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Zvi comments on Mechanics without wrenches - Less Wrong
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I doubt understanding differential equations would help Congressfolk make better decisions. It is the economic concepts that would be useful for them, not so much the math.
Also, our basic ideology of democracy says that ordinary people can make wise decisions about policy without expert knowledge. So it is hard for voters to say politicians are unqualified without such knowledge without admitting that voters are also unqualified.
I thought that representitive democracy meant that we could make wise decisions about who would be able to make wise decisions, and that part of what we are voting on is how they will make those decisions. Will they listen to our ideas of execution, or only our values, or their own values? Will they rely on our beliefs, their own or experts?
Even at that level, there is no need to believe that democracies make wise decisions to believe in them; you need only believe that the alternatives are worse. At least one of our major parties campaigns reguarly on the idea that we are incapable of making wise decisions in government, yet its rhetoric is still very much pro-Democracy.