Technocracies are Better

[erathoniel]

A Technocracy is the best form of government. Basically, there's virtually no politics, the only policy is: Make an energy surplus. Granted, there are other rules, but all you have to do is work, you get paid (it doesn't have to be Capitalistic, but should not be Communistic without advanced accounting in place), and you buy what you want. It promotes the most fairness because those who actually work get everything, though, although they could give it to others if they so wished (disabled relatives, politicians, religious figures). Taxes are inexistent due to the centralized profit system making civil projects more valuable than private ones, resulting in government jobs being taken first (or quickly enough). Plus, it allows the most freedom for its citizens. Also, it's the most rational state. It will never declare war unless attacked first or it is deemed profitable, and it is usually deemed profitable to cause the least possible destruction.

[hippl5]

ugh... same thing as Libertarianism? Or am I wrong?

[Jesus-Owns-X]

At 5/20/08 04:29 PM, hippl5 wrote: ugh... same thing as Libertarianism? Or am I wrong?

No you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

[ThePretenders]

How is technoracy going to solve scarcity? By producing an 'energy surplus'? This theory cannot work because scarcity is impossible to get rid of in this world, given that there is limited resources in the world.

[Al6200]

Technocracy is appointing positions on the basis of technical merit.

It has nothing to do with producing a surplus, and it isn't very democratic in and of itself.

[ThePretenders]

At 5/21/08 06:29 AM, Al6200 wrote: Technocracy is appointing positions on the basis of technical merit.

It has nothing to do with producing a surplus, and it isn't very democratic in and of itself.

I'm talking about the Technocratic movement, which is slightly different to what you are saying.

[bobomajo]

Yeah it would be a good system. Only problem is you would have to mass exterminate all the prople that weren't involved in the essentials of society. You can't support such a high population when everything is focused on zero growth. That mean no more appliance revolution which appeared as a guard against another great depression happening. You would have farmers and food workers(although this could be replaced by machines), scientists, and minimum amount of manufacturing for essential equipment (although this could be replaced my machines also) and essential industries like power generation, infrastructure etc. Three classes of society (possibly one only human), not based on income but employment. Basically an advanced castle system. But who knows maybe someday we have have 3-5 billion scientists, it would speed up our knowledge and development thats for sure.

[bobomajo]

Silly me, I should have looked at the administration chart before posting. It does look like a much better system than capitalism and communism. All this time the capitalists wanted everyone to think its either their system or communism. I would vote for a technocracy, but it would have to be very gradual transition over 100s of years due to the mass unemployment and insecurity that would be caused over an instantaneous changeover of these systems.

[TheMason]

At 5/21/08 03:00 AM, Jesus-Owns-X wrote:

At 5/20/08 04:29 PM, hippl5 wrote: ugh... same thing as Libertarianism? Or am I wrong?

No you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

No you're wrong. This is basically science/engineering types saying that they can run the government and economy better than anyone else. You see they believe that replacing money with a currency based upon the energy required to produce goods. This is probably heavily based in the Law of Conservation of Energy. There will always be an abundance of energy.

But what they forget is the Law of Conservation of Matter. Matter isn't as fungible as energy because once a good is produced and purchased it is taken out of the system whereas energy isn't. So while they think by converting to an energy based system they are avoiding scarcity...they are deluding themselves. Scarcity is not on the monetary side but on the goods side. They don't really address the issue of how they manage resources and production. Thus they do not address/fix the problem of scarcity.

There have been attempts at the same thing with money based economies. It's called turning on the presses and the result is hyper-inflation.

[TheMason]

At 5/21/08 06:33 AM, ThePretenders wrote:

At 5/21/08 06:29 AM, Al6200 wrote: Technocracy is appointing positions on the basis of technical merit.

It has nothing to do with producing a surplus, and it isn't very democratic in and of itself.

I'm talking about the Technocratic movement, which is slightly different to what you are saying.

But it came out of what AI6200 is talking about. It has its roots in a group of 19th engineers who were upset at two things. 1) Company owners/managers were concerned with the bottom-line. 2) Workers would not follow their designs to the letter. Thus they felt the need to assert themselves and the result was technocracy.

They are whiners. In a collabrative environment you do not get what you want. Its called compromise. This is an unchangeable part of human nature that they think they can change.

At 5/21/08 11:24 AM, bobomajo wrote: ... I would vote for a technocracy, but it would have to be very gradual transition over 100s of years due to the mass unemployment and insecurity that would be caused over an instantaneous changeover of these systems.

The problem with the gradualist approach is that it does more harm than good. Think of tearing of a band-aid. You do it slow and it spreads out the pain longer making it worse. However just gripping and ripping produces a momentary pain.

[SEXY-FETUS]

I can't stand house music.

[erathoniel]

At 5/21/08 11:17 AM, bobomajo wrote: Yeah it would be a good system. Only problem is you would have to mass exterminate all the prople that weren't involved in the essentials of society. You can't support such a high population when everything is focused on zero growth. That mean no more appliance revolution which appeared as a guard against another great depression happening. You would have farmers and food workers(although this could be replaced by machines), scientists, and minimum amount of manufacturing for essential equipment (although this could be replaced my machines also) and essential industries like power generation, infrastructure etc. Three classes of society (possibly one only human), not based on income but employment. Basically an advanced castle system. But who knows maybe someday we have have 3-5 billion scientists, it would speed up our knowledge and development thats for sure.

Castle system? Do you mean caste system?

No mass-extermination, it requires resources. Also, it's inethical, something that should be frowned upon due to the morale consequences.

The simple goal is this: Do your job, and do it as well as possible, or someone else gets it and gets the rewards from doing it.

[TheMason]

At 5/22/08 12:41 PM, erathoniel wrote:

At 5/21/08 11:17 AM, bobomajo wrote:

The simple goal is this: Do your job, and do it as well as possible, or someone else gets it and gets the rewards from doing it.

What you just described is competition...the ideal capitalist ethic. The problem with technocracy is that they want to totally overhaul the monetary system. They understand science, but they do not understand economics and the real world.

They say they get rid of scarcity by eliminating money. However, while energy is abundant and pretty much infinite...that is not where scarcity exists. Scarcity exists in the resources required to manufacture products. This cannot be resolved by their "energy unit" based currency system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for testing this somewhere far away from me. While I predict total disaster, it would be nice for an Utopian ideal to actually work rather than degenerate into Distopia.

[Gunter45]

At 5/21/08 03:43 PM, TheMason wrote: They are whiners. In a collabrative environment you do not get what you want. Its called compromise. This is an unchangeable part of human nature that they think they can change.

This is why it is impossible to create a cut-and-dry system of government. Anybody who lays down a system as simplistically as "Taxes are [non]existent due to the centralized profit system making civil projects more valuable than private ones, resulting in government jobs being taken first (or quickly enough)" or "It will never declare war unless attacked first or it is deemed profitable, and it is usually deemed profitable to cause the least possible destruction." Statements that presuppose "well, if this happens, then this will be the result" fail to factor in the sheer complexity of human interaction. You can't rely on even one person acting rationally all the time.

Who says that a centralized profit system will make civil projects more profitable than private ones? Not to mention the utility factor. Even supposing that a civil project would be more profitable than a private one, what if the private project meets a particular need that happens to be more useful than the civil project? Additionally, what would keep government-run industry accountable? They have no shareholders to appease or strict budgetary concerns. Running a business well simply out of goodwill and altruism can only last so long before you slip into complacency. What makes the private sector so profitable is that you must turn a profit in order to stay in business, whereas the government can't go out of business. It's push and shove. Like TheMason said, there must be a compromise and, since the government is unable to be held accountable to making a profit, you have to leave industry up to privately-owned business with government oversight. That's no different than the current system we have.

And as for your comment on war? Nobody would ever fight wars because it's unprofitable to destroy things? On what planet? Do you know how much defense contractors make? Are you aware that the money America made on WWII slingshot us to the economic superpower we are today? We're still running strong off of the industrial revitalization of WWII. Then of course there are the contractors who make billions off of rebuilding after wars. You tell Halliburton that war isn't profitable. They'd laugh until they're monocles fall into their snifters filled with vintage brandy.

That's not even accounting for the sheer utility of war. While not as common today, wars have been fought over the acquisition of resources all the time. Though the Iraq War is up for debate on that point, the Japanese invasion of China in the 30s-40s, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s, and the warfare going on in Africa going on even as we speak, to name just a small fraction of historical examples, all of those conflicts were over resources.

The best solutions are simple ones, I am a staunch advocate of that belief. When it comes to politics and economics, however, there aren't any simple solutions. Anybody who tells you otherwise is either an idiot or a liar.

[Al6200]

At 5/21/08 03:43 PM, TheMason wrote:

At 5/21/08 06:33 AM, ThePretenders wrote:

At 5/21/08 06:29 AM, Al6200 wrote: Technocracy is appointing positions on the basis of technical merit.

It has nothing to do with producing a surplus, and it isn't very democratic in and of itself.

I'm talking about the Technocratic movement, which is slightly different to what you are saying.

But it came out of what AI6200 is talking about. It has its roots in a group of 19th engineers who were upset at two things. 1) Company owners/managers were concerned with the bottom-line. 2) Workers would not follow their designs to the letter. Thus they felt the need to assert themselves and the result was technocracy.

Dude, these people have no clue what technocracy is. They seem to be confusing it with some sort of national socialism.

I tend to think that there a few issues with position based on technical merit though:

1. Who determines what constitutes technical merit? Is there some possibility that the tests will give a bias towards people of certain political views?

Unlike in a democratic system, where an angry majority can take down a petty and self-serving elite class, there is no ability. For example, let's say only engineers were allowed to run the country. What if there was a conspiracy to only grant passing Fundamentals of Engineering Exam scores to white people? Of course, the majority would be outraged, but the engineers running the country might have no impetuous to change the system since they're the ones benefiting from it.

2. Being a good engineer does not necessarily make you a good leader, although there's probably a solid correlation. For example, I did competitive debate this past year, and although my partner was quite the gifted mathematician, his logic skills didn't translate into amazing persuasive skills. Why? Winning over a crowd that isn't on your knowledge level isn't about using superior logic or reasoning, it's about using the language and mannerisms of an expert with the rhetoric to pull at people.

For example, we once won a debate where our opponents had completely superior logic, reasoning, and evidence - just because we throw out some fancy words with rhetoric behind them. It's almost like the person has a checklist in their mind, and picks whoever throws out the most evidence with the most moving rhetoric. It's not like it has to work cohesively.

They are whiners. In a collabrative environment you do not get what you want. Its called compromise. This is an unchangeable part of human nature that they think they can change.

Well, today basically all of the leaders are lawyers - which makes sense since lawyers have the most public speaking experience and therefore are most able to move large crowds.

[TheMason]

At 5/22/08 03:38 PM, Gunter45 wrote:

At 5/21/08 03:43 PM, TheMason wrote:

Gunter...is any of this directed at me or the OP?