Lapsed_Lurker comments on The Sciencearchist Manifesto - Less Wrong

-12 [deleted] 19 October 2011 07:31PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 19 October 2011 07:51:54PM *  7 points [-]

There are so many nits I want to pick that it's creating a stack overflow in my brain. Here's some:

Sciencearchist

This is a terrible label. It gives off a strong whiff of scientism, but that's not really what your manifesto is about.

Over 2000 years ago, the Greek philosopher, Plato, asked a simple question about the nature of democracy in Athens.

What did he ask? You never say.

To ensure that council men/women don't simply institute those laws which profit them, we should pay them based solely on the amount of money they are willing to bet that their policy will work, i.e., we would institute a betting market (much like in Futarchy).

I seriously doubt most people know what Futarchy is. It would help to explain the term before you use it.

In this sense, under sciencearchy, there is no one who is ruler, not even the rule of some council, there is only the personailty-less rule of science.

One of the reasons that science is mostly apolitical is because scientists don't make policy decisions. If you put them in power, this will quickly change. Also, 'personality' is misspelled.

Democracy seems absolutely insane when dealing with any other serious problem in life, whether it be stopping a meteor from hitting the earth, or figuring out what matter is made out of. Why this isn't just as obvious to us in the case of politics remains a dark mystery for me.

False analogy. Except for extreme direct democracies, the populace doesn't vote on specific policies--politicians make these decisions.

We must remember that sciencearchy is not a political position, it is a meta-poltical position; we are not proposing policies, we are proposing a method for how to propose and select policies.

The use of the term "meta-political" makes no sense. Democracy and authoritarianism also do these things, but they are referred to as political positions, not meta-political ones.

Overall, it seems like a bad idea. Organized science has optimized scientists for being good at working within the academic system, not for making coming up with policy suggestions. In fact, current political figures are probably much better at doing politics than even the most eminent scientists of today. I'd much prefer vanilla Futarchy to this.

ETA: I agree with beoShaffer--I don't like this kind of political post.

Comment author: Lapsed_Lurker 19 October 2011 08:40:37PM *  6 points [-]

Re: Sciencearchy is a terrible label:

Why not Technocracy?

Wikipedia says:

Technocracy is a form of government where technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Engineers, scientists, health professionals, and those who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose the governing body. In a technocracy, decision makers would be selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their field.

Comment author: potato 19 October 2011 08:53:29PM 0 points [-]

Not bad, is missing the betting market, but sounds about right.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 20 October 2011 07:40:57PM 1 point [-]

You may also want to look into the history of technocracy, so you can see how it worked where is was actually attempted. (HINT: not very well.)