[Politics] Technocracy is not a good idea.

[Karamaru]

Technocrat is the opposite to democrat. Democrat rules by popular support so they appeal to the will of the people while technocrat rules by some abstract rules because whatever policies they want to implement wil not have that support. You can't rule without people's approval without looking like a dictator. So there... technocracy.

Doesnt mean its bad per say bad but instead of going the Star Trek route we seem to be going the Brave New World route and in a blue hedgehogs words "That's nooo good".

[Underverse]

Technocrat is the opposite to democrat. Democrat rules by popular support so they appeal to the will of the people while technocrat rules by some abstract rules because whatever policies they want to implement wil not have that support. You can't rule without people's approval without looking like a dictator. So there... technocracy.

Doesnt mean its bad per say bad but instead of going the Star Trek route we seem to be going the Brave New World route and in a blue hedgehogs words "That's nooo good".

This isn't true. Technocracy just gives policy-makers some breathing room, instead of playing identity politics and then doing more or less whatever they want behind the scenes.

[nextormento]

I'm a bit irked by the liberal usage of democracy in this scope.

If we're with the cynic route and cast major doubt on intent, I think one needs to go full in and differentiate psephocracies from democracies. Because the cynic outlook on representative republics (psephocracies, or what we naively call democracies) easily ends casting them as massive status quo maintenance. What with kings consulting nobles, church and elected folks on prestigious professions (the bourgeois). Psephocracies, like the first french republics, or the origin of the States, were set up to displace the king and have the bourgeois electing other bourgeois in a major historical circlejerk.
They eventually loosened the restrictions on who could vote, but not to the detriment of the enlightened bourgeois: they knew they could displace other opinions simply by pumping resources into theirs (unpopular, ha!). And they had the resources; a lot of it. They became political parties and they sustain the very same status quo ever since: the elite rules and the electorate votes only on what they're shown.

Popularity, popular vote, democracy without sortition, is also panem and circenses. Pitting psephocracies against technocracies is thickening the exact same smokescreen (mandatory "wake up sheeple").

Mind you, I'm ok with people trusting the myths we've surrounded governance with. Just clarifying that the cynic outlook on how unpopular technocracy is falls a bit flat.

[Karamaru]

This isn't true. Technocracy just gives policy-makers some breathing room, instead of playing identity politics and then doing more or less whatever they want behind the scenes.

If you want to solve a problem you must first find a problem. But what is a problem? In the current system we elect people who share out beliefs on what is a problem in society. What control would we have over the technocrats?
There is a difference between a democracy that elects knowledgeable people and a system in which knowledgeable people are appointed.

[nextormento]

2. a quiz (ex. out of 10 questions), based on the previous page, voters are then asked 10 questions relating to what they just watched/read, the history/context of the topic, and the stances of the different positions.

What's stopping any individual from subverting the system by publicizing an app able to answer for you?.
Furthermore, if we have a sufficiently sophisticated machine to detect any such travesty to the point that no human-made machine can trick it, why not empower the machines as our ultimate technocrats and let them decide?.

[Macaquerie]

If you want to solve a problem you must first find a problem. But what is a problem? In the current system we elect people who share out beliefs on what is a problem in society. What control would we have over the technocrats?
There is a difference between a democracy that elects knowledgeable people and a system in which knowledgeable people are appointed.

In practice, democratic systems tend to elect leaders based on personality and charisma, who turn around and appoint technical experts to actually carry out all of their policies. Technocrats may not be very popular with the public but they end up in charge one way or another, putting unqualified people in important jobs just doesn't really seem to pan out that well.

[Karamaru]

snip

was with you untill your last paragraph you are going the Brave New World route in your words you would say "sorry jimmy you got a B on the subject you dont get to vote on this important thing that will influence your life in a dramatic way".

In practice, democratic systems tend to elect leaders based on personality and charisma, who turn around and appoint technical experts to actually carry out all of their policies. Technocrats may not be very popular with the public but they end up in charge one way or another, putting unqualified people in important jobs just doesn't really seem to pan out that well.

Very true but you would need a certain form of control on the technocrats in order to keep things fair.

[nextormento]

Indeed, why not? That is what I am hoping for, in the long run.

You're envisioning a future in which our interest and that of AI is the same. We could conjure all sorts of dystopias though.
But yeah, why not; I'm not opposed; I guess we'll see how the singularity thing goes. But I'm casting doubt on this -supposedly enlightened- direct democracy.

[Yvaelle]

What's stopping any individual from subverting the system by publicizing an app able to answer for you?.
Furthermore, if we have a sufficiently sophisticated machine to detect any such travesty to the point that no human-made machine can trick it, why not empower the machines as our ultimate technocrats and let them decide?.

The same reason that voter fraud is a non-existent issue today, because the payoff for doing so is trivial (compared to the enormity of the voting population), and the penalty is just shy of treason/murder. That app is treason.

[nextormento]

The same reason that voter fraud is a non-existent issue today, because the payoff for doing so is trivial (compared to the enormity of the voting population), and the penalty is just shy of treason/murder. That app is treason.

Voter fraud on a massive scale is just hard to implement precisely because the voting system is ancient.
In a fully automated system the payoff can easily be "for the lulz" and approaches to infinity.
My app developer is under seven proxies. Ideally located on a secret moon colony. Or maybe just a nation's legitimate geopolitical strategy to destabilize another nation.

[Theodarzna]

To back this point:

Obama meets with Silicon Valley tech elite
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_17415024

Apple, Google, Facebook... and a lot of others...Plus Obama:



Carol Bartz, president and CEO, Yahoo
John Chambers, CEO and chairman, Cisco Systems
Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO, Oracle
Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix
John Hennessy, president, Stanford University
Steve Jobs, chairman and CEO, Apple
Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO, Genentech
Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google
Steve Westly, managing partner and founder, The Westly Group
Mark Zuckerberg, founder, president, and CEO, Facebook

Do any of these people give a shit about much of the country? The core issue I have here is that are these people going to be acting in anyone's interest other than their own?

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You should watch an actual debate between two sides of the technocracy.

Techno-progressivism vs the conservative version of the same.

The Opposing Leaders of the Transhumanist Movement Got Salty in a Debate
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/transhumanist-debate

It is not about populism. It is about how you view the role of government. Do you help people with technology, or let them help themselves (and potentially leave behind people that are not up to scratch).

I think the issue is that you have a glass half empty view of humanity, versus me, and others who have a glass half full. You view history as "look at all the horrible stuff that happened!", versus how I view it "look at all the horrible stuff we overcame!".

As for AI, sentience/conciousness is the only thing we have that unites us as living beings (because we all have different experiences outside of that)... if an AI has that, it has the tools it needs to have things like empathy, compassion, etc.

The problem here is this is somewhat of a debate with twp people agreeing on a strictly linear view of the world. That they are the captain heroes guiding us to the obvious future, and anyone else is just some horrible monster opposed to the obviously once and perfect vision. Just the characterisation of people who are not "transhumanists," is itself a sign of both a closed view but a borderline fanatical view of things.

[Theodarzna]

Since this is a gaming forum, I am going to try to make a really bad analogy...


Do you play WoW? You know how when we first started playing, how the spells, gear and bosses were all very weak, compared to when we got the BC expansion, so on and so forth?

You can see it as progress (We got better gear! Our spells do more damage!) But in reality the bosses also got harder in turn. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

We are progressing, and we will see challenges defeated, and come up against new challenges that are harder than before. If we keep up (that is if we are in a raiding guild ) catching up should not be all that difficult. The ultimate outcome? If we play it right we could leave the planet and spread throughout the universe, and potentially explore a multiverse. If we fail, we die with this planet. Either by doing it to ourselves, or things like an asteroid, or gamma ray burst, or more distant the failure of the magnetosphere, or later still, the death of the sun.

As for patterns, I do look for patterns, that is my biggest strength when I was made to take an IQ test in High School. I beat out the class on that task, but was below the class on more "common" skills like emotional IQ, etc...

I do not play WoW, I play Skyrim, its a fun story. But it is, just a story, and new stories always come.

I also play the Legend of Zelda series. Each game is unique but somewhat similar. Is there really a grand narrative? No, Just stories, there may be a timeline there may not. There may be destiny there may not.

With each WoW Expansion though does the game improve? Well.... that is debatable? Is the game different? Sure. Was Burning Crusade great? Well IMHO it was, it was my favourite expansion and those were the high mark of me playing wow. I don't see improvement I just see a new story.

I am not a pattern seeker, I am a story teller. Tis' why I never cared much for math or science, I was not good at either and both seemed rather boring. History and Languages are my world, which is the a world of stories and how you tell them.

[nextormento]

The way I see it, as humanity we started out more under direct control of a few(Tribal leaders, Kings, etc), expanded out to more choices and self control, and as we keep progressing that should expand further and get more "free".

I'm questioning what's stopping a rogue actor from subverting it all.
There is an implicit element of trust in your vision. As we become more enlightened, we're bound to rationally see the other as necessary and eventually trust them.

That is one fundamental myth of governance. We empower officials to make choices on our behalf; we trust them. Simultaneously we never trust a politician: they always lie. The two beliefs that are in tension, if not directly contradicting each other.
The Greeks, in their ancient democracies, solved it implementing a system free of trust: officials were chosen at the roll of some dice.
Eventually we came to simply protect how awful we are behind layers and layers of myths (like the trust/distrust of psephocracies).

When I ask what's stopping a rogue actor from subverting the system, I'm generally met with some version of "our rationalization doesn't allow for rogue actors". We can, of course solve it like they do in Manna, and relinquish our thoughts to the machines. But I'd question if that's freedom.

[Theodarzna]

This isn't true. Technocracy just gives policy-makers some breathing room, instead of playing identity politics and then doing more or less whatever they want behind the scenes.

Technocracy is good marketing but the later continues unabated.

[Yvaelle]

was with you untill your last paragraph you are going the Brave New World route in your words you would say "sorry jimmy you got a B on the subject you dont get to vote on this important thing that will influence your life in a dramatic way".

Given I'm leading the quiz with all the answers, the point of the 'summary -> quiz' - is that if they aren't knowledgeable about the subject, their vote shouldn't matter.

If Timmy gets a B (lets say what, 80%?) on the quiz, he gets 8 votes out of a potential 10 votes. If it is going to significantly effect Timmy's life, he can take a couple minutes to learn what it is, and what the controversy is - and if he doesn't have time to do that, or doesn't care - that's on him.

If that sounds horrifying to you, consider the system we have today that my system is replacing - in which most people don't vote, and most voters would probably score less than 5/10 on most subjects they think they care about anyways.

Example: Timmy sees a commercial that says, "Net Neutrality is bad! Liberals want to ruin our internet companies and make the internet slow!" - so he goes to the polls and votes, based on this one scary commercial he saw. In the current system, he would vote to end net neutrality and usher in a 1000 years of internet-darkness - killing the internet, video games, porn, and all that is good in this world.
In my system, he would be given a summary of the topic - which if he reads, he should be able to get 10/10 on the quiz. If he doesn't read the summary, he probably scores 0 or 1 of 10 on the quiz, and his vote doesn't count for shit. If he does read the summary, he realizes Net Neutrality is enabling him to visit pornhub - he gets 10/10 on the quiz, and he votes to maintain net neutrality.

If he doesn't go to the website, he doesn't read the summary, he doesn't take the quiz or vote. His vote doesn't count, just as it doesn't today when he doesn't vote - and it shouldn't - because even though it would impact Timmy's pornhub addiction - he doesn't know what he's talking about and doesn't care enough to learn: so forcing him to vote is also a bad idea.

The other plus side, about making democracy about issues, not parties - is that it means everyone can vote across party lines - on an issues-by-issues basis: at least for important issues.

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That is how I (and I think Yvaelle?) see society as we progress.

Yep, it's a pretty fair assumption I think at this point that you and I are always on the same page

Must be that prototype hive-mind we develope....I've said too much!

[Independent voter]

Grandma is 90 years old and it costs the hospital $10,000 a day to keep her alive. Why would a technocracy pay for that?

[Yvaelle]

Voter fraud on a massive scale is just hard to implement precisely because the voting system is ancient.
In a fully automated system the payoff can easily be "for the lulz" and approaches to infinity.
My app developer is under seven proxies. Ideally located on a secret moon colony. Or maybe just a nation's legitimate geopolitical strategy to destabilize another nation.

A big part of any technocracy is transparency of data. Data wants to be free.

Referendum data should be publicly available in real-time, stricken of the name column and their social security number - but things like neighbourhood, demographic trends, census information, how they scored on the quiz, and what they voted for (or the priority of their choices for multi-choice votes), etc - should all be on there: for everyone to see.

Vigilance will develop techniques to identify and prevent abuse just as it does for any such system today (ex. the same IP trying to vote 1000 times from randomized or sequential social security numbers, etc), or you could have every vote correlate to a thumb print, or iris scan.

Further, since effectively a cyber-attack on the voting system by another country attempting to skew results would be akin to them trying to overthrow a government to put their preferred candidate in power: fucking with another countries voting system is, in effect, a digital coup. In which case it is an Act of War.

Governments are in a much greater position to both investigate, and respond - to such attacks - than your app developer. Not to mention, particularly in the case of the Five Eyes countries, such a system would fall under the protection of groups like the NSA / GCHQ - they take hacking attempts pretty personally.

[Karamaru]

snippers!

fair enough I am all for making it about issues rather than what flavour of the month party democracy.

[Theodarzna]

Why does one necessarily have to be absent of the other? Jobs wanted to created a computer anyone could use. He also wanted fame. Is one tainted because the other exists? This is kind of black and white thinking. They want to make a good product that people enjoy using, and some may also want to be rich... Some may do it for good reasons; for instance:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-W...tion-Factsheet

They do have a linear vision, but that is for good reasons, they are focusing on one particular aspect of society; Technology.

As for their characterisation of people who are not "transhumanists", it is because a lot of laymen see this worldview as advocating for "Skynet" or "Terminator". It happens here every time I create a topic having anything to do with AI.

Wanting to be rich is fine, wanting power is a different matter. What is a productive life? What are people to do? The problem I see with the Gate's is that they have a vision and the little proles are to follow it. This seems a bit like a God Complex. I recall earlier when Bill Gates thought he knew how to run schools and he certainly believed highly that his own brilliance and wit would apply here, of course it failed and continues to fail. He was wrong but this man with a God complex made misery everywhere. Indeed he has since been responsible for utter havoc in education and our schools are still miserable places.

Be a great merchant for all I care, its when you develop a God complex over us all that I get nervous.

I think people are right to be concerned, as I said, and as many have said, your vision I fear cannot come without sacrifice, is there a price too high to pay? And are you set on your purchase? There have been many promised utopia's, most of them never happen, a few are a nightmares, and others are not what was promised and built on corpses. How much is too much? Don't misunderstand this as me saying "Bad stuff has happened," I am point blank asking "What price are you willing to pay for the vision in your minds eye?" or more aptly, "Who will pay the price?"

[nextormento]

Referendum data should be publicly available in real-time, stricken of the name column and their social security number - but things like neighbourhood, demographic trends, census information, how they scored on the quiz, and what they voted for (or the priority of their choices for multi-choice votes), etc - should all be on there: for everyone to see.

I imagine any sufficiently advanced tech will be able to identify any individual if we make sufficient data available, but that's beyond the idea we're dicussing, I think.

I'm not sure how any of that helps on preventing my app to fully functioning: I'm just subverting the quiz and allowing for uninformed voters to vote.
Unless, or course, we develop a technique to identify who voted incorrectly based on the information.

I think I see where this goes: attempts to subvert utopia are met with relinquishing privacy or freedom. Not that I'm against it (after all, privacy organically vanishes unless we actively protect it). But the prospect of a council of technological soothsayers, who travel into a darkened conclave is not much differently flawed.