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His thought about designing incentive structures and systems to solve problems and remove (inefficient, corruptible) humans from the equation is solid. I think
by sp527 8y ago
His thought about designing incentive structures and systems to solve problems and remove (inefficient, corruptible) humans from the equation is solid. I think many of the more rational theorists, irrespective of their political bent, would concur that this is an ideal approach.
What's missing is the how. He's far too optimistic about the complexity and inertia inherent in the very constructs he believes we should revise.
Above all is the question of incentivizing progress: it's much easier to describe sensible, efficient solutions than it is to move societies towards them.
- panic 8y agoOur human desires and values are the whole point of the system, though. Anyone designing a "political economy" should treat the experience of the people living in it as the most important thing -- abstract concepts like "efficiency" are ultimately just ways to affect that experience.
- sp527 8y agoI think you're conflating two different things: that such systems should generally be oriented towards maximizing human wellbeing (which I wholeheartedly support) and such systems should be vulnerable to human input/error (problematic in almost every conceivable situation). Of course you can't swap every system we have for a fair and automated equivalent. You also run into problems around the question of what we should optimize for, which will be swayed by a person's political opinion. Ideal systems would probably lie at a balancing point between socialism and capitalism (as a model, equivalent to tuning parameters), but establishing that point and getting everyone to agree on it would be extremely challenging.
- panic 8y agoYeah, I think the question of what we should optimize for is the fundamental problem here. There's really nothing called "human wellbeing" that can be maximized. Everyone has different perspectives, values, goals, ideas, dreams, and so on. It's impossible to turn all these ways of seeing the world into a working system without involving the people themselves, especially given how people's perspectives change over time.
- bordercases 8y agoThere are prime movers that do things. Generally they're all higher ups on the food chain that either enter due to political party grooming or making a tonne a money. But since a lot of them are in conflict it doesn't end up looking like a coherent system anyway. So you need some prime movers to battle it out with these ideas in mind. Really you just want to become one of those people, something that takes decades of work.