Related to your example: The Art of Governing without Government
Belgium "had no government" for 535 days. Lots of people use the same words to describe the situation in Belgium.
The odd thing about this period of no government was that Belgium’s government was very busy. For example, the non-government nationalized one of the country’s largest banks. Less importantly, your humble blogger had numerous meetings that were attended by representatives of Belgium’s non-government.
How is this possible?
The answer, of course, is that Belgium’s government functions fine – fine enough to bail out a huge bank! – without significant input from elected officials. If elected officials are around to validate the decisions of the permanent government, that’s great. If not, the government gets on just fine.
Call it the art of governing without government.
Moldbuggian models of politics FTW.
I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of government working for them, and that ain't bad.
-- Jack Nicholson, as President Dale in Mars Attacks
The first draft of the 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2011 here). I will link it below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft
I want three things from you.
First, please critique this draft. Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about abortion" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than five or so questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
Third, please suggest a decent, quick, and at least somewhat accurate Internet IQ test I can stick in a new section, Unreasonably Long Bonus Questions.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.