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Old 02-19-2018, 10:20 AM   #101
malloyd
 
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Sort of rule by Mexican Standoff.
More like multi-sided mutually assured destruction. If anybody was ever so foolish as to reveal something, the discredited party can reveal what he knows about *every* other noble house. Anybody in the pool can set off a general revolution that destroys the entire system at any time.
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Old 02-19-2018, 11:11 AM   #102
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A nominal democracy, but one in which there is no proscription on giving legislators and bureaucrats "gifts" in return for favourable treatment.
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Old 02-19-2018, 11:16 AM   #103
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One I dreamed about(yes it really did come to me in my sleep-amazing what comes to mind like that)was that each noble family goes through a ritual which would scandalize the population which makes the nobility mutually blackmailable. Sort of rule by Mexican Standoff.

I doubt that would actually produce a good sort of system. I just put it down because it was to good a narrative idea to forget.
I actually suspect that this sort of situation has a lot of real-world precedent, not as an 'official' practice but as something that emerges as some other system gets corrupted. Not necessarily some particular act, but simply that o once a system becomes corrupt enough, you have to be corrupt to function within it, and that makes you part of it, esp. when an unofficial but real oligarchy is actually in control.

Rule By Practical Experience:

A variation on the competitive examination principle: A very large society might set aside certain cities, and assign candidates for higher office to actually run them. Whoever does the best job of running the 'test city' moves up the ladder. For ex, successfully govern Des Moines for 5 years and you get to be Governor. Of course that leaves the issue of who makes the determination of 'success' and its definitions.

I don't think it would work, or not for long, but I could imagine it being tried and running for a little while. It has some real world precedent in heirs apparent being given a fief to run as practice for the crown.
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Old 02-19-2018, 12:01 PM   #104
malloyd
 
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I don't think it would work, or not for long, but I could imagine it being tried and running for a little while. It has some real world precedent in heirs apparent being given a fief to run as practice for the crown.
I don't see why it couldn't run forever. Strip out the odd designated "test" cities concept and it's a standard meritocracy - you promote the people who've done a good job at junior positions into a senior ones as they open up.
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Old 02-19-2018, 09:33 PM   #105
Johnny1A.2
 
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I don't see why it couldn't run forever. Strip out the odd designated "test" cities concept and it's a standard meritocracy - you promote the people who've done a good job at junior positions into a senior ones as they open up.
But the 'test cities' is the exotic concept. Otherwise, as you say, it's ordinary meritocracy and doesn't fit the thread concept.
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Old 02-20-2018, 10:05 AM   #106
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But the 'test cities' is the exotic concept. Otherwise, as you say, it's ordinary meritocracy and doesn't fit the thread concept.
I don't see why the test cities are problematic though. You promote only from the best a particular set of positions is completely normal - usually its only from those positions directly subordinate and one rank under the slot you are filling, but having a different limited list doesn't seem weird enough to make the system in any way less stable or functional.
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Old 02-20-2018, 10:14 AM   #107
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What if the test cities serve no other purpose than to be training grounds for rulers. They're set up as crucibles to generate elite masters in the art of governance.
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Old 02-20-2018, 11:37 AM   #108
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What if the test cities serve no other purpose than to be training grounds for rulers. They're set up as crucibles to generate elite masters in the art of governance.
If the inhabitants are paid to be guinea pigs or aspiring rulers in their plebe stage the population might think it fair play. Arbitrarily choosing a city as a testbed would have to be covered up.

Another problem is there is no way the test can be made fair. An incompetent or tyrant will wreck a city and a really competent guy will ensure that his successor really has to work to fail. The grading commitee needs some kind of way to allow for this.

Also on some theories of thought the hands off approach works best and it certainly does on this or that occasion in any event. Will the fact of being a test prejudice the testee in favor of working harder then a real procurator should? And come to think of it how will the citizens behave if they know it is a test. If for instance the procurator is unpopular they will deliberately riot as often as possible just to sink his score and vice-versa. But popularity is not a total measure of effectiveness and if we assume it to be so it is just a democracy.

In any event it sounds a lot like a Roman Path of Honors.
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Old 02-20-2018, 12:19 PM   #109
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What if the test cities serve no other purpose than to be training grounds for rulers.
This is likely to be inordinately expensive and also not terribly representative.

Unless of course it's a simulated city. Rulership by victory in rpg/boardgame :)
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Old 02-20-2018, 12:35 PM   #110
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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If the inhabitants are paid to be guinea pigs or aspiring rulers in their plebe stage the population might think it fair play. Arbitrarily choosing a city as a testbed would have to be covered up.
This reminds me of the towns that get used for test-marketing, because their populations match the distribution of the target population. In the UK, this was Swindon (may still be, I don't know). Apparently the numbers started to diverge from the population of the UK as a whole, because the inhabitants of Swindon had got used to lots of free samples, new product launches, etc., all the time, and were no longer impressed by them…
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