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Nah. I want to rule the world of course. But I would far rather setup a system of democracy to rule the world with everyone else than let some other bugger be k

Nah. I want to rule the world of course. But I would far rather setup a system of democracy to rule the world with everyone else than let some other bugger be king instead of me. And I believe in actual government - government that builds roads to deliver food on, government that agrees ways to make researchers to discover medicines and hospitals and nurses to inject them, and governments that force companies to label their food with their ingredients (or their ISP adverts with their fees). I call this real government. not the arguing fools on TV. We can argue how much much of it is too much. We are. But I refuse utterly that "doing real government" is immoral, that any attempt to agree common standards is tyranny. I believe that the real moral failing is to chip away at real government so much that services collapse and harm is done to real people. We can look at failed states like Niger or Haiti in horror, but we can also look at the mismatched life expectancy across our own rich countries and ask why? I reject the idea that we can roll back government so much we can lose driving licenses and just be more careful out there, that we can ignore food safety standards and just look at the restaurant kitchen carefully. I reject libertarianism because it knows as much about the real world as central command economics. I want government run on empirical data with justice and equality at its heart. I am happy to accept the grey areas, will stand up for democracy will argue we can always do better. But buggered if it's because I secretly yearn to control your life.

verisimi 3y ago
> I want government run on empirical data with justice and equality at its heart. You're asking for technocracy, and this is what is lined up already - you might wonder whether you are being engineered. All those cameras, smart phones, smart meters, legislation, facial recognition, etc - this is to allow micro-management at the most granular level. It's all quite far from freedom indeed, which is where this conversation started. The global governance structure is already fascistic (corporation and the state work together). I'm not a fan of the forced tyranny that's in store for us - once we've got it, I suspect you'll change your mind too.
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  I am asking for science. That before we decide if we want to teach phonics at school we guinea pig a few thousand to see if it meets some p-value. Is that technocracy? Maybe. Is it something easy to explain - yes. Is it something for some reason is not explained fully and at length? Yes oddly it's not.
brightlancer 3y ago
> And I believe in actual government No, you believe in _utopian_ government, which is not actual government. Actual government is what we have right now, in reality. > I call this real government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  Oh for heavens sake. There are 192 different governments (at least) on this globe and they lie along a spectrum. what we have now (I kinda assume USA) is up and to the right on this spectrum (ie some definition of good, free, whatever is up and right). my utopian government is further up and right but anyone living in any of those 192 places will benefit from their government going more up and right, freer, better, more open whatever. So yeah i think there are things a real government does and does not do. That is not utopian, it's not naive. it's here and now and rooted in practical real world examples. Whatever you or I dislike about the governments we live under, we are incredibly fortunate to live in democracies- where we can force the buggers up and to the right. Make them more utopian more free more open.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    > Whatever you or I dislike about the governments we live under, we are incredibly fortunate to live in democracies We don't live in democracies. At best we live in a 'representative democracy'. These are not the same thing, at all. Representative democracy is where (if we vote) we choose 1 person every 5 years to represent tens or hundreds of thousands of people, for thousands of votes. If the person you vote for does get in, but doesn't do what he said in their campaign, there is no negative outcome for them. The worst is that they will receive less votes next time, but even that unlikely to be based on their voting record, but on whether more people prefer blue or red this time. But all that is itself moot, imo. I think we live in a not very covert fascist (corporate and state) regime - voting is simply a pressure release valve, when both red and blue are merely wings of the same bird.

verisimi 3y ago

> I want government run on empirical data with justice and equality at its heart. You're asking for technocracy, and this is what is lined up already - you might wonder whether you are being engineered. All those cameras, smart phones, smart meters, legislation, facial recognition, etc - this is to allow micro-management at the most granular level. It's all quite far from freedom indeed, which is where this conversation started. The global governance structure is already fascistic (corporation and the state work together). I'm not a fan of the forced tyranny that's in store for us - once we've got it, I suspect you'll change your mind too.

lifeisstillgood 3y ago
I am asking for science. That before we decide if we want to teach phonics at school we guinea pig a few thousand to see if it meets some p-value. Is that technocracy? Maybe. Is it something easy to explain - yes. Is it something for some reason is not explained fully and at length? Yes oddly it's not.

brightlancer 3y ago

> And I believe in actual government No, you believe in _utopian_ government, which is not actual government. Actual government is what we have right now, in reality. > I call this real government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman

lifeisstillgood 3y ago
Oh for heavens sake. There are 192 different governments (at least) on this globe and they lie along a spectrum. what we have now (I kinda assume USA) is up and to the right on this spectrum (ie some definition of good, free, whatever is up and right). my utopian government is further up and right but anyone living in any of those 192 places will benefit from their government going more up and right, freer, better, more open whatever. So yeah i think there are things a real government does and does not do. That is not utopian, it's not naive. it's here and now and rooted in practical real world examples. Whatever you or I dislike about the governments we live under, we are incredibly fortunate to live in democracies- where we can force the buggers up and to the right. Make them more utopian more free more open.
- verisimi 3y ago
  > Whatever you or I dislike about the governments we live under, we are incredibly fortunate to live in democracies We don't live in democracies. At best we live in a 'representative democracy'. These are not the same thing, at all. Representative democracy is where (if we vote) we choose 1 person every 5 years to represent tens or hundreds of thousands of people, for thousands of votes. If the person you vote for does get in, but doesn't do what he said in their campaign, there is no negative outcome for them. The worst is that they will receive less votes next time, but even that unlikely to be based on their voting record, but on whether more people prefer blue or red this time. But all that is itself moot, imo. I think we live in a not very covert fascist (corporate and state) regime - voting is simply a pressure release valve, when both red and blue are merely wings of the same bird.