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[Andir]

I wasn't dismissing anything.  I was stating a fact.  I would never want to live in an Anarchial or base Libertarian government because I do think that some government is a good thing.  I have a problem with too much.  I really like the Republic ideals of law vs majority rule, although I think the law should limit what the government can do, not what the citizen can't do.

[Granite26]

I would never want to live in an Anarchial or base Libertarian government because I do think that some government is a good thing.  I have a problem with too much.  I really like the Republic ideals of law vs majority rule, although I think the law should limit what the government can do, not what the citizen can't do.

Bump, although Anarchy and Libertarian are different... Just a narrow idea of what the proper role of government is

[Yanlin]

Any form of government that is not under the control of its people is a tyranny.

A government exists to serve its people. To protect its people. To provide for its people.

The people control the government. At any time, a majority vote can remove the current administration and trigger new elections. If 51% of the population start protesting against the government, it WILL change. Problem is, most people seriously don't give a shit.

Your life time contribution to politics, if you are an average Joe and not a politician, is almost half a pencil. You don't even have to buy that pencil. Signing all those forms, putting Xs on forms, etc.

Pathetic, isn't it? The modern democracy has been designed for bloodless revolutions and majority rule. That is good on paper. Then again, communism is good on paper. The majority of the people are, to put it bluntly, IDIOTS. Until the average Joe becomes a smart person, I refuse to believe in modern democracy. (I believe in a loose technocracy. A technocracy with a lower standard. But still above the average moron.)

[Granite26]

I think maybe that word does not mean what you think it means. 

Do you maybe mean meritocracy?

If Technocracy really is what you're looking for, I've got one word for you:  Eggs (are they good for you this week?)
Scientists are wrong, a lot.  Imagine a technocracy back when all the engineers and scientists thought eugenics was good science and good social theory. 

In my humble opinion, people ARE idiots, but the only way to keep the idiots from being enslaved to a corrupt government is to give them a say in that government.  The only way to stop that government from being stupid is to limit the number and amount of things the government can legitimately do.  High limitation is Libertarianism

[Yanlin]

No. That's not the technocracy I'm on about. In fact, I'm not sure that's even technocracy. I dare call that website wrong.

Meritocracy has nothing to do with it as far as I can tell.

Here's a rough idea of what I mean.

To have voting power, you must pass a standardized intelligence and "smartness" test. Once we figure out an accurate way of measuring intelligence and smartness on a massive scale that doesn't require personal evaluation of each person, this is achievable.

The test will not exclude too many people. You don't have to be a genius to pass it. You can retake it at any time. (Of course there will be fees for all that red tape being cut.)

Everyone that passed that test,  in a sense, behave just like in a democracy. They can vote and be voted for. While people that did not pass, still have all the rights that those that passed the test have. Except the right to vote and be voted for. Simple. I'd support this even if I couldn't pass this test. It is for the greater good. (We'll see when the time comes. I'm not sure myself.)

However, I only believe in a technocracy where the majority of people can vote. That is, the average Joe is smart enough to pass the test. This will take some good education plans to accomplish.

I *think* this Wikipedia article explains it better than me. But they explain the term in general. Not my belief. Feel free to challenge my opinion. I am open to reason. In fact, I wish to refine it.

Link

The technocratic movement, I'll have to read more about. But it seems to me like they have placed a stigma on Technocracy. That will be hard to fix.

[mainiac]

To the best of my knowledge, the definition that Granite used is the commonly used meaning for technocracy.  That is the way it has been used to describe institutions as technocratic.  What you are proposing, Yanlin, is citisenship requirements.

I oppose those.  Yeah, I get pissed off that my vote counts for as little as an uneducated moron who thinks Obama is a muslim.  But my vote also counts for as much as those much more informed then myself.  And deny any group the vote, you bias the vote away from them.  High school graduates vote differently then those without their diploma.  Some of that is education, but a big ole part of that is that high school graduates enjoy more opportunities.  Denying someone the vote doesn't guarantee that they will suffer many other injustices, but it sure helps.

[Granite26]

Honestly, I've always been a fan of Heinlein's Federal Service requirements as they are completely voluntary, but make acquiring voting rights work (Motor Voter my ass, if you won't get off your ass to get registerred, you won't do the research to make informed decisions)

That solves the discrimination problem (anyone can do it) while still forcing participants to prove willingness to put effort into the decision making process.

I could also support a short quiz on the salient points of an issue before being allowed to vote on it, but I don't think salient is easy to define, and it would just make the seniors getting bussed to the polls (and told who to vote for) carry an extra cheat sheet in.

I don't think intelligence is the problem, nobody is 'too dumb to have a say', I think ignorance is.

[Yanlin]

Like I've said. I don't support my technocracy yet. I'll support it when it is viable. I don't want to make millions lose voting powers. I want to deny voting powers from idiots. But first, I want idiots to be a minority.

[Granite26]

think supply side...  People now have no reason not to be idiots.  Give them a reason to educate themselves (not be idiots) and you'll end up with fewer idiots.

That being said, your idea still does nothing to prevent the issue where even smart, informed people are wrong, or have insufficient information to make a correct choice.

It does nothing to solve the disparity between interested (I.E. AFFECTED) parties and the people who control the situation.  (See vote buying)  These are still problems even with intelligent parties acting rationally in their best interest.

[Yanlin]

Time to pull a bigger argument out of my ass eh?

Smart people do make mistakes. But smart people can learn from their mistakes and can accept their mistakes. Stupid people will continue making mistakes.

I don't agree with you on your statement that idiots have no motive to be smart. They have every motive in the world to be smart. Better lives, better paycheck, better living conditions, better prospects, better understanding, better EVERYTHING.

But they just don't see it. The only way I can see this fixed is forced education. But that's "lawful evil" and doesn't work if the education system is crap.

[Granite26]

Maybe I'm framing myself wrong.  Even smart people can be political idiots if they don't fully understand the issues they are voting on.

My concern isn't dumb people voting, as I imagine yours isn't really.

My concern is people making poor choices due to a lack of understanding, be it from lack of intelligence, or just a lack of knowlege of the issues involved.

A smart person won't learn from his mistakes if he doesn't understand he's made a mistake.

It takes a lot of work to become politically savy, but at best, your reward is 1/100 millionth of a 'better' political system.  It's just not worth it to most people, and so it is an intelligent, rational decision to not become fully informed about a decision, and go with what looks good on a cursory level.

People favor things like writing off mortgage expenses on home loans because they think that it is a tax deduction for poor people to own their own home, but in reality its net effect is a huge regressive tax (rich people get the majority of the benefit from it).  It would be more effective just to lower the taxes all around and let the poor use the tax savings how they will. 

Doing the research to find that out takes either a great deal of intelligence, or the time taken to read many viewpoints and think about them.  Being more savy represents very little gain compared to, for example, spending the research time working extra hours and banking it.

I know I'm phrasing this poorly, and I'm sorry.

TL/DR  Modern politics means that the reward for researching candidates is low, which means that even smart people have low incentive to be politically savy compared to other ways of gaining personal profit.

[mainiac]

It takes a lot of work to become politically savy, but at best, your reward is 1/100 millionth of a 'better' political system.  It's just not worth it to most people, and so it is an intelligent, rational decision to not become fully informed about a decision, and go with what looks good on a cursory level.

It's not just 1/100 millionth of better system for myself.  It's 1/100 millionth of a better system for my 6 billion closest friends too.  And given how close elections are, it's more like a 1/10 millionth of a better system.

[Granite26]

people aren't that altruistic

[mainiac]

people aren't that altruistic

Well, guess I'm not a person.

Word to the wise: people aren't numbers.  If you try to reduce someone to a number, your number can still be "right" but still not remotely describe reality.

[Granite26]

That quote from MIB... (let me find it...)

Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

Treating agregations as aggregations does not mean that we aren't treating individuals as individuals.  You personally have many traits different from the group, I'm sure, but that does not change the tenor of people, by and large.  You're one in 6 billion.  People ARE numbers.  A person isn't.

if people in general were good and altruistic, we wouldn't need the government.  Welfare (as a specific example) is significantly more wasteful than charity outreaches, its only benefit is that donations are compulsory.

People don't support government welfare because THEY want to support poor people, they do it because they want to force OTHERS to (pay their fair share).