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“With great power comes great responsibility.” “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The problem with humans is that ego is decoupled from entropy. There wer

“With great power comes great responsibility.” “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The problem with humans is that ego is decoupled from entropy. There were benevolent kings/dictators/CEOs, but eventually they die or they try to hold onto power for the sake of it. Either way eventually the corrupt or corrupt-able rule. If you can solve the corruptability of the ego or solve entropy, I agree with your assessment. Until then, we need deterministic rules managed by computers that cannot be corrupted, and if corrupted, it’s quickly and easily obvious to everyone. Once that (currently shaky) foundation is solved, it becomes significantly simpler (because of the durability) to solve those higher level problems over time and with technology or by changing hearts and minds, whichever is simpler.

sudosysgen 6y ago
As a response to the failure of bureaucratic central planning in the USSR (which was done using pen and paper), some soviet researchers and mathematicians tried to find ways to eliminate the human component and develop algorithms to do it instead. Due to a confluence of Soviet bureaucrats afraid of losing their jobs and insufficient computing technology of the time, this never went that much beyond the drawing board, beyond some small-scale trials. One of them was brilliant enough to be a communist economist and win the Nobel prize in economics somehow. I don't know if that would have worked to begin with, and certainly those writers often were authoritarian in some ways, but it might interest you how they thought and reasoned about the problem and solution you described.
- diabeticApe 6y ago
  Can you give us a link or the name of this person?
  - tremon 6y ago
    I'm going to assume it's Leonid Kantorovich; it's the only Russian on the list [1] that also worked in Russia. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_laureates_in_Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_l...
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Leonid Kantorovich was the Nobel prize winner, but he was followed by people such as Glushkov (which wanted to build a Soviet internet essentially as a first step), Kitov and Fedorenko. Outside the Soviet Union perhaps the most known is Paul Cockshott.

sudosysgen 6y ago

As a response to the failure of bureaucratic central planning in the USSR (which was done using pen and paper), some soviet researchers and mathematicians tried to find ways to eliminate the human component and develop algorithms to do it instead. Due to a confluence of Soviet bureaucrats afraid of losing their jobs and insufficient computing technology of the time, this never went that much beyond the drawing board, beyond some small-scale trials. One of them was brilliant enough to be a communist economist and win the Nobel prize in economics somehow. I don't know if that would have worked to begin with, and certainly those writers often were authoritarian in some ways, but it might interest you how they thought and reasoned about the problem and solution you described.

diabeticApe 6y ago
Can you give us a link or the name of this person?
- tremon 6y ago
  I'm going to assume it's Leonid Kantorovich; it's the only Russian on the list [1] that also worked in Russia. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_laureates_in_Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_l...
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Leonid Kantorovich was the Nobel prize winner, but he was followed by people such as Glushkov (which wanted to build a Soviet internet essentially as a first step), Kitov and Fedorenko. Outside the Soviet Union perhaps the most known is Paul Cockshott.