Though some meth might feel helpful just about now, this is more of a basic discussion.
I've come to the conclusion, almost an epiphany, that politics is not helped by observation. Sausage or meth making allusions aside, the biderectional feedback loop is obviously more hurtful than helpful.
Being that government needs to react to real-time events, pure isolation from either constituents or news flow does not appear to be practical.
Since you cannot truly isolate politicians, this idea proposes the following alternative: perhaps they do not know they are politicians. Since quantum parallel universe theory tells us that there is a universe where each one of us is the President or at least a Congressman, we proceed on that assumption, and decohere, at some convenient voting point, on a set of government representatives which surely does exist in some universe somewhere. No one knows in advance who they might be, but their vote IS recorded for posterity, once the probability function has collapsed.
We then record such vote, and move on.
With the imminent introduction of Lockheed Martin's fusion reactor, perhaps for version 2.0 we can actually let people move into a universe of their liking.-- theircompetitor, Oct 12 2013 We cannot observe the operation of government itself, but only the operation of government as influenced by our method of observation.-- Alterother, Oct 12 2013 // We cannot observe the operation of government itself, but only the operation of government as influenced by our method of observation. // Yes, when a government operates without observation, it normally becomes corrupt. (Well actually there's no way to know that. Maybe it just becomes corrupt as soon as you start observing after a long period with no observation.)-- scad mientist, Oct 13 2013 It has been scientifically proven that the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty, is definitely wrong.
Light is simply in a third state changing to particle or wave according to the observation method and as doing so, due to influence of the method itself.-- pashute, Oct 13 2013 Yes, but it's such a pretty principle; can't we keep it anyway?
[scad], personally I believe that the method of observation (CNN, for instance) has some what to do with the corruption.-- Alterother, Oct 13 2013 And I thought the corruption of government was a universal constant. C sub g, we'll call it.-- RayfordSteele, Oct 14 2013 The practical fusion reactor has been two years off, for about seventy years, no?
That's a pretty messianic level of delayed arrival.-- WcW, Oct 14 2013 Hmm I was expecting something about the makeup of the cabinet - i.e. You can know that there is someone who is very definitely the Minister for Defence, but you can't know who they are. Or, you can know the name of a politician, but knowing that precludes you from knowing what their position in government is. I don't know how you'd do that in practice, but there's something about it that's both satisfyingly real, and sinister at the same time.-- Zeuxis, Oct 15 2013 Indeed, WcW, one would only hope Lockheed Martin would not make such an assertion lightly.-- theircompetitor, Oct 15 2013 Rather than complicate this with physics, we can create a political system whereby the politicians are indeed unaware that they are running things. Casually mention to the electorate (including, if you must, the political class) that from now on governance decisions will be taken by one of a variable number of stylite or cave-bound hermits who are (a) divorced entirely from day to day life (including of the political) are (b) encouraged to engage in fasting, mortification of the flesh and other quasi-trancendental activities to allow them to commune more directly with their core selves. Each decision will be taken by a different monk, with the ordering of questioning being randomized by some to be determined mechanism so as to avoid monk-gaming by lobbyist types and other untrusworthies. At the same time as the policy decision is asked of monk A, all other monks are asked a vaguely koany question, so that they aren't left out. Monkhood is open to all but government questionising permitted only after 2 years on the pillar.-- calum, Oct 15 2013 ^^^ translation: put the justiciary in charge.-- calum, Oct 15 2013 Stephenson uses monks in Anathem -- more as a way to encourage long term thinking than necessarily dealing with corruption.-- theircompetitor, Oct 15 2013 I should probably read some science fiction, as I keep repeating ideas that crop up in it (but what fun is there in reading things that run simpatico with your usual thought patterns?). Still, monkly interference in politics is not itself a new idea (e.g. Père Joseph) so I needn't feel bad about being behind NS and PJ.-- calum, Oct 15 2013 //The Heisenberg Political Principle// There's a bit of a paradox here. It is known with certainty that, even when you're not watching them, they're up to no good.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 15 2013 Hmm, an interesting conundrum, but since new information is not communicated, neither causality nor relativity appear to be violated.-- theircompetitor, Oct 16 2013 //It has been scientifically proven that the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty, is definitely wrong.//
When/where? I don't find any evidence this is true.-- 5th Earth, Oct 19 2013 That's because you can't disprove something that isn't fact. It's not the Heisenberg Uncertainty Law. It's not even a theory. It's really more of a suggestion.
People like to rip on Heisenberg. I guess it's fashionable to pretend you're smarter than somebody who was smarter than you. Personally I think the guy contributed more to the world than we'll ever know simply by convincing all of Nazi Germany's physicists to feign incompetence when Hitler told them to build an atomic bomb.-- Alterother, Oct 20 2013 random, halfbakery