In this recent entry, Eliezer discussed what might be called the "pork-barrel paradox" in politics, that even when there is public support for reducing the size of government, the political constituency for individual programs can be strong enough to keep them all going. He also points out that the occupations represented in Congress don’t match the country at large, and maybe don’t match what we really need. (To briefly
Andrew, another good (if obvious) counterexample to the median voter rule is that extreme voters are more likely to go and bother to vote than median voters.
I wasn't necessarily arguing that the demographics of Congress should match the demographics of the general population, just asking people to be aware of the fact that politicians resemble each other more than they resemble voters of the same party. A professional political class is not a bad thing - government ain't half as easy as it looks - but you should keep them under tight supervision.
Here we are talking about "biases" as deviations from some ideal, an ideal which is not obviously feasible. It is not obvious that such biases can be overcome.
Andrew, another good (if obvious) counterexample to the median voter rule is that extreme voters are more likely to go and bother to vote than median voters.
I wasn't necessarily arguing that the demographics of Congress should match the demographics of the general population, just asking people to be aware of the fact that politicians resemble each other more than they resemble voters of the same party. A professional political class is not a bad thing - government ain't half as easy as it looks - but you should keep them under tight supervision.
Here we are talking about "biases" as deviations from some ideal, an ideal which is not obviously feasible. It is not obvious that such biases can be overcome.