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August 30, 2025

lots to imagine

a brief journey to an imaginary lottocracy

Ah, New Camelot. No kings, no knights, but lots of roundtables. We should go there some day.

You see, New Camelot runs itself with mini-publics, deliberative assemblies of citizens chosen by lot. All major legislative decisions in New Camelot are made by mini-publics. There are minis (as they call them) that discuss local school policies, minis that set city and national budgets, minis that tackle long-term public health problems, minis that review energy agency policies, minis that propose constitutional changes, and on and on.

All the citizens of New Camelot have the right to take part in minis, and doing so is considered an important civic duty. Nobody serves on assemblies as a profession, of course, but pretty much everyone in New Camelot has spent time on at least one at some point in the last decade or so. The enthusiasts who opt in at every chance have served on three or four.

Some minis are short-term, others are longer. Some are small bodies, others are large. Some focus on process, others on policy. Usually participation is optional, but in some cases it's mandatory. The minis aren’t usually exactly thrilling, but they’re productive and meaningful. There’s always an emphasis on getting to know the others in your mini, and most New Camelotians say they enjoyed getting to know their mini-mates – even if they weren't the sort they tended to hang out with on their free time.

There are office holders in New Camelot, of course, for all sorts of key roles in the legal system, but they aren’t elected – there aren't any large-scale elections to speak of. Instead, the major roles are appointed by minis, the minor roles are appointed by other appointees. Minis grant office holders their authority, minis review their performance, and when necessary minis remove them.

But who sets the rules for the minis? Who decides what the New Camelot minis deliberate about? Who reviews and affirms their decisions? Who trains and certifies facilitators? Who oversees the random selection?

The citizens of New Camelot find our confusion adorable. We already know all the players. The system features minis, minis’ appointees, and appointees’ appointees. That’s it. They govern the rules, the topics, the process… There are no senators or lords or elected officials of any kind, and there are certainly no kings or queens. New Camelot is a full-on lottocracy.

§

On second thought, let's not go to New Camelot. It’s a willfully fanciful place. New Camelot is a useful thought experiment, not an objective.

We don’t need to eradicate elections in America, which is good, because Americans aren’t anywhere near ready to discard them. While it is conceivable that the country fall in love with mini-publics, it is much harder to imagine that a majority of us would soon choose to part with the presidency or Election Day. If America is to lose abundant, free elections any time soon, it won’t be because of the rise of open democracy.

But New Camelot can help open our minds as designers of democracy. Mini-publics are such powerful building blocks that we have only begun to imagine their potential. Asking what kind of government we might be able to create with mini-publics is like asking what kinds of images might be made from pixels. What can we imagine?

We’re not talking about utopia, here, just healthy, representative, impactful deliberation. The people of New Camelot work somewhat harder on politics than most of us do today, but the work is far more interesting and rewarding. They aren't knocking on doors or handing out flyers; they’re learning and weighing and making consequential decisions. They base their society on public deliberation, not public opinion. They trust that minis' deliberations are genuinely representative of the whole. They feel robust. They feel integrated. They feel powerful together.

New Camelot is only a model. Robustness? Integration? Shared power? That much we should insist on making real.

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Rebecca
Aug. 31, 2025, morning

OK, I live in Academia. Calmalot where we have “committees” that deliberate. We learn about each other. We humanize our colleagues. We disagree. We agree. We come to a consensus. We deliver a report we believe it. We are engaged in our work because it is meaningful. When we are done, we feel as though we have made a positive contribution. The dean does what she wants and ignores our report. We feel that we have wasted our time. We resist future committee work.

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Rebecca
Aug. 31, 2025, morning

*believe IN (and can you add an edit function?)

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Ethan McCutchen
Sep. 2, 2025, evening

There are no deans in Calmalot, and the streets are paved with cheese.

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