Why technocracy is the best governement (in my opinion)

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Looks,first of all I'm just giving my opinion here,you're free to tell yours too...

First of all,what is a technocracy?It's a political system were the most intelligents rules.So that mean that the one who know what they are talking about (ex:scientists,teachers,doctors,engineers,etc...) are the bosses.Think about it.Democracy means that the majority decide.And in every society,ethnic group,religion,country,etc... There is a majority of morons and stupid douchebags than there are intelligent and wise people. Its sad to admit,but its the truth. And as long as we keep this mentality of "We are more than you so you are wrong and we are right", we'll be ruled by imbeciles and other douchebags. This is why democracy fail. Plus, an overwhelming majority of our politicians are real jerks (Think about Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin and Goerge W. Bush...). With technocracy,we'll be sure that we are rulled by intelligent people. My history teacher said that technocracy would fail, because those "intelligent" people would know each other and become friend. That's true, but our actual politicians also know each other,and they are stupid so... Honestly, we can all agree that between an intelligent but corrupted politician and a stupid and corrupted politician,we would pick the intelligent corrupted politician...

That was my opinion...

Quid custodiet ad ipso custodii?

Mee yishmor et ha shomrim?

Who will guard the guardians?

ruveyn

Intelligence alone is no guarantee of fitness to govern, even ignoring the difficulty in selecting smart people to rule (given that IQ tests are severely flawed). My IQ measures in the genius range, but I think very few sane people would really want me to be in charge. Also, rational thought is probably more important for effective leadership than raw intelligence, and studies have found no link between IQ and capacity for rational thinking.

But anyways, I do agree that the premise of democracy is rather absurd. I just don't think technocrats have a viable alternative. For the time being at least, it is better to keep our current patchwork system (it is not truly democratic) that has settled on some functional level of mediocrity rather than risk screwing it up with grand utopian schemes.

Last edited by Orwell on 11 Jul 2010, 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, I kind of agree with criticisms of the idea. Really, what is best is actually to reduce the ability of people in power to exercise it, I think.

People should be able rule themselves.

I would rather see a movement to a more grassroots system. With the current world wide network that the internet provides it is theoretically possible. However a major stumbling block is that we haven't solidified and exerted control over digital identity yet. Public referendums would be 4channed.

The problem is not so much the power of the intellect as minimizing pain. The concept of democracy is that when people hurt they should be able to exercise some measure of control over those inflicting pain. It doesn't take much intellect to know when you are hungry or out of a job or being oppressed. Many very bright people have all sorts of ideas as to how to minimize pain and not all of them are functional. Democracy is supposedly designed to cause change when people are in trouble. Obviously it doesn't always work.

I think I misexplained my point.We should keep a democratic/vote based system,but were only the smartest people could rule.Or not really the smartest,but the one who are most specialised in their specific subject,like biology,engineering,space technology,psychology.Such a system would allow the ones who have credibility in the subject to be the rulers,and would be more autistic-friendly.Beside,a governement of logical and very intelligent people would be fast and efficient,whereas the process of democracy is slow,rigid and highly uneffitient...

And who is watching our congressmans,representives,prime ministers and presidents?

I think I misexplained my point.We should keep a democratic/vote based system,but were only the smartest people could rule.Or not really the smartest,but the one who are most specialised in their specific subject,like biology,engineering,space technology,psychology.Such a system would allow the ones who have credibility in the subject to be the rulers,and would be more autistic-friendly.Beside,a governement of logical and very intelligent people would be fast and efficient,whereas the process of democracy is slow,rigid and highly uneffitient...

I'm not buying the autistic-friendly, but that's a side issue. Are you suggesting that suffrage be restricted to people over a certain IQ? Do you really think that would change anything? And do you really want engineers to run the government? It would be a mess. What part of government do biologists control? The judiciary? I think most biologists would rather be doing research rather than dealing with the administrative tasks that running a functioning government would entail.


Right, as I said before, intelligent≠logical. There is absolutely no correlation between a person's intelligence (as measured by standard IQ tests) and their ability to be logical. None at all. Highly intelligent people are just as ret*d as all other humans.

The issue is that you wouldn't have scientists likely ruling. Instead, for most tasks, the people who are really most specialized are economists, sociologists, legal specialists, etc. The issue is just in really measuring necessary specialization. As it stands, even in the US system, we tend to have a lot of lawyers.

Even further, is credibility in the subject the only metric we are assessing people on? As it stands, I think there are normative questions we are asking our political leaders, but even further, to some extent, a person could rationally be skeptical towards academics due to the academic focus on abstraction and willingness to question what many people think should just be accepted for conservatisms sake. (for instance, I would imagine that academics have a greater propensity towards radical views than the general population)

As well, part of the issue here is that in some nations, like the US, government was designed so that it wouldn't be fast and efficient, but rather so it would be slow, rigid, and inefficient. Not all processes can be measured by the same metrics, and governments are generally intended to be stable, which should create a push towards slowness and conservatism.

Finally, while it is great to talk about AS interests, giving that AS people are a small portion of the populace, and probably less of a notable one than most people think, I doubt that our interests should be the driving factor in creating a system of government.

Note: By conservatism, I don't really mean "Right-wing, Republican(or whatever party they are in whatever nation), etc" Instead, I merely refer to the tendency to conserve old orders and ways of functioning.

Scientists and Engineers, whilst great at solving problems, some with implications to society, only usually make things that have knock-on good effects (steam engines/factory machines - industrial age), they aren't any good at estimating how to balance nations, stop uprisings etc, though in an ideal situation they would utilize statisticians and masses of previous evidence to...

And would have the means to do that due to massive funding going into tax free educational establishments instead of putting more money into the military, which would be kept happy with superior technology that solved problems from home, with more people living happy lives because they were properly educated. Political science would actually become scientific instead of half baked theories based on the mistakes of others.

But it would turn nations into worse surveillence states than they are. In fact that would become it's modus operandi, collecting data about citizens in order to govern them effectively. The amount of control over citizens, to "benefit" them or the whole, could easily spiral out of control, depending on how much power the technocracy was given.

It could go this way, for better or worse.

There are no good governments. There are bad governments and worse governments.

ruveyn

Technocracy has been associated in recent times with people who apply neoliberal economics and Milton Friedman disciples. Friedman claimed that his ideas were scientific laws, which is funny in a way as they are very similar to Austrian economics, the economists of which who claim that trying to make economics into science is impossible to the point that even math should not be used in trying to figure out what to do. Friedman was after all a disciple of Hayek's. In the end, these types of economics are not scientific at all, they are cults, all of them. The most scientific economics is Keynesianism which now is considered to be populist superstition by the "technocratic" elite. Chartalism is the most sound model for the monetary system.