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Mecker
Sweden219 Posts
On August 12 2011 21:28 zalz wrote: Bad idea Knowing a lot about a certain field in no way prepares you for leading such a field. Not sure who claims that a single person would make any decision on their own. Why would a person who is good at collecting votes from an irrational public be any better than people who actually have some knowledge of what the decisions they are making imply. | ||
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Supter
France382 Posts
In France, when Charles de Gaulle was president (1958-1969 if i remember correctly), he tried to change our legislative power. It's actually the "Assemblée nationale", with deputies (elected by everyone), and the "Sénat" with politicians elected by deputies, mayors and others. But not by the regular people. He proposed to change de Sénat and to create another Chamber. It would have been a non-elected chamber with representants of differents professions, like lawyer, medicine, syndicates (in french "syndicats", idk what the real english word is, but google told me it was syndicates or federation :o ), and so on. I'm not a great fan of Charles de Gaulle, but i think it was a really good idea, i mean, it would have been a perfect compromise between democracy and technocracy : the people decide, because you cannot decide for themselves, but the men with the knowledge can say what they think is the best for everybody, even if they can't decide (to many risks of corruption). Hope my english wasnt too poor (it's easy to talk about starcraft, but quite hard to speak about politics and history :D) | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
On August 12 2011 21:32 Mecker wrote: There is no reason to believe that it is impossible or even very complicated for that matter. A committee of thousands of merited scientists would have a lot of biases - all rendered mute simply through rational debate. You have a naive, idealistic view of things. | ||
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sunprince
United States2258 Posts
On August 12 2011 21:39 Traeon wrote: You have a naive, idealistic view of things. Are you saying the uninformed/uneducated public is less biased than technocrats? | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
On August 12 2011 21:47 sunprince wrote: Are you saying the uninformed/uneducated public is less biased than technocrats? I said his view is naive and idealistic. Strawmanning much? | ||
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gumshoe
Canada3602 Posts
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Archaron
New Zealand8 Posts
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On August 12 2011 18:02 Newbistic wrote: The real question is whether or not a technocracy can even form in the real world, and the answer is pretty much no. Even if it is yes, professionalism and knowledge does not guarantee personal accountability or integrity in any shape way or form, so those in power are still easily corruptible. Those who aren't in power will be the masses, who simply can't all be so educated as to be able to know everything they need to know to be "informed citizens". Mankind simply isn't education-centered enough to be able to handle such a form of government. The point is not to create flawless system, but something better than current one. Professional in a given field has bigger likelihood of not fucking up than amateur. Yes both can be corrupt, but one is still better than the other. Of course checks and balance still need to be present. | ||
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sunprince
United States2258 Posts
On August 12 2011 21:53 Traeon wrote: I said his view is naive and idealistic. Strawmanning much? The crux of his argument is that a technocracy is superior to a democracy because technocrats are less biased than the general public. If you are not disagreeing with that, what's your point? | ||
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bonifaceviii
Canada2890 Posts
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sunprince
United States2258 Posts
On August 12 2011 21:56 gumshoe wrote: Ever read player piano? Essentially technology begins to steadily replace everyone except the engineers that make the tech. The engineers are corrupt and blinded by their power and almost everyone else lacks a satisfying job, technocracy is a recipe for the worst kind of elitism, a society in which only a select few professions are considered meaningful. You're conflating distopyian capitalism with technocracy. On August 12 2011 21:57 Archaron wrote: the problem with this system is that everyday people have no power what so ever and are dictated to how to properly live there lives even though they might not want to listen essential making this a subform of dictatorship. sure this would work if every1 was a robot and didnt have individual feelings but we do. the idea of having someone from the field in which they are leading is a good one however the job of ministers is not neccesarly to further the development of said industry or country but to simply get realected so if u feel a minister orpolitical group is doing a bad job with electing its ministers then dont vote for them and find some1 who does promote there ministers correctly and vote for them You need to read up on what a technocracy is. On August 12 2011 21:58 bonifaceviii wrote: Sounds like union rule and self-regulation, both of which are horrible. Quite the opposite. Bureaucracies actually gain more power, meaning that there is typically more regulation, not less. For example, if the Environmental Protection Agency had real political power, don't you think corporations would be better regulated? | ||
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Celadan
Norway471 Posts
None of these options is specially viable. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On August 12 2011 20:09 bech wrote: The main problem with a technocracy is that while they may be the best in their respective fields, this in no way translates to political skill. Politics is more than knowing what the best thing to do is, it's also about persuading those with different beliefs into following you in that decision, and being able to make the right compromises whilst also forcing others to compromise in order to reach the best possible solution. Some of the brightest minds in our society have no skills in this area whatsoever, which is why a technocratic leader would have a hard time governing his/her respective field. What you're not seeing behind the scenes of the political arena is that while a business grad appointed the position of minister of science does not personally know much about science, his job is to convey the message and bargain with opposing powers, while his/her advisers, who are in fact experts in their fields, make suggestions on what needs to be done - just as the technocratic leader would. The only problem here is that the advisers only advise - they don't decide. There is no requirement they have to be the best in their field. They have to be reasonable in their field, and you can find many such people that also have political skills. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On August 12 2011 20:20 Morfildur wrote: If you've ever seen scientists and engineers in a team, you know that it won't work. The only way scientists and engineers talk to each other is through arguments on who is the better and if you assign two scientists/engineers on one project without supervision it will never finish because both will argue forever on which is the best approach to start. You need someone to supervise and steer them that is not another scientist/engineer - because then it would be 3 people pushing their opinions around -, best someone who is very experienced in herding cats  EDIT: About "consensus"... in a group of X scientists and engineers, there are exactly X+1 opinons on the right choice and everyone is convinced that exactly X of the other opinions are totally wrong and will ruin everything. Strange how in all my experience the third guy that supervises was also an engineer and it was never a problem. You just need to choose an engineer that has organizational skills. | ||
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zalz
Netherlands3704 Posts
On August 12 2011 21:34 sunprince wrote: No, but it prepares you to vote on decisions made in such a field, which is the point of a technocracy. Yes, and these decisions would be of an administrative nature, something wich has nearly no relation to their actuall knowledge of the field. Knowing how to perform brain surgery does not in any way shape or form train you to actually run a brain surgery department or a hospital. And that is what you would get. People judging over decisions wich we think they know a lot about whilst in reality they probably have little to no clue about such matters. A garbageman doesn't know how to run a garbage facility, all he knows is how to pick up the garbage and drive the car. But in this system of government we can't vote out the incompetent people rather then in a democracy whilst both officials would have the same ammount of knowledge on any given subkect. | ||
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Tarot
Canada440 Posts
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zalz
Netherlands3704 Posts
On August 12 2011 22:13 Tarot wrote: Maybe a technocracy won't work but at the very least, I would like some unified and influential group of experts from various fields that fact checks the stuff that politicians say. Maybe they won't make decisions but point out things that are blatantly wrong, or misleading to the general public. You have some sites that check what people say to make sure if it's fact or not. I think America has a site called politifact or something similar. But i don't see the use of it. The vast majority will not bother to look it up. | ||
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sunprince
United States2258 Posts
On August 12 2011 22:13 zalz wrote: Yes, and these decisions would be of an administrative nature, something wich has nearly no relation to their actuall knowledge of the field. Knowing how to perform brain surgery does not in any way shape or form train you to actually run a brain surgery department or a hospital. We also have people with PhDs in public health and health administration, you know. Those would be the relevant experts here. Brain surgeons would be called upon to decide issues related only to brain surgery. On August 12 2011 22:13 zalz wrote: And that is what you would get. People judging over decisions wich we think they know a lot about whilst in reality they probably have little to no clue about such matters. A garbageman doesn't know how to run a garbage facility, all he knows is how to pick up the garbage and drive the car. But in this system of government we can't vote out the incompetent people rather then in a democracy whilst both officials would have the same ammount of knowledge on any given subkect. No, you simply are making unfounded claims based on your ignorance of how a technocracy works. | ||
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Sablar
Sweden880 Posts
Most obvious flaw is that scientists are just people. They are biased and corrupt and want to defend their own science. Possibly to lesser extent than current politicians defending their standpoints, but still enough to cause problems, and at least the general public are biased towards different things, in effect canceling it out a bit. Scientists are a bit more conform than that for good and bad. They're also a social elite, more so than politicians. Not everyone becomes a professor, and most people have well-educated parents and are doing pretty good in society. They wouldn't be representable of the people. Also the role of scientist is different from being in power in society, and given this change it would be strange to assume that the generalizations like those I throw out about scientists would still be true, because people would probably change with power. Also some seem to think that there is only 1 "rational decision" in a political situation but that is far from the case. Scientists agree about nothing and there are always different camps within diciplines much like political parties. Some sciences are harder to argue about than others, like math is probably right or wrong. Sociology and stuff regarding the whole society can't really be measured though, and there would never be a consensus or even close to it regarding what was right. This goes for economics, psychology etc as well. All that said I would love to see more rational debates and less crap coming from politicians. I just don't think scientists would be any better at that, and I can't help thinking that it would turn into some elitist political mensa club. Making sure to consult those who have knowledge in fields relevant to decisions is of course important, but that's how it's done today. | ||
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Scaramanga
Australia8091 Posts
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