I think a better term to use would be “fact-based policy.” I believe that even if we intended to rework politics to be more scientific, it would just lead to all the same manipulations and twisting of facts that current politics involves. Don’t like a particular scientific consensus because it interferes with your goals? Hire a bunch of “think-tanks” to publish contradictory papers. Hah, guess what, that’s where we already are.
Should we replace bees with mathematics? Those two aren’t exactly valid substitutes for each other.
I would much rather this than OP’s proposal.
Really we should just replace mathematics with bees. I can’t think of a problem that can’t be solved with more bees.
How would you be able to tell there are more bees without mathematics?
You add some, then you know for sure.
Easy, more bees
Absolutely
I’m thinking Snoop Dogg - Drop It Lik It’s Hot
But everytime he says “pop/drop it like it’s hot” it should instead be “add a swarm of bees”Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Honey’s nice
Ooh look the monkeys like that one. Funny bees!
Think of them as 2 methods for determining policy. Sorry for the confusion.
@spiderwort could you give me some concrete examples. I can see it with a few things but not others. How does science determine:
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abortion laws
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your nation’s stance on Israel
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marriage’s effect on taxes
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individual custody disputes
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animal cruelty laws
Observe, model, propose policies… run simulations even
Plain ol science
I’m trying to keep an open mind here but so far, you’re being too vague to be persuasive.
Observe what exactly?
Model what?
Propose what kind of policies based on what assumptions and which goals?
Obviously I know what science is. I just don’t see how it applies here.
Observe what exactly? If you’re designing an experiment you know what results you’re interested in and what implications the research has.
Seriously, pick one thing from my list above and talk me through how you would use pure science to formulate policy?
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Think of them as 2 methods for determining policy
They’re not though.
Democracy is a strategy some states use to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the populace. Science is a method for producing knowledge.
Policy is determined by the financial interests of our elites, our global imperial interests, and the form of our bureaucratic institutions.
Democracy, science and policy are three very distinct domains.
They’re also spelled differently, aha!
Did you see the movie, Divergent?
I don’t think I did. Good and relevant?
Yes it is. Dystopian society divided into classes, erudite, dauntless, abnegation, candor, amity.
You had me at dystopian
Lol! It’s ollllld but good. Even the sequels.
A clear indicator that I reached the bottom of the community
Bottom? This is par for the course.
So like philosopher kings?
I was thinking straight up science.
Given these observations, these firmly established scientific models and this bit of sound reasoning, we conclude that these policies should be implemented.
No voting required.
Science has brought us some rather advanced artificial intelligence that can do many amazing things.
It can model extremely complex protein chains, yet can’t even render a hand properly and doesn’t even comprehend how people consume nutrients.
You really wanna leave all the decisions up to science and technology?
Well that’s the question.
Voting means lots of dummies, a sea of propaganda… Bad stuff there too.
While I can agree that dummies shouldn’t be allowed to vote, how would/could/should we go about designing a proper voter verification program that more or less eliminates the actual dummies/sheeple?
But I don’t think taking the voter factor completely out of the equation in favor of pure raw science is the answer either.
If you leave everything to science, then science would say the world is overpopulated and we should eliminate half or more of the population…
I read a short story where they took a humane approach to population reduction.
An engineered disease. A short fever and then your uterus stops working. 95% effective.
Rioting. All scientists hung. But the world was better.
Ah yes, forced sterilization. Very humane.
That’s called fascism. You read a fascist fan-fic. I guarantee the people who were forcefully sterilized wouldn’t agree that the world was better.
It’s called science fiction you gibbering philistine.
You must be really fun at parties…
/s
You forget a piece: “Given these observations, these objectives, and this bit of sound reasoning, …”
Without objectives, no amount of reasoning will tell you what to do. Who sets the objectives?
c/iamverysmart c/iamaclosetfascist
He’s barely in the closet:
https://lemm.ee/comment/11377393
I read a short story where they took a humane approach to population reduction.
An engineered disease. A short fever and then your uterus stops working. 95% effective.
Rioting. All scientists hung. But the world was better.
You remind me of a religious fundamentalist encountering his first plate of spaghetti.
Cause advocating genocide through forced sterilization is somehow laudable?
It is fun how you just know that every downvote or negative comment just bolsters op’s ego because to them it shows how the masses are stupid and they are one of the few who know how things should be. Replacing “democracy” with “science” makes no god damn sense because science is not a form o government. How hard would it have been to elaborate how you imagine your “scientific” goverment to work? I guess you would atleast have basic knowledge about politics. So what we got was the question of a 6 year old. How do you expect insightful comments?
They are just trolling, they are looking for the argument for arguments sake. Look through their post and comment history. Report, down vote, and block, then move on.
Democracy cannot coexist equally with capitalism.
What does that even mean? Do you mean the methodology? Its not meant for decision making, its made to determine the nature of things.
- It’s* not meant for
- it’s* made to
What democracy has to do with science?
If we’re talking about the right kind, are they not parts of the same thing?
No. The problem with science is that in part it relies on trial and error. That could get messy on a societal level. We should utilize observation with scientific methods to inform our decisions. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t do that currently and scientific data results can also be manipulated to fulfill an agenda.
We have good models that offer up good decisions, so why put it to the vote?
Base our policy on tested models. Audit our reasoning thoroughly. Be rational.
Vs consult the masses, 99% of whom don’t even understand the question.
Seems like a no brainer
Well in your scenario who will implement this? Furthermore, what is the goal that you’re trying to engineer with a science based government? Is it personal happiness, population numbers, the production of capital, or to indoctrinate the masses to serve the state? Are you going to justify the use of eugenics? What happens when goals conflict or individuals don’t want to participate in experiments? What if the science you’re implementing has different philosophies or different schools of thought? How do you determine what is the optimal method?
What models are you suggesting we use that are making these good decisions?
You’re using a lot of very general language throughout this thread. We need some elaboration. Otherwise it’s just “we should be logical and stuff.”
Democracy could be said to work on trial an error too, just with human factors thrown into the mix?
A very good point.
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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It would stop being science very very quickly, and just be “hey girl, heard you want your son to attend the “control group” school”.
From that one sentence a horrifying distopian sci fi unfolded in my brain.
Elaborate?
Two methods for determining policy.
We vote.
We do science.
Should we switch to the latter?
Under representative democracy, policies are not defined by voting. Representatives are voted in, to make the decision. They supposed to make decisions based on facts (including scientific facts) and interests of the constituents. In order to do that, institutions are created, such is bureaucracy, executive branch, committees, etc., those will employ scientists as needed. But a policy can not be made just by scientists. Climatologists can not make policy about climate change, for example, because those should rely on many aspects, including economics, security, international relationships and even internal politics (different states have different needs).
How about the current system where we vote and do science?
99% of the voters wouldn’t know science if it bit them on the butt
You make a good case for your own argument.
Well somebody’s got to.
I mean, trying to prove your own theory by being the perfect case study seems a little extreme…
Sounds like a wildly unscientific statement, considering e.g ~10% of the US population works in STEM.
That doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, strangely enough.
Or, maybe we already do 100% science. It’s just that the agenda isn’t precisely popular. And the voting is just for show.
Science is an empirical method of finding fact.
Government is a philosophical method of seeking truth.
You are being pretty incoherent.
How does science determine the order initiatives are addressed?
Well first we would change beans into peas.
The rest is trivial.
