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Making an educated/uneducated dichotomy is part of the problem, the educated have also made plenty of horrible decisions, not paying any price for it, and lectu

Making an educated/uneducated dichotomy is part of the problem, the educated have also made plenty of horrible decisions, not paying any price for it, and lecturing the rest all the same. Nassim Taleb's framework seems to be more interesting here: there are those with and those without skin in the game.

emn13 7y ago
So what you're saying is general enough not to be disprovable. But there are two conclusions you might draw from that: (A) that intelligence and education aren't helpful, or (B) that those making horrible decisions were being selfish. Given the trumpian sentiment of "not paying my taxes makes me smart", and perhaps the fact that other people were even smart enough not to say something like that (but still to act on the idea), I'm thinking you need to consider (B) as a serious component here. That would suggest that intelligence and education might still be useful - but only when dishonesty and selfishness is not a dominating risk. I suppose there are measures one might take to at least reduce those risks, since obviously completely eradicating those is unrealistic. For instance, if the educated are good at serving themselves but pullign the wool over the electorate's eyes, then perhaps more audits would help. A culture of much harsher penalties for selfish leaders, even where the selfishness isn't illegal, might help. But perhaps also the electorate itself should be smarter too - and that's not entirely impossible in principle too; e.g. you could imagine a pyramid scheme of elections, not too different from the electoral college today - just with more levels (not just two), and with explicit decoupling of the elector from their vote (so no more "republican" electors or "democrat" electors - they too are free agents), and with the explicit aim of voting for people who you think you can most trust - intellectually, morally, and as a planner - instead of those you most agree with (since with multiple levels, that's kind of hopeless anyhow). ...So I'm not really serious with that last suggestion, but I do think we need to be exploring options. A disillusioned electorate mixed with manipulative, egotistical, untrustworthy politicians, spiced with lavish lobbying, no funding transparency, and media so full of noise the signal is hard to find - that's a recipe for serious food poisoning. It may seriously simply help to switch electoral systems every once and a while, even if there's no single best system - simply to shake loose the manipulative habits that settle in after a while.

emn13 7y ago

So what you're saying is general enough not to be disprovable. But there are two conclusions you might draw from that: (A) that intelligence and education aren't helpful, or (B) that those making horrible decisions were being selfish. Given the trumpian sentiment of "not paying my taxes makes me smart", and perhaps the fact that other people were even smart enough not to say something like that (but still to act on the idea), I'm thinking you need to consider (B) as a serious component here. That would suggest that intelligence and education might still be useful - but only when dishonesty and selfishness is not a dominating risk. I suppose there are measures one might take to at least reduce those risks, since obviously completely eradicating those is unrealistic. For instance, if the educated are good at serving themselves but pullign the wool over the electorate's eyes, then perhaps more audits would help. A culture of much harsher penalties for selfish leaders, even where the selfishness isn't illegal, might help. But perhaps also the electorate itself should be smarter too - and that's not entirely impossible in principle too; e.g. you could imagine a pyramid scheme of elections, not too different from the electoral college today - just with more levels (not just two), and with explicit decoupling of the elector from their vote (so no more "republican" electors or "democrat" electors - they too are free agents), and with the explicit aim of voting for people who you think you can most trust - intellectually, morally, and as a planner - instead of those you most agree with (since with multiple levels, that's kind of hopeless anyhow). ...So I'm not really serious with that last suggestion, but I do think we need to be exploring options. A disillusioned electorate mixed with manipulative, egotistical, untrustworthy politicians, spiced with lavish lobbying, no funding transparency, and media so full of noise the signal is hard to find - that's a recipe for serious food poisoning. It may seriously simply help to switch electoral systems every once and a while, even if there's no single best system - simply to shake loose the manipulative habits that settle in after a while.