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This reminds me of something that happened over the summer in Massachusetts with a lottery game called Cash WinFall:
http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-31/news/29836200_1_lottery-tickets-claim-prizes-massachusetts-state-lottery
Basically what happened:
Cash WinFall [was] created under former treasurer Timothy Cahill after a lottery player survey showed people wanted a game that had better odds of winning.
And in doing so.....
Because of a quirk in the rules, when the jackpot reached roughly $2 million and no one won, payoffs for smaller prizes swelled dramatically, which statisticians say practically assured a profit to anyone who bought at least $100,000 worth of tickets.
So a lottery (which is supposed to help the state raise money) instead wound up costing the state even more money.
It's stuff like this that is the scary part of democracy - when officials unknowingly do something that any expert would tell you is idiotic just because (to the officials) that it's an easy way to appease their base.
Maybe not a full technocracy - but I think there def. should be at least some standard for communications between politicians and "experts".
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I'm 90% sure that tech information is a straw man trolling us.
His account was created solely for the purposes of posting in this thread and all he's done is spam pages of BS from Technocracy Incorporated, which is a single group which advocates for a specific, outdated concept of technocracy.
It's about as representative of Technocracy as modern China is representative of Marxist Communism.
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I'm all in for a technocratic democracy.
Just follow the idea
1- Ensure free and equal access to education
2- organize totally free of (even implicit) charges tests of knowledge. those can be passed at any age.
2a- tests are ranked by levels i.e. 1 to 5
2b- lower ranks tests (1 or 2) are common for everyone. They test basic knowledge of how democracy and government function.
2c- higher level tests differenciate topics: finance, public health, defense, security and so forth. Not on a technical point of view but more from a modern issues and policy making point of view.
3- depending on what test an individual was able to pass, he receive a different number of votes.
3a- Ensure that no small group can reach 51% of the votes
3b- Ensure that level 0 citizens can't reach 51% if they vote all together
4(optional)- If you go full on direct democracy, votes can be relative to the subject matter. A level 5 finance citizen would only have level 2 votes on public health topics for exemple. People can pass multiple high level tests if they wish to guarantee more votes in all topics.
Now the only counter argument to that system is that you broke the equality of citizens in their political rights to vote. You didn't break the whole equality as civil rights and so on would be set in constitution. Revision of said constitution would require a flat 1 citizen 1 vote qualified majority vote.
My own counter argument to your point would be that the practice already broke the voting system. Implicit and explicit abstentionists are from very defined socio economic classes.
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There is no "technocratic democracy" or any other "technocracy" than that proposed by Howard Scott Technocracy Inc. and the Technical Alliance. That is oligarchy and has nothing to do with what we are discussing here. If there was another solution the Technocrats would know about it. It is not up for debate or open to suggestions from people who are ignorant of Technocracy's design. Why do you think it has remained unchanged for almost a century, ready to be implemented at any moment as soon as the American people stop sitting on their brains? Investigate Technocracy and stop trying to mix in your own stupid ideas.
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On August 12 2011 16:49 AustinCM wrote:
Do you think that a Technocracy could work anywhere in the world?
What is a Technocracy you ask?
A Technocracy is a form of government in which engineers, scientists, health professionals, and other technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields.
So do you think that it would be able to accelerate scientific discovery and advancement and how do you think it would affect the economy of the given country?\
I for one feel that this is exactly what we need and will end the OP with a quote from Winston Churchill.
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
How about this, I imagine a technocracy having about a dozen represenatives in each field and their decisions would need a scientific research paper sort of outlining why they made their decision, so people in those respective fields can peer review their decisions. I think that would be able to prevent any corruption.
The problem is that the smartest people in the world can't make the right decisions for something as complicated as an economy.
It's the stupidity behind stimulus and bailouts. The idea that you can make decisions better than the consumer and the market is completely asinine. Not even the best geniuses can predict the stock market, and even monkeys have better results then the best analysis by computers. This is because new informations changes things so quickly.
Any government run by 'smart people' trying to make decisions is ruinous. It's facist. It's like saying if you have a good community/facist government, it'll work. It doesn't. It's because no matter what decisions a leader might make, there's no decision that is more efficient and perfect than the general public market making decisions in which companies deserve money based on the confidence in the company by the general public, which is usually due to quality of service and price of goods.
You have someone giving money to companies that deserve to die out, all you have is that the good companies suffer competition against an inferior opponent and not have money to invest in research into products that are superior.
That's the huge flaw with the government right now trying to give money to Green energy. I'm all for green energy, I have stock in quite a few green energy companies so don't get me wrong, but the government cannot possibly know which green company, or even green energy, is best. All that happens is they invest into random companies, and then have no motive to NOT lose all their fucking money, which is in reality the taxpayers money, because they are government and don't lose their jobs or income based on these choices, like people do who are investing their nest eggs for retirement. And then, these companies they invest it, may actually be detrimental to green energy, as they may be incompetent, but the competent company is not receiving the investment that they deserve.
There's been quite a few recent events where green companies that local governments in CA invested into went bankrupt, and it hurts the townspeople who's money it was that was invested by ruining their retirement portfolios, and every green company gets hurt by the negative press that a company with similar product went bankrupt, even if it was because that company was incompetent and not because of a bad product.
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![[image loading]](http://troll.me/images/al-bundy/computers-and-women-are-ruining-the-country.jpg)
User was warned for this post
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On September 13 2011 22:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Don't you fucking understand that something like universal healthcare is not a question of "efficiency", not even a question of cost, pr anything like that, but it's a philosophical question and that there are no specialist who can deiced for you if you want to live in a society where everybody can go to hospital for free or not?
Stop. What you are doing is deciding a priori that universal healthcare is a philosophical question, that it is a question that should be solved by having people vote on it. This is a cheap emotional tactic that you can apply to anything. Taxes are a "philosophical" issue too. So is government regulation. Whether we want to vaccinate everyone is a "philosophical issue" even if it's fucking obvious that it saves lives.
All you're doing here with your talk of "philosophy" and "rights" is a side-stepping any rational debate as to the pros and cons of any government decision. It's the same bullshit that conservatives do all the time in the United States, in order to argue a position that is clearly unsuspported by logic, fact, or science.
On September 13 2011 22:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
You just started a political discussion. Oh, and nobody is right. Everybody thinks he is right, but, surprise! we just have different opinions.
The reality is that there is frequently a Pareto efficiency for most questions of government. When there are multiple Pareto efficiencies, then we have a question of philosophy, and citizens can vote on that. Otherwise, there is no debate. Some outcomes are clearly better than others when we measure the costs and benefits.
On September 13 2011 22:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Me, as a citizen, want to live in a society where a homeless who break an arm can go to hospital and have it fix, with my taxes.
That's a choice, you understand? There is no scientist who can tell you if it's right or wrong. It's not right or wrong, it's how I think society should be because the opposite, I would find monstrous. That's obviously not the case of someone who vote for the American Republicans.
You're wrong. It is possible to measure the marginal utility of allowing homeless people to get medical care, and compare this to the costs of implementation. No matter how much you like universal health care, if it breaks the back of government and makes everybody homeless, it's not worth it and you wouldn't support it. And likewise, if it's cheap enough, even American Republicans wouldn't be against it. What it comes down to is cost-benefit analysis.
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On September 14 2011 06:34 Thetan wrote:This reminds me of something that happened over the summer in Massachusetts with a lottery game called Cash WinFall: http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-31/news/29836200_1_lottery-tickets-claim-prizes-massachusetts-state-lotteryBasically what happened: Show nested quote +Cash WinFall [was] created under former treasurer Timothy Cahill after a lottery player survey showed people wanted a game that had better odds of winning. And in doing so..... Show nested quote +Because of a quirk in the rules, when the jackpot reached roughly $2 million and no one won, payoffs for smaller prizes swelled dramatically, which statisticians say practically assured a profit to anyone who bought at least $100,000 worth of tickets. So a lottery (which is supposed to help the state raise money) instead wound up costing the state even more money. It's stuff like this that is the scary part of democracy - when officials unknowingly do something that any expert would tell you is idiotic just because (to the officials) that it's an easy way to appease their base. Maybe not a full technocracy - but I think there def. should be at least some standard for communications between politicians and "experts".
The game is still profitable for the state ($11.8m in profits in 2011) and was likely created by experts.
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On September 13 2011 22:58 tech information wrote:
You are discussing meritocracy, not Technocracy, which is a completely different concept. Get that into your head. The fact that propagandists and incompetents have coopted the word does not allow you to do the same.
No, I'm not. Just because you are insistently using some highly limited, archaic definition of the word by a single long-dead organization doesn't mean that it's true
On September 13 2011 22:58 tech information wrote:
Economics is not a science. Political science is not a science. Morality control is not a science. Chemistry is. Biology is. Geology is. Physics is.
No. Economics and political science are both social sciences.
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Any women join your cult since the invention of color photography?
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On September 14 2011 06:49 Belial88 wrote:
The problem is that the smartest people in the world can't make the right decisions for something as complicated as an economy.
It's the stupidity behind stimulus and bailouts. The idea that you can make decisions better than the consumer and the market is completely asinine. Not even the best geniuses can predict the stock market, and even monkeys have better results then the best analysis by computers. This is because new informations changes things so quickly.
Any government run by 'smart people' trying to make decisions is ruinous. It's facist. It's like saying if you have a good community/facist government, it'll work. It doesn't. It's because no matter what decisions a leader might make, there's no decision that is more efficient and perfect than the general public market making decisions in which companies deserve money based on the confidence in the company by the general public, which is usually due to quality of service and price of goods.
You have someone giving money to companies that deserve to die out, all you have is that the good companies suffer competition against an inferior opponent and not have money to invest in research into products that are superior.
Yes exactly. That's because money is not a measurement of anything real, it is a measurement of value. That's why economics is not a science. Running the whole world with money becomes dangerous and downright suicidal in this age of high-energy conversion and advanced technology. Scientific metrical measurement is a must. Not commodity evaluation and economic guessing for erratic exchange. AXIOLOGY: From the Greek, meaning a student of the theory of values. Axiology, the theory of values, their unique forms and inter-relationships, as the True, the Beautiful, the Good, contrasted with the scientist, whose proper concern is with quantities, their precise measurement, correlation and control in the interests of knowledge and the service of man.
Look at the differences between the Distribution Certificate, which is a medium of distribution, and money which is a medium of erratic exchange which uses commodity evaluation. It's written on the picture of the cake.
![[image loading]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ixVZjXpk4NY/Tm_DSJ5jETI/AAAAAAAAAaE/QeCORGjzExc/s1600/Technocracy+Events+%252820%2529.jpg)
That's the huge flaw with the government right now trying to give money to Green energy.
Yes. Read this article:
It Really Doesn't Grow On Trees
Stephen L. Doll
1997
Published in:
The Northwest Technocrat, 1st quarter 1997, No. 346
The stripping of rainforests for monetary profit points up a vital truth -- we are dead set on a collision course between human ambition and the hard, cold realities of physical science.
The world operates on two economic systems. The one is our true wealth, the physical planet we inhabit and its many diverse and interconnected systems -- of which we are a part. All activities of this economy are concrete, measurable quantities, based in physical science. The other economy, that dictates the thoughts and actions of commercial society, is the financial one whereby we decide who gets how much of the product of the natural economy. The principles of this artificial economy are not found in any book on physical science. They exist only in the murky and unfathomable depths of human imagination, opinion and desire. You can't eat this economy, drink it, or build a house from it. In this age of electronic funds transfer, it doesn't even require physical evidence of itself.
It's no longer a matter of how we slice the pie. It's a matter of whether there is a pie at all. You can't mix physical properties with philosophical pecking orders, particularly in a social system in which we perversely reward the consumers of resources with imaginary tokens allowing them to consume more resources. And, as resources dwindle and become more precious, each of us is required to make even more money to survive. We are sacrificing the earth for a mess of pottage, and misdirected technology has accelerated the trend. In our headlong pursuit of financial "rewards", we have given little thought to the very simple fact that it is the physical that supports the financial -- not the other way around. Yet even our efforts to maintain a habitable planet must meet the criterion of "cost effectiveness". In other words, even the fate of life on earth itself is subject to the "What's in it for me?" of monetary gain.
This is a point of distinction that somehow escapes even the most die- hard of environmentalists, who cling to the myth that with the coin of the realm, we can buy or bribe our way to ecological reclamation.
At the World Conference on Population in Cairo in 1994, Jacques Cousteau made the following comment: "Let us jump ahead to the year 2030. Then the world's resources will be difficult to share. Their fullness can be evaluated today, using the most sophisticated science and technology to obtain the best yield from them while using our sense of justice to assure equitable distribution. Energy will be the money of the future, determining the real value of goods instead of basing the economy on the desire of artificially tempted customers." For the record, at the rate we are rendering the earth uninhabitable for increasing numbers of life forms, we probably do not have that long to go.
In 1933, The Continental organization of Technocracy made the same pronouncement on the basis of an objective, non-political analysis of available energy and resources, but they took it a step farther. They proposed a switch from a monetary economy to one based on physical factors, and outlined a program for an orderly transition. It even provided a "sense of justice" in equal, but not identical, access to goods and services for the entire population. It is the only organization in existence, or in history, to do so.
A world without money? Or a world without resources? There is no middle ground. Who knows? Maybe we'll be able to survive on dollar-bill sandwiches. Maybe through some mysterious alchemy we can convert all those computer bytes that represent our financial holdings into topsoil or estuaries. But somehow, it is doubtful.
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On September 14 2011 06:49 tech information wrote:
There is no "technocratic democracy" or any other "technocracy" than that proposed by Howard Scott Technocracy Inc. and the Technical Alliance. That is oligarchy and has nothing to do with what we are discussing here. If there was another solution the Technocrats would know about it. It is not up for debate or open to suggestions from people who are ignorant of Technocracy's design. Why do you think it has remained unchanged for almost a century, ready to be implemented at any moment as soon as the American people stop sitting on their brains? Investigate Technocracy and stop trying to mix in your own stupid ideas.
Rejecting an idea because it doesn't fit the definition. Brilliant.
I won't go into details but i'm currently living in the soft technocratic (in the broad meaning) center of 2 democracies due to my job and every single day i see brilliant ideas rejected because of futures elections. Thus the interest for different model.
Now the passeist definition you're serving me quite frankly doesn't interest me the least. The core point is to balance democracy flaws with knowledge.
The mess we are attending right now is the result of the power struggle between democrats, technocrats and bureaucrats. The goal is to find a middle ground that both satisfies results and democratic principles.
Refute the model instead of throwing insults out of your closed mind.
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Don't post your nonsense here anymore. You have never heard of Technocracy in your life and you have not been following this discussion.
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On September 14 2011 06:55 sunprince wrote:
You're wrong. It is possible to measure the marginal utility of allowing homeless people to get medical care, and compare this to the costs of implementation. No matter how much you like universal health care, if it breaks the back of government and makes everybody homeless, it's not worth it and you wouldn't support it. And likewise, if it's cheap enough, even American Republicans wouldn't be against it. What it comes down to is cost-benefit analysis.
Step one, assume we care about homeless people.
Step two--oh wait, we're still arguing over step one.
Before people want to figure out what's best, they need to actually care.
How do we know if people care or not? Oh right, argue about it 
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All you're doing here with your talk of "philosophy" and "rights" is a side-stepping any rational debate as to the pros and cons of any government decision. It's the same bullshit that conservatives do all the time in the United States, in order to argue a position that is clearly unsuspported by logic, fact, or science.
Hmmm.
No.
Philosophy of government by the people and for the people and inalienable rights are not smokescreens for bad arguments from conservatives, no more than the philosophy of economic egalitarianism and social rights are a smokescreen for bad arguments from liberals.
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On September 14 2011 07:13 tech information wrote:
Don't post your nonsense here anymore. You have never heard of Technocracy in your life and you have not been following this discussion.
I still don't hear a counter argument to the model and how it doesn't fit techno cratos. Call it census democracy based on knowledge if it hurts you too much.
Have fun discussing your 1920's engineer wet dream for power.
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Why are you even posting here if you haven't read the discussion
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On September 14 2011 07:13 tech information wrote:
Don't post your nonsense here anymore. You have never heard of Technocracy in your life and you have not been following this discussion.
It actually makes less sense if you actually listen to the youtube videos in the main website.
It also sounds sillier when you read the articles you have linked to.
When you're informed about what your posts actually say, you call them slaves to Price Systems despite people's lack of defending the price system. (Okay, maybe once or twice for the lol)
Do you have an actual counterargument or are you just trolling?
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