[Newspoetry] Throw the Dice or Get Bad Advice?

[DL Emerick]

Op-ed by Kristof - 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/opinion/26Kristof.html
Expert advice, generally, may be as good as
"a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board" --
maybe even an infinitesimal tad better, on average --
Unless the expert is famous,

For the fame of an expert is inverse to the soundness of his advice;
Perhaps an inverse-square law applies,
If we knew how to measure fame.

This is the same thesis trotted out in the Black Swan (2007),
See http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/, for Nick Taleb's home page.

This is the same thesis Paul Samuelson taught,
decades ago, that the average advice of "expert" brokers
was only as good as a random pick of some stock.

The implications of this claim are enormous --
if taken seriously, politically, perhaps, without thinking.

The unasked question is, of course, in all these studies:
How well does the non-expert public fare?

Considerably worse than what randomness does, I suspect.

Is there a lesson here?
Taleb says: "My major hobby is teasing people
who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously
& those who don't have the courage to sometimes say: I don't know....
(You may not be able to change the world
but can at least get some entertainment & make a living
out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race)."

The political question is just this syllogism:
Our present system is based on an extreme prejudice for experts --
For that is what we imagine those we elect to be --
And naturally they are all famous!!! --
Meaning, on average,
we could not find a worse way to govern ourselves!!!

(Especially, one would have to say, on average,
That the Senate would consistently make worse choices than the House --
And the idea of "calm, mature wisdom" in a Senate is pure buncombe.)

So, I propose this day a new constitution,
One in which our leaders are chosen by lottery,
By pure randomness, like a sample --
And all they would be allowed to do is make proposals,
On which they would not be allowed to vote,
But for which they would play a game of dice with the universe.

To pimp Einstein, who thought God wouldn't do such a thing --
But, then, in my new concept of God,
He would be, as the ancient myths and legends said,
Purely random and apparently arbitrary, in His choices,
Which He would wisely leave to throws of dice.