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Yes it is totally new and it is the only viable alternative to our moribund system. Technocracy were among the very first real environmentalists and still the only real environmentalists and the very first of a lot of things. Investigate the history.
The North American Continent has all the essentials. Why waste those non-renewable resources in an effort that is doomed from the start-- to have continuous economical expansion through devious mechanisms such as programmed obsolescence, military-industrial complex, bureaucracy, etc-- in a finite world? The only people who believe you can have continuous growth in a finite environment is either insane or is an economist. Technocracy is doing nothing more than stating the obvious. Stop sitting on your brains. Our comfortable lifestyle has only been made possible by technology and extraneous energy, not any political philosophy.
![[image loading]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UWfVvj44YqY/TgFMC40pf6I/AAAAAAAAAR0/o-fev1svhng/s1600/Price+System.jpg)
It's Suicide Either Way
An armament boom is the only ultimate major alternative now visible to a decline in business. Such
an armament program in the long run appears inevitable if we don't want to commit national suicide,
but it isn't in sight at present.
Economic statesmanship from Wall Street, that appeared in Barron's Weekly. (As quoted by Labor, Nov. 16, 1946.)
Voice of the Price System
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This is some very nice theorycrafting ( lol ) but reforming and entire political system is -impossible-.
Maybe after a lot of people die we could try this.
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On September 14 2011 02:38 lorkac wrote:
EDIT::
Wow, technocracy sounds even sillier if you look through the website lol
EDIT2:: Omg! Technocracy is even worse on that website than I thought! lol People work for nothing, and they like it, because yeah... (that's his argument actually) Money doesn't matter and people won't care about incentives, because we say so... (That is also their argument) People will work less, retire early, and get more, because... he doesn't really say why he says that that's just how it works. lol My god, I actually thought that Technocracy was at least comparable to other governmental styles. It's actually far worse if you listen to what it has to say lol.
Silly or not that's what it is. Maybe you think we can have unlimited economic expansion in a finite environment like the credo of the economists. Maybe you want to be a stooge for the Hearst Corporation or the Vatican State. Do you even know what the word work means?
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On September 14 2011 02:53 tech information wrote:Yes it is totally new and it is the only viable alternative to our moribund system. Technocracy were among the very first real environmentalists and still the only real environmentalists and the very first of a lot of things. Investigate the history. The North American Continent has all the essentials. Why waste those non-renewable resources in an effort that is doomed from the start-- to have continuous economical expansion through devious mechanisms such as programmed obsolescence, military-industrial complex, bureaucracy, etc-- in a finite world? The only people who believe you can have continuous growth in a finite environment is either insane or is an economist. Technocracy is doing nothing more than stating the obvious. Stop sitting on your brains. Our comfortable lifestyle has only been made possible by technology and extraneous energy, not any political philosophy. It's Suicide Either Way An armament boom is the only ultimate major alternative now visible to a decline in business. Such an armament program in the long run appears inevitable if we don't want to commit national suicide, but it isn't in sight at present. Economic statesmanship from Wall Street, that appeared in Barron's Weekly. (As quoted by Labor, Nov. 16, 1946.) Voice of the Price System
Depending on people to simply do the right thing and not want to live in excess is foolhardy. Not because it's a bad idea, but because it goes against human nature. The only such a system would work is if you force those people to live that lifestyle akin to cults who isolate themselves in the wilderness and live off of wells and gardens. Sure, they're self sustaining, but they're also crazy.
Technocracy is asking for a nation/continental wide Jonestown that they hope does not have cool-aide because, supposedly, science people are nicer than politicians and businessmen.
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I think that an interim partial technocracy would be doable, making congressional panels of experts in their field to advise legislators on the issues at hand. The problem would come when choosing those panels. Sure a group of economists would be better at determining economic policy better than those who are currently making it. However, there is more to economic theory than long term economic stability, the policies usually include cuts, expenses, taxation etc. That is what really gets bogged down in all the sheer stupidity of out political system, not the actual revelation that we need to spend less money than we make.
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Work. When a force acts upon a body and causes it to move, work is said to be done. A unit of work is defined to be that which is done when a unit of force causes its point of application to move a unit of distance in the direction in which the force acts. In the English system when the unit of length is the foot and the unit of force the pound, the unit of work is the foot-pound. Hence the total number of foot-pounds of work done by a given force is the product of the force in pounds by the distance its point of application is moved in the direction of action of the force, in feet. The simplest example is afforded by the lifting of a weight. It requires 1 foot-pound of work to lift a 1-pound mass a height of 1 foot
- Technocracy Study Course
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On September 14 2011 03:01 tech information wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2011 02:38 lorkac wrote:
EDIT::
Wow, technocracy sounds even sillier if you look through the website lol
EDIT2:: Omg! Technocracy is even worse on that website than I thought! lol People work for nothing, and they like it, because yeah... (that's his argument actually) Money doesn't matter and people won't care about incentives, because we say so... (That is also their argument) People will work less, retire early, and get more, because... he doesn't really say why he says that that's just how it works. lol My god, I actually thought that Technocracy was at least comparable to other governmental styles. It's actually far worse if you listen to what it has to say lol. Silly or not that's what it is. Maybe you think we can have unlimited economic expansion in a finite environment like the credo of the economists. Maybe you want to be a stooge for the Hearst Corporation or the Vatican State. Do you even know what the word work means?
Why do you assume that I want unlimited economic expansion?
Just saying that it doesn't sound any different from any other random theory out there except it depends on people not being dicks/stupid which is just silly 
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On September 14 2011 03:03 drshdwpuppet wrote:
I think that an interim partial technocracy would be doable, making congressional panels of experts in their field to advise legislators on the issues at hand. The problem would come when choosing those panels. Sure a group of economists would be better at determining economic policy better than those who are currently making it. However, there is more to economic theory than long term economic stability, the policies usually include cuts, expenses, taxation etc. That is what really gets bogged down in all the sheer stupidity of out political system, not the actual revelation that we need to spend less money than we make.
You haven't been following the discussion. Either reread all my comments and links or please don't post here anymore. We don't need your unrelated opinions.
On September 14 2011 03:02 lorkac wrote:
Depending on people to simply do the right thing and not want to live in excess is foolhardy. Not because it's a bad idea, but because it goes against human nature. The only such a system would work is if you force those people to live that lifestyle akin to cults who isolate themselves in the wilderness and live off of wells and gardens. Sure, they're self sustaining, but they're also crazy.
Technocracy is asking for a nation/continental wide Jonestown that they hope does not have cool-aide because, supposedly, science people are nicer than politicians and businessmen.
Believe what you want but the laws of thermodynamics are no respecters of persons and their opinions. Ever heard of something called Peak Oil? Yea it was discovered by Marion King Hubbert co-founder of Technocracy Inc. and writer of the Technocracy Study Course. It is integral to the body of thought of Technocracy. He was laughed at and called a "Communist" at the time for suggesting that resources extraction would follow a Hubbert Curve but now he is regarded by all as a scientific genius.
![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QV0yUVCmsug/TfgAOUimisI/AAAAAAAAAQM/JymFlcQoTr4/s1600/s24265_Hubbert_world_2004.png)
List of Marion King Hubbert's contributions to Technocracy
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From an interview given to Charles H. Wood, Associate Editor, The NEW YORK WORLD, February 20, 1921
Howard Scott
(Founder-Director-In Chief Technocracy, Inc.)
Mr. Scott is anything but an enthusiast, yet I have never heard an irresponsible soap boxer make more staggering statements. To multiply the nations wealth by ten − without waiting for new inventions and without considering a political move − seemed to him a simple problem for the engineers when they organize as engineers.
For lack of anything better to say, I asked him a question which every advocate of a new order will recognize as an old acquaintance: "Won't you have to change human nature first?" Mr. Scott smiled dryly.
"Did you have to change human nature," he asked "in order to keep passengers from standing on car platforms?"
"Go on," I said, "I'm listening."
"They put up signs first," he continued, "prohibiting the dangerous practice, but the passengers still crowded the platform. Then they got ordinances passed, and the platform remained as crowded as before. Policemen, legislators, public service commissions all took a hand but to no effect; then the problem was put up to an engineer."
"The engineers solved it easily. They built cars that didn't have platforms."
![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fucDFNxsvSc/Tff3Ew2TXeI/AAAAAAAAAPM/yycDKOOvTHg/s1600/Technocracy+three+buses.png)
According to Mr. Scott, the same course will have to be followed in the matter of a still more familiar prohibition. THOU SHALL NOT STEAL. Church and state, he says, have united unanimously throughout all history behind this law, but it has never been enforced. Technical administration alone, he maintains, can enforce it. How? Let him answer in his own words.
"By coordinating the industrial process; by operating all industries as one agency for one definite purpose; producing and distributing the things that people want so that an abundance of everything shall be accessible to all."
"Private property," he said, "is generally recognized as a burden even today, and few people would want to carry it if they could be rich without having to do so. For the first time in history, though, humanity has a machine at hand which is productive enough to make everybody rich, and it has the technical knowledge at its disposal to run such a machine."
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I'll drop a few things here.
First off, generally speaking the further away the decision makers are from the people who they govern the worse it is. This can be circumvented in a technocracy by effectiveness of governing and the population agreeing with their decisions and recognising their leadership as legitimate. This might be easy or it might be extremely hard or even impossible. Dictators, for example, gain their legitimacy mainly through effectiveness and repression. Democracies, on the other hand, gain theirs by the fact that you can influence the legislation yourself.
Secondly, there is very rarely an across the board consensus in political science when it comes to what is best and what is not. In some cases there is empirical data which supports one side and discredits the other and it's a non-issue (unless the data can be criticised itself somehow). The big problem arises when there's normative stances to be made. As someone a page back was talking about, an economist can indeed make a cost-benefit analysis of healthcare but he can not tell you where the right cutoff point is, unless you normatively value the economy over everything else. Even then, there may be other economists - as there usually is - who take a different stance than him for various reasons.
Thirdly, as was also pointed out a couple of pages back, political science is mainly the study of different political systems and their benefits and drawbacks. It's the comparison of systems, rather than the creation of new ones. The technocratic argument is in itself a political theory. If there would be general consensus that it would be the best thing for everyone then I'm sure some nation would slowly adopt it. There isn't, and there wont be, until some nation actually produces such a system so that it can be studied for cause and effect. I hope this doesn't seem problematic to just me.
Oh, and lastly, stop acting like there's an answer for everything. There isn't.
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On September 14 2011 03:05 lorkac wrote: it depends on people not being dicks/stupid which is just silly
No. Read the article about Ralph Nader and morality control I posted above and the 1921 interview I just posted here. The Price System relies on that, which is obviously silly.
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On September 14 2011 03:15 tech information wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2011 03:03 drshdwpuppet wrote:
I think that an interim partial technocracy would be doable, making congressional panels of experts in their field to advise legislators on the issues at hand. The problem would come when choosing those panels. Sure a group of economists would be better at determining economic policy better than those who are currently making it. However, there is more to economic theory than long term economic stability, the policies usually include cuts, expenses, taxation etc. That is what really gets bogged down in all the sheer stupidity of out political system, not the actual revelation that we need to spend less money than we make. You haven't been following the discussion. Either reread all my comments and links or please don't post here anymore. We don't need your unrelated opinions. Show nested quote +On September 14 2011 03:02 lorkac wrote:
Depending on people to simply do the right thing and not want to live in excess is foolhardy. Not because it's a bad idea, but because it goes against human nature. The only such a system would work is if you force those people to live that lifestyle akin to cults who isolate themselves in the wilderness and live off of wells and gardens. Sure, they're self sustaining, but they're also crazy.
Technocracy is asking for a nation/continental wide Jonestown that they hope does not have cool-aide because, supposedly, science people are nicer than politicians and businessmen. Believe what you want but the laws of thermodynamics are no respecters of persons and their opinions. Ever heard of something called Peak Oil? Yea it was discovered by Marion King Hubbert co-founder of Technocracy Inc. and writer of the Technocracy Study Course. It is integral to the body of thought of Technocracy. He was laughed at and called a "Communist" at the time for suggesting that resources extraction would follow a Hubbert Curve but now he is regarded by all as a scientific genius. List of Marion King Hubbert's contributions to Technocracy
And the fact you assume that only Technocracy cares about those things is just hilarious lol
"Experts" are hired and work on these problems in all government structures. All of them. These things are talked about, constantly. The decision on what to do, the preference for how to handle the situations, are varied. Your "technocratic" ideal is merely one of many possible steps we could take. It is one that you like, and you feel is something that "everyone" would like. And you also don't seem to understand a very simple fact--it's not new. The specifics might be different, but the overall "plan" is nothing revolutionary.
Going around spouting things like "Let's not be wasteful, if we weren't wasteful things would be so much better" or "We shouldn't be so greedy and money dependent, if we weren't so greedy, things would be better" or "There's too many dumb people voting, we need to stop them from having a say and only hire people I feel are smart enough to do stuff" or "Yeah man, if we spend more money on social programs and populace doesn't care that they don't have a lot of money, things would be so much better!"
People know that! People have known that since forever. Much like an alcoholic knows he drinks too much--but can't stop, people know their lifestyle is not sustainable over generations and people know that living life in excess is not sustainable over the generations. But they're still people, and they still want stuff. They have needs and desires and they have the right to live life as they want. Should we become a better society? Hell yeah. But it doesn't happen simply by the government saying so. Many governments have tried, many have failed. Those that "don't fail" are hated by the world and end up isolating themselves. Then they get one bad leader then suddenly everyone starts dying. Not because their system was bad--but because people are bad.
Technocracy is nothing new and it's nothing interesting.
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On September 14 2011 03:36 HellRoxYa wrote:
I'll drop a few things here.
Please don't. You haven't been following the discussion. Either reread all my comments and links or please don't post here anymore. This discussion is about Technocracy not aristocracy. We don't need your unrelated opinions.
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That is some interesting stuff
I (we) were indeed wrong about what real a technocracy is, tech_information. It seems what we have been discussing is a meritocracy.
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On September 14 2011 03:37 tech information wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2011 03:05 lorkac wrote: it depends on people not being dicks/stupid which is just silly No. Read the article about Ralph Nader and morality control I posted above and the 1921 interview I just posted here. The Price System relies on that, which is obviously silly.
The price system is an organically grown process that organized and made easier the sharing of resources from the original barter system.
Non-Price systems are merely attempts to fix something that naturally came out of society by people who dislike it.
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On September 14 2011 03:38 lorkac wrote:Technocracy is nothing new and it's nothing interesting.
Why are you posting in a discussion about Technocracy then if you don't find it interesting. Get a life.
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On September 14 2011 03:39 tech information wrote:Please don't. You haven't been following the discussion. Either reread all my comments and links or please don't post here anymore. This discussion is about Technocracy not aristocracy. We don't need your unrelated opinions.
Good thing then that I wasn't discussing aristocracy. Maybe you should actually read my post?
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On September 14 2011 03:29 tech information wrote:From an interview given to Charles H. Wood, Associate Editor, The NEW YORK WORLD, February 20, 1921 Howard Scott (Founder-Director-In Chief Technocracy, Inc.) Mr. Scott is anything but an enthusiast, yet I have never heard an irresponsible soap boxer make more staggering statements. To multiply the nations wealth by ten − without waiting for new inventions and without considering a political move − seemed to him a simple problem for the engineers when they organize as engineers. For lack of anything better to say, I asked him a question which every advocate of a new order will recognize as an old acquaintance: "Won't you have to change human nature first?" Mr. Scott smiled dryly. "Did you have to change human nature," he asked "in order to keep passengers from standing on car platforms?" "Go on," I said, "I'm listening." "They put up signs first," he continued, "prohibiting the dangerous practice, but the passengers still crowded the platform. Then they got ordinances passed, and the platform remained as crowded as before. Policemen, legislators, public service commissions all took a hand but to no effect; then the problem was put up to an engineer." "The engineers solved it easily. They built cars that didn't have platforms." According to Mr. Scott, the same course will have to be followed in the matter of a still more familiar prohibition. THOU SHALL NOT STEAL. Church and state, he says, have united unanimously throughout all history behind this law, but it has never been enforced. Technical administration alone, he maintains, can enforce it. How? Let him answer in his own words. "By coordinating the industrial process; by operating all industries as one agency for one definite purpose; producing and distributing the things that people want so that an abundance of everything shall be accessible to all." "Private property," he said, "is generally recognized as a burden even today, and few people would want to carry it if they could be rich without having to do so. For the first time in history, though, humanity has a machine at hand which is productive enough to make everybody rich, and it has the technical knowledge at its disposal to run such a machine."
Politicians solved the platform problem the best, by investing in both the highway system as well as car companies so people no longer had to take public transportation as much reducing the need to have more expensive trains. They did this by providing more autonomy to the public and made the public not dependent on governmental policy to fix the platform problem.
In essence, politicians looked at the whole problem (human transportation) instead of a tiny aspect of the problem (people falling off of platforms)
+1 politicians
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On September 14 2011 03:41 lorkac wrote:
The price system is an organically grown process that organized and made easier the sharing of resources from the original barter system.
Non-Price systems are merely attempts to fix something that naturally came out of society by people who dislike it.
Austrian School economist Friedrich A. Hayek argued that a free price system allowed economic coordination via the price signals that changing prices sent, which is regarded as one of his most significant and influential contributions to economics.[5]
From "The Use of Knowledge in Society"...'The price system is just one of those formations which man has learned to use (though he is still very far from having learned to make the best use of it) after he had stumbled upon it without understanding it. Through it not only a division of labor but also a coördinated utilization of resources based on an equally divided knowledge has become possible. The people who like to deride any suggestion that this may be so usually distort the argument by insinuating that it asserts that by some miracle just that sort of system has spontaneously grown up which is best suited to modern civilization. It is the other way round: man has been able to develop that division of labor on which our civilization is based because he happened to stumble upon a method which made it possible. Had he not done so, he might still have developed some other, altogether different, type of civilization, something like the "state" of the termite ants, or some other altogether unimaginable type'...Friedrich A. Hayek[6]
I Am The Price System
Some Historic aspects of money... Money, History and Energy accounting
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On September 14 2011 03:46 lorkac wrote:
Politicians solved the platform problem the best, by investing in both the highway system as well as car companies so people no longer had to take public transportation as much reducing the need to have more expensive trains. They did this by providing more autonomy to the public and made the public not dependent on governmental policy to fix the platform problem.
In essence, politicians looked at the whole problem (human transportation) instead of a tiny aspect of the problem (people falling off of platforms)
+1 politicians
Nice try buddy.
Design. The end-products of design are radically different,
if one lays out the whole scheme of a given function in advance
and then works down to the details, from what they would be if
one started on the details and worked from them to the more
general complex. For example, the steamship Normandie has
been able to break world speed records and to exhibit other points
of functional excellence merely because these high points of per-
formance were written into the specifications before a single minor
detail was ever decided upon. The design of a ship to meet these
broader specifications automatically determines that the minor
details be of one sort rather than a number of others The specifica-
tion that the Normandie was to be the fastest steamship ever built
automatically determined the shape of the hull, the power of the
engines, and numerous other smaller details.
Suppose the procedure had been in reverse order. Suppose
that some one person decided independently upon the shape of the
hull; suppose that a second designed the engines, determining
what power and speeds they should have. Let a third design the
control apparatus, etc. It is a foregone conclusion that a ship de-
signed in any such manner, if she remained afloat or ran at all,
would not break any records.
For any single functional unit the design specifications for
the performance of the whole must be written, and then the details
worked out afterwards in such a manner that the performance
of the whole will equal the original specifications laid down.
The trouble with design in a social mechanism heretofore has
been that neither the specifications nor the design has ever gone
beyond the stage of minute details. We have designed houses by
the thousands, but no one has ever designed a system of housing
on a continental scale. We have designed individual boats, auto-
mobiles, locomotives, railway cars, and even articulated stream-
lined trains and individual airplanes, but no one has ever designed
a continental system of transportation. Even these latter units
are only individual details in the design of a whole operating social
mechanism. Even a design that embraced whole functional se-
quences would be inadequate unless it in turn was guided by the
super-design of the entire social mechanism.
- Technocracy Study Course
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EPT![[image loading]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kNgP-UZwBVE/Tm6cNQiHpqI/AAAAAAAAAZE/aBzn1iPlaDM/s1600/cash.gif)
