You could have a system where everyone is directly elected while keeping checks and balances, if voting were restricted, eg. maybe everyone can vote for a president/prime minister, but only non-teachers can vote for an education minister, and only non-finance people can vote for something like the Fed chief, etc. The point being the checks and balances now happen because other groups keep your group in check by voting.

Absolutely! That does keep some of the checks. You can do better than that though!

It's like on the Apollo missions where some parts were made by two completely different manufacturers and worked completely differently.

Hybrid political systems are best. Of course if we like democracy (and most people do), then that should be the most common kind of component. But I'd still like to have some different paradigms mixed into the system. And that's exactly what most modern constitutions do, for better or for worse.

I'd personally go for a two-chamber system (like congress/senate or commons/lords), with one chamber being elected and the other being chosen by sortition.

Maybe also a 3rd chamber, where the weight of your vote was proportional to IQ (much more palatable in EU than US).

This sounds like the opposite of what should be happening? Like an anti-technocracy aiming for an electorate as little informed as possible?

Why exclude teachers from picking the education minister? If we're restricting votes, shouldn't they be the only ones doing so instead?

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