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Maybe it's time for the country's smartest engineers and scientists to bind together and form a Technocracy party.

by dstein 16y ago

jswinghammer 16y ago
Maybe they they can create a "scientific" socialism. That would fix everything.
- dstein 16y ago
  You mean like on Star Trek, where they abolished hunger, poverty, disease, and began exploring the galaxy?
  - cynicalkane 16y ago
    It's a reference to "empirical" Marxism and the deluded theoreticians who thought it would work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_socialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_socialism Executive summary: It didn't work.
mathgladiator 16y ago
Now, that would be interesting. I would actually vote for that kind of candidate. If Facebook and Google got behind it, and they used their marketing might, then it might just work.
adamtj 16y ago
Smart engineers and scientists have a tendency to think they can fix things. This is exactly what he was talking about.
- dstein 16y ago
  No he said politicians have a tendency to think they can fix things. So he advocates voting for politicians who do the least.
drcode 16y ago
Technology is a great lever to circumvent government regulation. Technology brought us the foreclosure crisis++, but it also brought us Wikileaks. I think technologically-minded people will continue to circumvent the government using their tools, but I don't think we can be herded into a party :) (++) Those credit-default swaps, etc need lots of technology to manage the accounting.
- pwhelan 16y ago
  A much better example would be technology brought us companies like LTCM and other quantitative investments that allowed people to borrow 30-70% of assets for leveraged investment (which when the funds had to de-leverage and were unwinding we saw some big stock market volatility).
tomjen3 16y ago
That would work, 'cept they would never get elected because Joe Retardo would cry "elitist" and the rest would agree with him. The only way to get elected in this climate is to pander endlessly to the masses and never discuss real issues at all, which is not a game that the engineers or scientists are ever going to win.
bendotc 16y ago
I personally think engineers' inability to understand the limitations of their own abilities and the complexity of the problems we face, as evidenced by, say, the thought that if they were in charge they could fix everything, to be a strong recommendation against such a technocracy. Personally, I think the quality the world needs more of in its leaders today is humility. Our theories are probably wrong (an argument for conservatism in a classical sense) and we, as a group, are likely just as corruptible as any other group.

Maybe it's time for the country's smartest engineers and scientists to bind together and form a Technocracy party.

by dstein 16y ago

Maybe it's time for the country's smartest engineers and scientists to bind together and form a Technocracy party.

jswinghammer 16y ago

Maybe they they can create a "scientific" socialism. That would fix everything.

dstein 16y ago
You mean like on Star Trek, where they abolished hunger, poverty, disease, and began exploring the galaxy?
- cynicalkane 16y ago
  It's a reference to "empirical" Marxism and the deluded theoreticians who thought it would work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_socialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_socialism Executive summary: It didn't work.

mathgladiator 16y ago

Now, that would be interesting. I would actually vote for that kind of candidate. If Facebook and Google got behind it, and they used their marketing might, then it might just work.

adamtj 16y ago

Smart engineers and scientists have a tendency to think they can fix things. This is exactly what he was talking about.

dstein 16y ago
No he said politicians have a tendency to think they can fix things. So he advocates voting for politicians who do the least.

drcode 16y ago

Technology is a great lever to circumvent government regulation. Technology brought us the foreclosure crisis++, but it also brought us Wikileaks. I think technologically-minded people will continue to circumvent the government using their tools, but I don't think we can be herded into a party :) (++) Those credit-default swaps, etc need lots of technology to manage the accounting.

pwhelan 16y ago
A much better example would be technology brought us companies like LTCM and other quantitative investments that allowed people to borrow 30-70% of assets for leveraged investment (which when the funds had to de-leverage and were unwinding we saw some big stock market volatility).

tomjen3 16y ago

That would work, 'cept they would never get elected because Joe Retardo would cry "elitist" and the rest would agree with him. The only way to get elected in this climate is to pander endlessly to the masses and never discuss real issues at all, which is not a game that the engineers or scientists are ever going to win.

bendotc 16y ago

I personally think engineers' inability to understand the limitations of their own abilities and the complexity of the problems we face, as evidenced by, say, the thought that if they were in charge they could fix everything, to be a strong recommendation against such a technocracy. Personally, I think the quality the world needs more of in its leaders today is humility. Our theories are probably wrong (an argument for conservatism in a classical sense) and we, as a group, are likely just as corruptible as any other group.