Technocracy: Yes/No?

[Sarxis]

Politicians would never allow a technocracy- there's no way they are giving up their power.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
On NPR this morning, they're carrying a story about new GPS-type computer chips that are down to about five cents each which are going to be incorporated into packaging.

This is an old story that recurs every so often. It has almost reached Urban Legend status. I don't buy it, yet.

[St Leo]

Technocracy? Nah. It's a nice enough idea, but I don't think we techies would really benefit from it. Certain, ahem, distasteful ideas are prevalent among us that would effectively force future generations of potential techies to toil in clothing sweatshops instead making clothes for the degenerate descendants of this generation.

[DanS]

The lawyers are running the show. You're right. But it has been this way for a long time, and it seems to have worked reasonably well.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the pace of technological and way-of-life change was much greater than it is now. Chicago was built in a couple of decades, for instance. From cow pastures to high rises, the el, and automobiles.

[:) Smiley]

Ture, politicians and lawyers currently rule, though this is mostly by inertia. The current system has become structured to favor them. However, I question how much longer the current law-based system can continue. Already, we depend more on engineers than lawyers.

In Iraq, you don't hear much about people complaining about a lack of a functioning governing council, but you do hear complaints over lack of utilities.

Over half of government funds go into things such as infrastructure, research and development, etc.

At my university the computer science student organizations provide more services to the average student than the main student government. The engineering student organizations have their own parallel government that funds its individual groups. The main student government itself made big gains when it got some techies into its offices.

China has gone completely technocratic in the last change of top leaders. For some reason this wasn't really talked of much in the U.S.

The admin/mod system is the typical method of governance on websites and online communities such as Poly. Unmoderated places such as AOL chats tend to get immobilized by spam.

What I wold much like to know though, is can technocracy and democracy coexist?

[DanS]

I wouldn't be so sure that the current structure favors them unfairly. The bread and butter for both is effective communication, so lawyers have tended to feel at home in politics. It just so happens that the politicians also write the laws in our system. Of course, you could make the argument that with the tools that are available to engineers, they are becoming much better at communicating. By the way, many companies hire lawyers as top management because they are effective communicators.

Another way of looking at this is the hourly rate of engineers versus lawyers. Your average engineer still makes a fraction per hour versus your average lawyer. Your average scientist also makes a fraction per hour versus your average lawyer. This is true in both China and the US, no matter that lawyering represents a smaller percentage of the economy.

Besides, China can hardly be considered for a prize for good government.

[Arnelos]

Being a proto-politician working for a political party early in my career with plans to eventually end up doing public policy myself, I'm admittedly somewhat partial to the current system.

That said, I think the key thing to note here is that law and public policy are a great deal more complicated and difficult than the average naive individual who thinks they can "do it better" believes. The graveyard of history is littered with businessmen turned politicans, generals turned politicians, doctors turned politicians, homemakers turned politicians, and the whole gamit of the rest who thought that governing couldn't possibly be that hard... that public policy couldn't be THAT difficult and politics itself wouldn't be THAT nasty.

The reality is that politics is and always has been an extremely cutthroat competition over power at the same time as regulating the process by which governing (itself an extremely difficult thing to do properly) is done. So whenever I hear some guy pick up and decide to run for public office on the grounds that "I'm an X, not a politician", I'll applaud them for their civic responsibility and their courage, but be rather suspicious of whether they have what it takes to do the job. Some do, some don't.

The bottom line is that most of them are hopelessly naive about how easy they think it will be... and end up being HORRIBLY shocked when they have absolutely no idea what they're doing, the realization of which begins to occur to them as they awake from their dream to find that they're living in an all too real nightmare.

Most state legislatures are full of these turkeys in states with term limits because the turnaround is so high that the entire d*mn legislature is doing training on the job the entire time they're in office. This does not make for a state closer to the people in any sense other than that it's run extremely poorly, as bad as if you'd picked a random 100 random people off of street corners and told them go maintain a nuclear power plant or manage the space program.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The technocrat's rallying cry-

"Power to the people with no people skills!"

[Az]

I'd like to point out that technocracy doesn't necessarily lead to leadership of computer geeks. What it is the choice of industrial engineers and system analysts and planners over lawyers and diplomats. You know, the "do stuff" people vs. the " talk a lot" people.

industrial engineers are certainly 'people' people, btw.

[Bosh]

"Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you, this will be much less breeding. For me, much, much more."

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Azazel
industrial engineers are certainly 'people' people, btw.

They aren't considered engineers by other engineers

[Az]

true dat. They're still the people who'll rule a technocracy.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Azazel
I'd like to point out that technocracy doesn't necessarily lead to leadership of computer geeks. What it is the choice of industrial engineers and system analysts and planners over lawyers and diplomats. You know, the "do stuff" people vs. the " talk a lot" people.

Why not give power to taxidermists and pubic waxing consultants? They know **** all about running a country too.

[Q Classic]

politicians who don't know machines should not be in charge.

[Az]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Why not give power to taxidermists and pubic waxing consultants? They know **** all about running a country too.

About the same as politicians. Politicans get on top not because of good management skills, but because of good scheming and manipulation skills. Sadly, that's the truth.