge. (“Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine, and the nine elected forty-five. These forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who elected the doge.”) And maybe to base a bunch of other parts of their political system off of random selection (“sortition”) -- not just jury members in trials but also members of parliament, or using sortition to poll a random 1% of the population about important issues instead of having everyone vote on issues, etc.