faetal on 15/9/2013 at 23:10

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In theory, technocracy relies on a similar system to academic peer review. So in order to justify a policy, you have to demonstrate that it can achieve the desired effect, rather than just say it. That said, the masses would never go for it because to the average Joe, it would just look like an elitist system (which it kind of is by design). Vivian's idea of a supercomputer is a nice one too, but the trouble is that the people who program it would be vulnerable to corruption. Democracy kind of doesn't really exist anyway, since you;re voting in representatives based on what they tell you they will do in very broad terms. They usually don't stick to it and most of what they really spend their time doing wasn't mentioned in their campaigns, so you're essentially just playing a reality TV style voting game based on perceived political persona, which is likely manufactured up the wazoo.

It's almost not worth discussing other than as a thought experiment, because for every person having reasoned discussion like this, there are 100 who will base their opinions on trashy media headlines, so it's the media that determines what system we have, and I guess "democracy" works well for them so that is unlikely to change (barring a cataclysm event forcing things). Personally, I'd love for someone to try a peer-reviewed, performance-based technocracy and see how it works, because the current system just favours populist policies based around sound bites and the net result is that year on year, we all get a little poorer and lose a few more freedoms.

Gryzemuis on 15/9/2013 at 23:42

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The problem with democracy is that people say "it's bad, but it's better than all other systems". Then they use this as an excuse to never think about how the system could be improved. And we never get any improvements.

Then there are all kinds of aspects of current societies that are thrown on the big heap of democracy. And they are all taken for granted, because "they are democracy". The flow of reasoning is almost as simplistic as: "communism as it was in Russia was not democratic. and thus we don't want communism. and the only other option is capitalism. and therefor we should adopt a totally open free market in every aspect of life". How many flaws in this line of thinking can you discover ?

Democracy is good. "Ruled by the people". I wouldn't want it any other way. But you can implement democracy in many ways. In most countries we're stuck with a representative parlementary democracy. What we had for 200 years. That means the people can't decide on issues directly. They chose someone to play their "benevolent representer". They can't vote on individual issues (only for 1 person, who then gets to decide on everything). They can't vote outside these blocks different on issues (e.g. for nuclear energy, against nuclear weapons, there are no such parties). You are allowed to vote only once every 4 years. And the representatives will *never* have to answer to their voters. And then there are voter-tresholds. Voting per district with winner-takes-it-all. Etc, etc. I think there is lots left to be improved. Especially with current communication technologies. Let the people vote when an important decision needs to be taken. I don't care if 70% of voters don't understand the issue. I rather have a truly democratic crappy decision, than a decision taken by a small (corrupt) elite.

It would also be nice if you could win important elections without putting 1 billion dollars on the table.

It seems there are no more philosophers or writers or intellectuals that try to come up with improvements for today's society. Are they all out of ideas ? Are they cowards ? Are they all bribed (without even realizing it maybe) ?

Gryzemuis on 15/9/2013 at 23:56

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Back to topic.
More and more clues are coming out that it were the Syrian Rebels themselves who did the attack with chemical weapons.

Two hostages of the Free Syrian Army have overheard their captors talk about the chemical attack, and heard them say it was the Free Syrian Army themselves who did the attack. A belgian and an italian hostage. So it seems the english-speaking media are ignoring this story completely ?

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2418378/Syrian-hostage-Domenico-Quirico-overheard-rebels-blame-Damascus-chemical-attacks.html)
(http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/european-captives-rebels-behind-syria-chemical-attack/)

There's also footage of Syrian Rebels who prepare a rocket with something that looks like a chemical cannister as payload. I don't know how trustworthy that movie is.
(http://shoebat.com/2013/08/27/evidence-syrian-rebels-used-chemical-weapons-not-assad/)

Some people here seem to already have made up their mind. Assad used chemical weapons. I'm not so sure myself.

faetal on 16/9/2013 at 10:26

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The peer review system would work by looking at existing research and seeing if it can be reasonably extrapolated from. It's what we could be doing now, but governments ignore because they do what their wealthy donors want instead. Make no bones, the UK is not a democracy in any meaningful sense of the word, it is a plutocracy. Case in point - our current government said in its election campaign that there would be no more top down reorganisations of the NHS. Scarcely 6 months after they are elected, they announce a white paper detailing the largest top down reorganisation the NHS has ever seen, which was co-written by 2020 Health, a consortium or private health interests. Lo and behold, the main purpose of the new health bill is to tender out services to "any willing provider" and private health company share prices in the UK begin to skyrocket (check out Serco, Circle health, Virgin health). Then it turns that an obscene proportion of our MPs and lords have investment interests in private health. Nuts.

Manifestos and campaign promises are not binding in any way, therefore our entire democracy is a sham, because what we are voting for isn't what we are getting. In the US, it is even worse with political donations having been equated to free speech. The way democracy works is that the person on the street votes whoever in, based on the newspapers and then the people who get voted in, get most of their political direction from meetings with people who actually do get to have what they want from "democracy".

LoLion on 16/9/2013 at 11:36

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Seems to me the only people that are “sure” Assad was behind the chemical attack despite the lack of actual evidence and the fact that the regime is winning the war by conventional means now are the ones looking to justify the intervention at all costs. In similar vein the video on which a rebel commander eats the heart of a killed government soldier or the information about how the foreign jihadists enforce hardcore sharia law in the territories they control does not seem to get much traction in the western media as it would conflict with the “evil dictator vs good freedom fighters” narrative that is still the official line of the US policy.

I actually wonder if the media portrayal of the conflict becomes a bit more balanced now that the intervention seems to be averted at least for the foreseeable future and the public resistance against the (direct) western involvement keeps growing.