full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Brett Hennig: What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I think there's two ways to resolve this paradox. One is to give up on democracy; it doesn't work. Let's elect a populist demagogue who will ignore democratic norms, tralmpe on liberal freedoms and just get things done. The other option, I think, is to fix this broken system, to binrg the practice closer to the ideal and put the diverse voices of society in our parliaments and get them to make cndsreioed, evidence-based laws for the long-term good of everyone. Which bignrs me to my epiphany, my moment of etingnhnleemt. And I want you to get critical. I want you to ask yourselves, "Why wouldn't this work?" And then come and talk to me afterwards about it. Its technical name is "sortition." But its coommn name is "random selection." And the idea is actually very simple: we roadnmly select people and put them in parliament.

Open Cloze


I think there's two ways to resolve this paradox. One is to give up on democracy; it doesn't work. Let's elect a populist demagogue who will ignore democratic norms, _______ on liberal freedoms and just get things done. The other option, I think, is to fix this broken system, to _____ the practice closer to the ideal and put the diverse voices of society in our parliaments and get them to make __________, evidence-based laws for the long-term good of everyone. Which ______ me to my epiphany, my moment of _____________. And I want you to get critical. I want you to ask yourselves, "Why wouldn't this work?" And then come and talk to me afterwards about it. Its technical name is "sortition." But its ______ name is "random selection." And the idea is actually very simple: we ________ select people and put them in parliament.

Solution


  1. trample
  2. common
  3. randomly
  4. bring
  5. brings
  6. considered
  7. enlightenment

Original Text


I think there's two ways to resolve this paradox. One is to give up on democracy; it doesn't work. Let's elect a populist demagogue who will ignore democratic norms, trample on liberal freedoms and just get things done. The other option, I think, is to fix this broken system, to bring the practice closer to the ideal and put the diverse voices of society in our parliaments and get them to make considered, evidence-based laws for the long-term good of everyone. Which brings me to my epiphany, my moment of enlightenment. And I want you to get critical. I want you to ask yourselves, "Why wouldn't this work?" And then come and talk to me afterwards about it. Its technical name is "sortition." But its common name is "random selection." And the idea is actually very simple: we randomly select people and put them in parliament.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
random selection 3
randomly selected 3
liberal democracy 2
public opinion 2


Important Words


  1. bring
  2. brings
  3. broken
  4. closer
  5. common
  6. considered
  7. critical
  8. demagogue
  9. democratic
  10. diverse
  11. elect
  12. enlightenment
  13. epiphany
  14. fix
  15. freedoms
  16. give
  17. good
  18. idea
  19. ideal
  20. ignore
  21. laws
  22. liberal
  23. moment
  24. norms
  25. option
  26. paradox
  27. parliament
  28. parliaments
  29. people
  30. populist
  31. practice
  32. put
  33. randomly
  34. resolve
  35. select
  36. selection
  37. society
  38. system
  39. talk
  40. technical
  41. trample
  42. voices
  43. ways
  44. work