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Kaj_Sotala comments on 2012 Less Wrong Census Survey: Call For Critiques/Questions - Less Wrong Discussion

20 Post author: Yvain 19 October 2012 01:12AM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 19 October 2012 04:45:25PM 11 points [-]

I would rather ask: Which country of the following list do you consider to be ruled best:

I have adequate knowledge about how well Finland is ruled, some minor knowledge about how the USA is ruled, and basically no useful knowledge about how well any of those other countries are ruled (besides the fact that none of them is a third world hellhole, so none of them is probably ruled terribly badly). So I couldn't answer this question, and I wouldn't be surprised if nobody on this site was familiar enough with the governance of all those nations to be able to give a meaningful answer.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 October 2012 08:34:30AM *  3 points [-]

besides the fact that none of them is a third world hellhole, so none of them is probably ruled terribly badly

Or just that ruling an already-developed country isn't terribly demanding. I mean, Belgium didn't become a third-world hellhole despite this.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 October 2012 08:47:08AM *  9 points [-]

Related to your example: The Art of Governing without Government

Belgium "had no government" for 535 days. Lots of people use the same words to describe the situation in Belgium.

The odd thing about this period of no government was that Belgium’s government was very busy. For example, the non-government nationalized one of the country’s largest banks. Less importantly, your humble blogger had numerous meetings that were attended by representatives of Belgium’s non-government.

How is this possible?

The answer, of course, is that Belgium’s government functions fine – fine enough to bail out a huge bank! – without significant input from elected officials. If elected officials are around to validate the decisions of the permanent government, that’s great. If not, the government gets on just fine.

Call it the art of governing without government.

Moldbuggian models of politics FTW.

Comment author: CronoDAS 21 October 2012 02:26:43AM *  1 point [-]

I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of government working for them, and that ain't bad.

-- Jack Nicholson, as President Dale in Mars Attacks

Comment author: Kindly 19 October 2012 05:48:43PM 1 point [-]

I agree, but I think that this exposes our ignorance on the matter; choosing a political label would suffer from the same lack of knowledge, but it wouldn't be as obvious.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 October 2012 10:37:13AM 3 points [-]

I think it takes much more knowledge to confidently meaningfully answer the best-ruled-country question than the political-label question.

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