Lapsed_Lurker comments on The Sciencearchist Manifesto - Less Wrong
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Comments (64)
There are so many nits I want to pick that it's creating a stack overflow in my brain. Here's some:
This is a terrible label. It gives off a strong whiff of scientism, but that's not really what your manifesto is about.
What did he ask? You never say.
I seriously doubt most people know what Futarchy is. It would help to explain the term before you use it.
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.
False analogy. Except for extreme direct democracies, the populace doesn't vote on specific policies--politicians make these decisions.
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.
Re: Sciencearchy is a terrible label:
Why not Technocracy?
Wikipedia says:
Not bad, is missing the betting market, but sounds about right.
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.)