Thank you so much for explaining all of this. 🙏🏼

Unfortunately, I don’t even know what the argument is, so I’d need you to provide context.

I’m just trying to understand how irrational or aggressive Lemmy is towards women.

Thank you for describing the bear vs man thing to me. So it was basically a question posted on social media, and then the reactions to the question (and maybe others’ comments) was divisive?

Oh dang, I was told it didn’t matter which instance I joined. 😭

I chose it from some join Lemmy website.

This.

I support AI, but I don’t understand why AI bros are complicating things or making things all-or-nothing.

OpenAI had enough money to hire a hitman on one of their whistleblowers. They can afford to pay for content, lol.

Technology isn’t there yet. Try again in 20 years.

I’m not proposing anything specific, no. I said it was an example (and I even bolded the text).

I don’t really have a stake in the specific example I gave, so I can’t really comment much else on your critique of it.

So would ASL, yet here we are.

The education system is for schooling, not learning.

So would ASL, yet here we are.

The education system is for schooling, not learning.

This is a really good response. Thank you.

I think we can have both the benefits of democracy being decentralized and resistant to systemic manipulation, and of technocracy having some minimum bar to deter ignorant individuals from harming society. There are trade-offs for sure, but currently, we the people ultimately voted for someone who openly said he’d impose tariffs (among other things).

One potential example (among many, many possibilities) is a system where academic organizations and think tanks stake their reputation to nominate candidates, and then the people vote on them.

For example, let’s say the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) nominates a pro-tariff candidate to manage economic policy. And then let’s say the people end up voting for them. After the tariffs wreck the economy, the reputation of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) will deteriorate considerably. In the next election, the people will vote the candidate out and ignore future EPI nominations.

Yeah, this is probably the main criticism of technocracies.

I personally advocate for a more decentralized version of technocracy. I don’t really have stake in which decentralized system is best, but each decentralized system has at least some minimum bar to deter those who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing from assuming power.

You can still have a technocratic system that allows moral weights to be ‘baked into’ it.

For example, currently, in some states, judges are elected. The people decide what kinds of judges align with their values.

However, most of these states require judges to have a law degree to run, which is technocratic—you cannot run for a judge position without graduating from law school (and passing the bar in some states) first.

Sure, there are no good solutions and a vast amount of conflicting legal theories on how to address or interpret certain things, but as a whole, the judicial system is at least more grounded in some understanding of the law rather than random individuals who were able to market their way into judicial power.

I imagine a similar thing would happen for other issues.

Yeah, I agree.

Poor decisions still happen, but this would be a nice safeguard to lessen the severity and frequency of such poor decisions.

Most economists today would not support a tariff and subsequently wreck the economy.

There’s multiple ways to achieve the goals of a technocracy.

I agree with your criticism, but you’re criticizing a more extreme, centralized form of technocracy. I have criticisms of direct democracy, but I wouldn’t conclude all democratic systems are bad because of the most extreme version.

And democracy and technocracy aren’t mutually exclusive, either.

For the legal example, some states hold elections for their judges, and most require a law degree. This sets some minimum to be a judge in those areas, which is technocratic.

What if a judge claims other judges are fake? Well, the people can evaluate those claims and vote accordingly.

But at least you don’t have some unhinged individual with no understanding of the law abusing their judicial powers.

I can’t really speak to the bloodshed since I don’t know which electoral process you’re criticizing, but technocracies don’t need bloodshed, no.

For your goldbug criticism, here’s one potential example (out of many, many possible systems) that could resolve it: Academic and think tank organizations stake their reputation by nominating economists, and then the people vote on them.

Let’s say the Mises Institute nominates a goldbug economist. I highly doubt enough people would vote for them vs all the other candidates by organizations like the American Economic Association, etc. And if they do get elected, whatever chaos that ensues would harm not only the candidate’s reputation, but the Mises Institute’s reputation. People would vote them out and ignore candidates from the Mises Institute.

I don’t trust people either. 😭 I had no idea about the EU vs climate protestors. That’s wild.

Ah, my bad. Well, thank you for your well thought out response.

I see where you’re coming from, but I mean, looking at the current president, we’re already living your hypothetical.

I agree experts can be wrong and have been wrong many times throughout history.

I can also see the concerns for maintaining the status quo.

What I’m thinking of is a less extreme variant of technocracy, where academic organizations, think tanks, etc. nominate candidates according to their own criteria. That way the overall bar is raised while leaving the decision on who is ‘qualified’ decentralized among the public.

My issue isn’t that goldbug economists are promoting harmful policies during a depression. Some issues are complex, and people are fallible.

My issue is that tariffs are widely agreed to be harmful, yet we have tariffs wrecking the economy now. Tariffs arguably constrain people’s rights by reducing their freedom to purchase what they want at fair market prices.

Like, at the very least, we should be avoiding blatant mistakes that most experts agree on. The fact that we did, in fact, make a glaring mistake against the advice of basic economics means that something is broken with the system.

Yeah, I actually agree with you there. I don’t like an extreme form of technocracy where some individuals dictate who is qualified to rule.

In practice, what I’m thinking of is socially delegating the requirements. Have various organizations dictate their own standards, and let them nominate the candidates.

Sure, one could just make their own jank Tariff Society and nominate their own pro-tariff candidates for economic policy, but the people would see that and vote accordingly. The reputation of the organization would be self-regulating in a decentralized way without the extremely centralized power issues you mentioned. I highly doubt a candidate nominated by the Tariff Society would stand a chance against a candidate nominated by the American Economics Association, for example.

Valid. Why do you think education should be the exception to decentralization?

That would be the ideal, but even without AI, you can still have a society that is more technocratic-leaning than it is now. It’s not like technocracies were historically impossible before AI existed.

I agree about the problem you mentioned. I would not trust someone who is proposing their AI will magically fix all of society’s problems.