First, an aside: did you ever watch that interview with Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman, better known as the "so what you're saying" interview [1]? Also, no, y

First, an aside: did you ever watch that interview with Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman, better known as the "so what you're saying" interview [1]? Also, no, your understanding of my - fairly straightforward, straight out of liberal democracy 101 - position is lacking. Technocracy can lead to authoritarianism but it does not need to. Taking public health measures also does not equate authoritarianism - where do you get that from? On the subject of well-informed people taking "good" decisions a whole discussion can be had but one thing is clear: well-informed people make better decisions than uninformed or misinformed people, on aggregate. Now with regard to your positive attitude towards technocracy I'd suggest that this is probably due to the fact that you, just like most people here, are "well-educated" and employed in a knowledge-driven field where knowledge is a currency/equals power. In this environment is is very easy to fall into the trap of ultracrepidarianism [2], the tendency for people to assume that expertise is a universal currency which retains its value outside of the specific field of expertise. Who better to deal with a health "crisis" than healthcare experts, people who are just as likely to fall for this trap? Who better to deal with any crisis than those experts, they are after all the people who know most about whatever field the crisis might relate to? The answer here is that those experts are non-experts outside of their fields, just like you and I and everyone else around here - we might strive to become Homo Universalis in the style of Leonardo DaVinci but alas, the knowledge available to humanity will no longer fit in a single man's brain. Putting those experts in charge means they will start making decisions outside of their field of expertise, assuming that everything can be described in terms of their own field of expertise [3]. You might try to counter by saying that of course that is not what would happen, decisions related to the economy will be made by experts on economy, those related to social well-being will be made by experts on sociology and psychology, things which impact national security will be relegated to defence experts, etcetera. That is not how it works as was clearly shown in many countries which followed the narrative by putting the experts in charge. On the subject of "informed people doing random things" another long discussion can be had, but suffice to say that people have the freedom to act as they will within the bounds of the law, even if those actions are deemed inappropriate or foolhardy by others. These rights are set out in the US constitution and made explicit in the Bill of Rights which states that The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The perennial struggle between 'rugged individualism' and 'the greater good' will continue no matter how many words we waste on it so as long as the USA keeps its constitution and bill of rights and related laws in place I'd advise those informed people against doing what I consider to be stupid things (which may not coincide with what you or they consider to be stupid things) but I would not try to force them to refrain from doing said things. If they (plan to) do stupid things which harm others they'll quickly find themselves on the wrong side of some law or other and as such can be refrained from doing those things. Do you agree with a vaccine mandate using the current crop of SARS2 vaccines? If so, can you explain your reasoning around forcing people to take what still are experimental preparations without a safety track record where the efficacy of the preparations is questionable and the disease they are supposed to protect against is not a significant threat for the majority of those who would be forced to undergo vaccination? Can you defend the imposition of authoritarian lockdown regimes when the disease-related outcome in regions without such regimes are largely similar, knowing that those authoritarian measures come with a large cost of their own? [1] https://www.mediafirst.co.uk/blog/that-so-what-you-are-saying-is-interview-and-how-to-avoid-it/ https://www.mediafirst.co.uk/blog/that-so-what-you-are-sayin... [2] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ultracrepidarianism https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ultracrepidarianism [3] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect