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United States2258 Posts
On August 13 2011 00:42 Saji wrote:
This is a perfect example why it would not work...
You don't the solve the problem because the root cause of it is not even been identified.... the fact that the debt grew that much should ring an alarm on what has been done but that part is totally negated while trying to lower the debt
and after a while the same problem will arise and the same reason the same line of thought is applied and we will have more problems
What in the world are you talking about? I'm pretty I had it covered with 'analyzing the situation'.
The root cause of the debt is greater spending obligations than tax revenue. If you reform spending and taxes dramatically, then of course the problems will be resolved. (And just in case you're not aware, spending reform = cutting spending and tax reform = raising taxes).
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On August 13 2011 00:33 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2011 00:15 paradox_ wrote:
Everything comes back to the economics of the situation, why do you need non-economic experts then? What is a biologist expert in government going to decide? Economists determine funding, but legislation within the field is determined by those experts. For example, biologists would decide that teaching evolution is mandatory and creationism is banned, stem-cell research should be allowed, etc.Additionally, economists would base their funding decisions based on information provided by the biologists. Show nested quote +On August 13 2011 00:15 paradox_ wrote:
Before we discuss further I would like you to explain to me what experts in whatever science of your choosing would decide in government as an example. I'm honestly confused what you think is going to happen. An easy example would be the current debt crisis. Here's how it would work in a technocracy. The members of the National Academy of Sciences (Economic Sciences) analyze the situation and crunch the numbers. They arrive at a consensus over how to handle the problem, and submit a proposed budget. Congress looks it over, makes constrained modifications to ensure that no constituency is disproportionately impacted in terms of gain or harm, and then pass it off to the President to sign. The public grumbles at the massive spending cuts and tax increases, but the deficit is closed and the debt comes under control within a few years. How's that?
Ok perfect now within these expert economists, there are going to be Keynesians and there are going to be Monetarists. They now have 2 opposing ideas that are fundamentally different. How are they going to approach a consensus when they are coming from 2 different schools of thought. They haven't after this long chances are they're not going to wrap it up in the near future. So instead of the gridlock of policy occurring on the senate floor, it'll happen in a boardroom in the National Academy of Sciences building or whatever.
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Sure sounds like this. The current system doesn't do much anyways in the way of leadership.
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On August 12 2011 17:06 Krogzor wrote:
What an absurd idea.
Says the fellow from North Korea.
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I think it would be better to have some more intelligent people in office, but I don't think a fully run by scientist government would work. I totally agree though that people in charge of important decisions in some area should actually have a background in that area.
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United States2258 Posts
On August 13 2011 00:46 paradox_ wrote:
Ok perfect now within these expert economists, there are going to be Keynesians and there are going to be Monetarists. They now have 2 opposing ideas that are fundamentally different. How are they going to approach a consensus when they are coming from 2 different schools of thought. They haven't after this long chances are they're not going to wrap it up in the near future. So instead of the gridlock of policy occurring on the senate floor, it'll happen in a boardroom in the National Academy of Sciences building or whatever.
You seem to be behind the times. Keynsian and Monetarist thought has substantially converged sinced the debates of the 1970s. There are differences still, but they can compromise, and they can certainly vote on opposing policies as well if they can't reach a consensus by a deadline.
Additionally, if the NAS economists could affect public policy, you can be sure that they would have already studied this day and night and have debated out the policy much more ahead of time (if they even allowed the problem to progress this far). Compared to Congress, they also benefit from being able to study economic policy all the time instead of worrying about other issues like health care, the wars, or re-elections.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 12 2011 23:51 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2011 23:44 meegrean wrote:
Why would technocrats care much about the poor when they could spend more resources on research and technological advancement? *sigh* Despite how the name sounds, 'technocrat' does not mean 'technology-oriented'. It means that experts are in charge of their respective fields. Economics, sociology, urban development, education, philosophy, ethics, etc. are all fields of knowledge with experts that care about things like social inequality. In fact, the only reason you even know about things like the growing wealth gap is because of those experts. They're also the only ones presenting solutions.
What makes you think this isn't already in place? Do you think Congress people are the ones writing their bills and doing research?
They publicize vote getting but at the core of governmental decision making are un-elected experts whom the politicians rely on. Some are truly idiots, but most are intelligent but conflicted and the things they say aren't truly indicative of their stance. Politicians are the ones who balance and mediate expert opinions, along with their own, but it's not as if the experts don't have a very large role in government. Weber was writing about this 100 years ago when he wrote on bureaucracy.
And if you think the experts can actually come to consensus on their own without some type of arbitration, you're wrong. You can point fingers at politicians running elections or getting funding from lobbyists but truth be told, those lobbyists are often the ones who provide the most expertise, and removing elections won't change the fact that they'll influence decisions and appropriations for their own cause.
And the "science" of macroeconomic theory is a bit of a joke. It's like reading goat entrails.
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On August 13 2011 00:46 paradox_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2011 00:33 sunprince wrote:On August 13 2011 00:15 paradox_ wrote:
Everything comes back to the economics of the situation, why do you need non-economic experts then? What is a biologist expert in government going to decide? Economists determine funding, but legislation within the field is determined by those experts. For example, biologists would decide that teaching evolution is mandatory and creationism is banned, stem-cell research should be allowed, etc.Additionally, economists would base their funding decisions based on information provided by the biologists. On August 13 2011 00:15 paradox_ wrote:
Before we discuss further I would like you to explain to me what experts in whatever science of your choosing would decide in government as an example. I'm honestly confused what you think is going to happen. An easy example would be the current debt crisis. Here's how it would work in a technocracy. The members of the National Academy of Sciences (Economic Sciences) analyze the situation and crunch the numbers. They arrive at a consensus over how to handle the problem, and submit a proposed budget. Congress looks it over, makes constrained modifications to ensure that no constituency is disproportionately impacted in terms of gain or harm, and then pass it off to the President to sign. The public grumbles at the massive spending cuts and tax increases, but the deficit is closed and the debt comes under control within a few years. How's that? Ok perfect now within these expert economists, there are going to be Keynesians and there are going to be Monetarists. They now have 2 opposing ideas that are fundamentally different. How are they going to approach a consensus when they are coming from 2 different schools of thought. They haven't after this long chances are they're not going to wrap it up in the near future. So instead of the gridlock of policy occurring on the senate floor, it'll happen in a boardroom in the National Academy of Sciences building or whatever.
He could argue that only "real" scientific economists would be considered, but that in the end leads nowhere. That is why I think there is no need to go all the way and eliminate all democratic processes. On general policy matters people would vote. Only things that can be reasonably well answered by science or smaller details would be decided by technocrats.
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On August 13 2011 00:43 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2011 00:27 paradox_ wrote:On August 13 2011 00:05 mcc wrote:On August 12 2011 23:36 haduken wrote:
B) The lack of empathy. Scientists care little about your average citizens. Sometimes the populace do things that are against logic. Public mood can swing one way or another and a scientist is not equipped to deal with that unless he has prior experiences in political science which will end up like the system we have now. Scientists would have less patient for people's opinions when he consider himself smarter than them and a scientist is just as likely as the next person to be influenced by interest groups.
This rather bad and very insulting argument. It also shows you have no experience with scientists. Why the hell would they lack empathy, they are not robots. If anything in history highly educated people showed more empathy. Also if anyone, current politicians lack empathy in much greater degree as politics is basically fight for power and that attracts more ruthless people. Gandhi is probably on everyone's top 5 list if not on top of the list of most empathetic figures in history. He's not a scientist. He was a lawyer. There are plenty of cases of highly educated doctors performing unethical research e.g. doctors in Nazi Germany that performed experiments on the Jewish population. I'm not saying all scientists are evil and lawyers are empathetic but rather, empathy is independent of the type of education they recieved or if they received education at all (eg Mother Theresa was born to a politician father and had no real education as she decided to become a nun pretty young). Edit: I just read who you responded to, I disagree with him as well but my point still stands on the matter of highly educated people showing more empathy. You are kind of right as I did not word my point properly. First we are talking statistics, so individual examples are not disqualifying my point. Second, basically what I meant is that highly educated people in history showed more empathy towards people they were not close with. This basically because they think more about public policy issues and similar. So it is not capacity for empathy I am talking about. For example movement to abolish slavery came form educated circles, ...
Ah ok understood. But to further discuss your point by your own logic though 1 example isn't representative of the whole picture. Educated circles existed when slavery started (I know slavery existed since humans developed the idea of ownership, but I'm referring to lets say the last 2 centuries). If they are more in tune with the human condition they would have not allowed or at least resisted slavery far earlier in human history. The idea that experts are more equipped or less equipped to be empathetic isn't valid imo. They're human. The individual is either empathetic or they're not for whatever reasons it may be. Politicians can be empathetic just as much as a scientist and scientists can be as "evil" as a politician.
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On August 13 2011 00:45 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2011 00:42 Saji wrote:
This is a perfect example why it would not work...
You don't the solve the problem because the root cause of it is not even been identified.... the fact that the debt grew that much should ring an alarm on what has been done but that part is totally negated while trying to lower the debt
and after a while the same problem will arise and the same reason the same line of thought is applied and we will have more problems
What in the world are you talking about? I'm pretty I had it covered with 'analyzing the situation'. The root cause of the debt is greater spending obligations than tax revenue. If you reform spending and taxes dramatically, then of course the problems will be resolved. (And just in case you're not aware, spending reform = cutting spending and tax reform = raising taxes).
I don't want to get too much derailed but is that really the root cause? What you are telling me sound more like a text book theory than what has happened in reality.
Also i don't understand what you mean by "I'm pretty I had it covered with 'analyzing the situation' " could you elaborate?
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2011 00:43 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2011 00:27 paradox_ wrote:On August 13 2011 00:05 mcc wrote:On August 12 2011 23:36 haduken wrote:
B) The lack of empathy. Scientists care little about your average citizens. Sometimes the populace do things that are against logic. Public mood can swing one way or another and a scientist is not equipped to deal with that unless he has prior experiences in political science which will end up like the system we have now. Scientists would have less patient for people's opinions when he consider himself smarter than them and a scientist is just as likely as the next person to be influenced by interest groups.
This rather bad and very insulting argument. It also shows you have no experience with scientists. Why the hell would they lack empathy, they are not robots. If anything in history highly educated people showed more empathy. Also if anyone, current politicians lack empathy in much greater degree as politics is basically fight for power and that attracts more ruthless people. Gandhi is probably on everyone's top 5 list if not on top of the list of most empathetic figures in history. He's not a scientist. He was a lawyer. There are plenty of cases of highly educated doctors performing unethical research e.g. doctors in Nazi Germany that performed experiments on the Jewish population. I'm not saying all scientists are evil and lawyers are empathetic but rather, empathy is independent of the type of education they recieved or if they received education at all (eg Mother Theresa was born to a politician father and had no real education as she decided to become a nun pretty young). Edit: I just read who you responded to, I disagree with him as well but my point still stands on the matter of highly educated people showing more empathy. You are kind of right as I did not word my point properly. First we are talking statistics, so individual examples are not disqualifying my point. Second, basically what I meant is that highly educated people in history showed more empathy towards people they were not close with. This basically because they think more about public policy issues and similar. So it is not capacity for empathy I am talking about. For example movement to abolish slavery came form educated circles, ... And the movement to institutionalize slavery also came from educated circles. The post-Bacon's Rebellion horror that was slavery in the American South was entirely created and led by aristocrats and the educated. I don't see your point.
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I have my doubts that it would be more just than current representative democracies. But I have no doubts that it would be more efficient. Instead of delegating to an endless chain of bureaucrats, a technocrat would analyze a problem by themselves or with a few assistants, quickly arriving at a solution.
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United States2258 Posts
On August 13 2011 00:54 Jibba wrote:
What makes you think this isn't already in place? Do you think Congress people are the ones writing their bills and doing research?
As I've stated elsewhere in the thread, the technocratic elements are in place; Congress can simply ignore it when it's inconvenient for them though, which is the problem. There are numerous issues that are politically controversial and aren't resolved properly or at all despite widespread scientific consensus.
On August 13 2011 00:54 Jibba wrote:
And if you think the experts can actually come to consensus on their own without some type of arbitration, you're wrong. You can point fingers at politicians running elections or getting funding from lobbyists but truth be told, those lobbyists are often the ones who provide the most expertise, and removing elections won't change the fact that they'll influence decisions and appropriations for their own cause.
The NAS has a website with their publications, which basically indicates their consensus: http://www.nap.edu/ Additionally, the President has requested special reports from the NAS in the past, and recieved comprehensive reports with consensuses on policy suggestions within a few years.
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A technocracy is by definition socialism. Socialism of all sorts has been completely refuted, utterly destroyed in its own terms, by strict methodology, 100 years ago. In Mises' Socialism.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2011 01:06 sunprince wrote:The NAS has a website with their publications, which basically indicates their consensus: http://www.nap.edu/ Additionally, the President has requested special reports from the NAS in the past, and recieved comprehensive reports with consensuses on policy suggestions within a few years.
Those are not all the experts, and not necessarily the best experts either. My father is actually on a committee in the National Academy of Sciences, and in his opinion their meetings are almost entirely a waste of time. The group doesn't meet often enough to be productive (since, in order to be an expert, they have to focus on their own work first) and they come from such diverse backgrounds that they rarely come to an agreement on anything.
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Techocracy and democracy are very compatible. The democratic process is going to set very generalstandards, goals, benchmarks for the techocrats to achieve, by any means they deem necessary. All things will move towards those goals, and be developed incrementally.
The thing in our "democratic" world is that the majority of the people are outright dumb or ignorant and can easily be persuaded to believe absurd things so even if we switched to a system where the current "ruling elite" were replaced by lieutenants or administrators for the random guy on the street, someone would still emerge as a charismatic leader and influence public opinion, and the people will set absurd goals to the technocrats.
So you would need a more insightful populace to make technocracy work, people will always find a way to feel crossed and protest for their rights or whatever.
A pure technocracy, where the technocrats also set the goals would make for a dictatorship. For what it's worth, this form of government has been quite popular in the recent past, and still lives today in the People's Republic of China.
Btw I did not read the thread. Too long, too bad
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While I think scientists and engineers could run their respective sectors better than the political mess we see today, there are obstacles. I feel that individual scientists and engineers would be too easily swayed by special interests. Politicians are being watched by the media, so they have to be much more careful about how they get their special interest money. Who is going to watch over 200.000 engineers and scientists?
Engineers and scientists would be the least of the problems. Having the sharks of wall street run the economy would make me vomit uncontrollably.
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United States2258 Posts
On August 13 2011 00:59 Saji wrote:
I don't want to get too much derailed but is that really the root cause? What you are telling me sound more like a text book theory than what has happened in reality.
There's lots of complex reasons that would require ridiculous amounts of derailing. Plus, I'm not an economist. So I'll just direct you to here.
On August 13 2011 00:59 Saji wrote:
Also i don't understand what you mean by "I'm pretty I had it covered with 'analyzing the situation' " could you elaborate?
What I mean is that it's pretty obvious that in researching the problem and proposing policy solutions, economists would address the root causes.
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On August 13 2011 01:06 xarthaz wrote:
A technocracy is by definition socialism. Socialism of all sorts has been completely refuted, utterly destroyed in its own terms, by strict methodology, 100 years ago. In Mises' Socialism.
Technocracy is socialism
Socialism has been counter argued by Ludwig von Mises and my stance is his so please account for his arguments instead of mine.
The bottom line I am fine with. The top line I can't wrap my head around. How did you go from Technocracy to socialism like snapping your fingers.
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Hah, engineers and scientists running the government? What about leaders who can deal with people and social issues?
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EPT
