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I'm not sure whether you're particularly referring to media bias and dumbed-down science journalism, which is certainly an issue, but the general practice of 't

I'm not sure whether you're particularly referring to media bias and dumbed-down science journalism, which is certainly an issue, but the general practice of 'trusting an expert' seems sound to me - the effort required to become an expert yourself in every field that affects you would be incredible, whilst trusting someone else who has that expert knowledge to translate into layman's terms for you is more efficient. This is essentially just society optimizing itself through specification - just have 1 person become the nutrition expert and do all the tests and experimentation, and then they can share that knowledge with the rest. Whilst the nutritionist is busy, that leaves others free to invent fusion power and quantum computing.

bokonist 16y ago
I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying it's the case now.
mmaro 16y ago
Nearly all institutions are run primarily for their own benefit. We often forget this when we receive their products/information/services. Sometimes, we're lucky enough to receive correct information or things that don't harm us. Trusting an expert is a good idea as you say, but trusting an expert whose opinion has been normalized by an institution is quite dangerous. It's less dangerous if you fully understand the motives of the institution, but with today's treacherous institutions, even most people in the institution are unaware of the motives and their consequences.
jacoblyles 16y ago
This phenomenon, also called "rational ignorance" by economists, is a problem for democracies. Not every person has the time to become an expert on everything, but they still vote on it.
- moultano 16y ago
  I wonder how many people would be happy to "delegate their vote" if there was some officially supported way of doing it. This would be an interesting way of reimagining representative democracy in the digital age. Why should we bother limiting ourselves to a fixed number of representatives? Let everyone vote on everything _but_ let people choose to assign their vote to someone else. Rather than electing representatives, I'd choose someone whose intellect and experience I trust, and delegate my voting rights to them. They'd become my representative. When someone accumulated enough other people's votes, they'd reach the political stature of people like senators.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    And when someone accumulates over 50% of other people's votes, they'd become dictator.
  - gaius 16y ago
    But that is how it works. I delegate my vote to my MP, and they vote on my behalf in Parliament.
    - barry-cotter 16y ago
      Only if the candidate you voted for won. If they didn't they're still the representative of your constituency, but not in any politically meaningful sense your representative. Something closer to moultano's proposal would be a running referendum on everything, where you can choose to revocably delegate your vote (revocable as in you can remove the delegation, not reverse the vote).
      - gaius 16y ago
        But even an MP I didn't vote for, I can still write to, or show up at their constituents meeting or whatever. They're still going to pay attention, a) they don't know how I voted anyway and b) they want my vote next time!
  - jacoblyles 16y ago
    I would like to be able to delegate my vote on particular subjects to particular people. That way I don't have to worry if an economist I respect has a restrictive idea of gay rights or something like that, I can just pick a trustworthy delegate for each topic. A computer can ask me to break conflicts where it appears that a particular law should go to two different delegates.
- philwelch 16y ago
  The obvious solution is to abolish democracy and set up a specialized class of governors.

bokonist 16y ago

I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying it's the case now.

mmaro 16y ago

Nearly all institutions are run primarily for their own benefit. We often forget this when we receive their products/information/services. Sometimes, we're lucky enough to receive correct information or things that don't harm us. Trusting an expert is a good idea as you say, but trusting an expert whose opinion has been normalized by an institution is quite dangerous. It's less dangerous if you fully understand the motives of the institution, but with today's treacherous institutions, even most people in the institution are unaware of the motives and their consequences.

jacoblyles 16y ago

This phenomenon, also called "rational ignorance" by economists, is a problem for democracies. Not every person has the time to become an expert on everything, but they still vote on it.

moultano 16y ago
I wonder how many people would be happy to "delegate their vote" if there was some officially supported way of doing it. This would be an interesting way of reimagining representative democracy in the digital age. Why should we bother limiting ourselves to a fixed number of representatives? Let everyone vote on everything _but_ let people choose to assign their vote to someone else. Rather than electing representatives, I'd choose someone whose intellect and experience I trust, and delegate my voting rights to them. They'd become my representative. When someone accumulated enough other people's votes, they'd reach the political stature of people like senators.
- philwelch 16y ago
  And when someone accumulates over 50% of other people's votes, they'd become dictator.
- gaius 16y ago
  But that is how it works. I delegate my vote to my MP, and they vote on my behalf in Parliament.
  - barry-cotter 16y ago
    Only if the candidate you voted for won. If they didn't they're still the representative of your constituency, but not in any politically meaningful sense your representative. Something closer to moultano's proposal would be a running referendum on everything, where you can choose to revocably delegate your vote (revocable as in you can remove the delegation, not reverse the vote).
    - gaius 16y ago
      But even an MP I didn't vote for, I can still write to, or show up at their constituents meeting or whatever. They're still going to pay attention, a) they don't know how I voted anyway and b) they want my vote next time!
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  I would like to be able to delegate my vote on particular subjects to particular people. That way I don't have to worry if an economist I respect has a restrictive idea of gay rights or something like that, I can just pick a trustworthy delegate for each topic. A computer can ask me to break conflicts where it appears that a particular law should go to two different delegates.
philwelch 16y ago
The obvious solution is to abolish democracy and set up a specialized class of governors.