We, the learned

[enders_shadow]

It is a very good thing my friends, that I am not running for office.
The following statement would kill any hopes I ever had of that:

Comments

[404]

the world should be run by political junkies.

People like that could easily fall into "the ends justify the means;" they live in their own little bubble and have virtually no interaction with anything that doesn't justify their world view. I doubt you'd like to live in a technocratic world where machines make life and death decisions, would you? That is the end of the slippery slope of denying those you don't feel are equipped to make electoral decisions the ability to do so.

[enders_shadow]

Lots of people are already living as if the govt were some machine that made life and death decisions.....

[404]

Lots of people believe 9/11 was an inside job.

What's your opinion on the idea of a computer making decisions that affect you without recourse?

[enders_shadow]

It would really depend on the computer.

Remember, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Is the computer black magic or white magic?

[sandwichwarrior]

^ This times a thousand ^

[mikeyxw]

How about working towards making people more knowledgeable instead? While I know it's common knowledge that we've been going to hell in a hand basket ever since hand baskets were invented, we're in reality better educated than in the past. I actually don't think it would take too much to improve our political literacy. Okay, the effort to improve our political literacy would be to get politicians, who might not be the biggest beneficiaries of an increased political literacy to work towards implementing it.

Of course, we'll still have the problem that half the people will be less politically involved than average, but that's for those who come afterwards to worry about.

[abomvubuso]

How about working towards making people more knowledgeable instead?

Where do I sign up for this?

[mikeyxw]

Really, it's something we've been doing pretty well for the past couple hundred years. How many of us would be willing to step into a time machine and go back 50 or 100 years to the "good old days" after all. Try to get a black guy to go back and he'd have a good self-defense claim for whatever followed.

We certainly could do better, my point was that working to reform our existing system would seem to be a much better way of going about it than limiting who can vote. Simply getting involved in your community will do this.

[enders_shadow]

This was by no means whatsoever supposed to be pragmatically achievable

Oh no. We, the learned, can see this will never come into being--not in America, not in our lifetimes. But, I don't hear a proper objection to the issue as raised. All you're doing is saying: "Make sure everyone is smart enough to pass the test" well that's fine, but point remains, the uninformed are dangerous

[htpcl]

You say laymen, not experts, should be running politics. And I get reminded that I've always been disturbed by the fact that in a representative democracy where politicians who don't give a fuck about the needs of their constituents and are sitting in parliament solely to serve as the political tools of their respective parties that they are, are regularly required to vote on matters they don't know jack shit about. I mean, here's this former surgeon now turned MP, who's supposed to be voting on a bill about, say, patent law. What the hell does he know about patent law? Of course he'll vote exactly the way he's instructed by the party headquarters without putting a single thought into it. Is that "representation"? Is this scheme supposed to craft the best and most adequate policies on specific issues of importance? I dunno, man, I dunno. But it kind of makes no sense whatsoever.

[abomvubuso]

Ah, technocracy. Preach it, bru!

[htpcl]

Actually I realize the OP argued for junkies, not laymen. My bad then. I guess the above rant should be considered as an OP-supporting aside.

(someone may be in need of a coffee)

[enders_shadow]

As I go to sleep, I wish you a good morning!

[anfalicious]

You're assuming that there is some way of measuring what makes someone qualified to make decisions on behalf of the rest of us. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, freakin' geniuses.

How do you test for empathy, easily as important in governing a free people as political nous.

[mikeyxw]

Standardized testing, of course.

[anfalicious]

lol

I hope that's sarcasm :)

[mikeyxw]

I'm certainly not serious, but I can't really think of anything else that would work, so I'm not sure if that counts as sarcasm.

The whole empathy thing probably doesn't figure, we're talking about using cold, hard facts by experts to make political decisions. We'd have economists running the economy and lawyers writing the laws.

Now that was sarcasm.