Let Science Rule the World

...are we talking about the same China? I mean sure they're putting out some nice numbers once you get to the top and look at global trade, but it doesn't exactly carry down into the majority of the populace.

Once again, scientists are people too, and once politics comes in the scientific method goes bye bye. It would not be any better.

USAF713 on his phone or iPod.

Yes, we are. While it is true that China still has a long way to go to fix its wealth disparity, it has made ENORMOUS progress over the last three decades. For example, in 1975, the average lifespan for a Chinese was about forty years. Now its almost 80. China has built more roads in the last decade than America has built in the last fifty years, has opened more universities than the rest of the planet combined in the last half century, and has dragged itself out of what amounted to medieval levels of technology to become one of the most advanced nations on the planet - all within the last century. Say what you will with authoritarian capitalism, but it gets things moving like nothing else can.

Well that's accomplished by scientists that have good decision-making abilities, and have actually made effective choices, and then they're not just scientists anymore.

Now using Trivialis handle.

Yeah, technocracy just is not feasible. Too much chance of abuse, or it becomes a democracy and then it has not improved anything.

USAF713 on his phone or iPod.

There's also that blasted A.I. Entity running amok.

When are they making another sequel to Call To Power, anyway?

Then they stop being scientists and start being politicans -> scientists aren't in power anymore.

I agree with breadloaf here - we need to be looking for better ways to do stuff and think what we're doing wrong.

x4 This is what a lot of people fail to realise. True, the Chinese government isn't the most caring for it's citizens, but look where they started. Now, anyone living in a place of untainted Democracy, Freedom and Liberty say I.

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

I would ask, where is the moment when you can say "you're not being a scientist anymore" and the man goes "oh my, I am so ashamed of myself", instead of him going all "it's you who's wrong, I'm being rational and Bayesian and better than you" and so on.

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

It's not so much "You're not a scientist anymore" so much as "You're not just being a scientist, but also _". It's a natural conclusion from the fact that you're not doing just science.

Now using Trivialis handle.

I used the form "you're not being", sorry if that was confusing.

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

But once the singularity occurs....

I think there’s a global conspiracy to see who can get the most clicks on the worst lies

we already reached the singularity. it's called the internet.

as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly

That's what the explosive collars are for. It's best for the machine overlords to have a good way of controlling the meat puppets after all.

Fight smart, not fair.

Ha.

Look, I am fairly certain it has been proven that if you give anyone a sufficient amount of power, they will corrupt to some extent. It doesn't matter if it's a scientist, clergyman, farmer, or general. Scientists would be no better at running the world than your average politician, they're not inherently any more or less moral than anyone else.

go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine

Science is a highly politicised field and its findings are always subject to the agendas of the researchers involved. The big mistake here is assuming that science is some objective, infallible force and not something that is pretty much inseperable from prejudice.

That's partially true. In many cases, it's not about science itself that's corrupted or politicized, but rather the resulting decision-making.

Then there's actually trying to take a different angle or approach, like scientific racism. This happens when your core beliefs that guide your scientific work are different.

edited 25th Oct '11 10:14:45 PM by abstractematics

Now using Trivialis handle.

everyone in this thread seems to assume that politicians are actually the best people to govern.

it's more like they're the people who are the best at convincing other people to give them a lot of money to boss the others around.

actually very, very different skill sets. don't think scientists could get any worse. at least we can avoid the "i'm as stupid as you are, so vote for me!" issues. ethics-wise... no worse than right now. various policies... at least we have a better chance of research and facts backing them up. and qualifications for particular positions- remember how amazing it was that Obama actually nominated a Nobel laureate as a science advisor? at least people will have to have educational credentials instead of golden-parachuting their way into power.

so, in short: probably not any worse than modern-day demo/plutocracy.

edited 25th Oct '11 11:15:23 PM by willyolio

They're the best people at dealing with other politicians; sometimes a Magnificent Bastard is the right person for the job.

RE: OP: For the love of God, NO. If I look at how many scientists behave with regards to ruling things, this will lead to a very big disaster very quickly. Many scientists unfortunately are zero-compromise stubborn-beyond-any-common-sense egotripping indecisive and naive people who are not suited to lead the world (those that aren't are a small minority and usually in the leading places, but there's also a lot of bosses in science who unfortunately are not suited for their position at all).

• Do we want an economic disaster worse than the current one?
• Do we want wars for really stupid reasons like "he dared insult me over coffee" or "my name ought to be larger than his"?
• Do we want worse gender equality?
• Do we want braindead decisions that waltz over social sensibilities and common sense because they are theoretically and logically possible and nothing else?
• Do we want alienating the people because they can't understand their leaders' overly smart-ass (not necessarily intellectual) speeches and weird habits?
• Do we want massive money spills to satisfy every little bit of knowledge hunger, with no auditing present whatsoever?
• Do we want petty decisions all over?

I think the answer is "No" in each case. Don't understand me wrong, I am all for a technocracy, but most scientists should be kept as far away from the decision-making process as possible, aside from advising roles. Present-day politicians are bad, but scientists in charge would nbe much worse.

"That said, as I've mentioned before, apart from the helmet, he's not exactly bad looking, if a bit...blood-drenched." - juancarlos

I think the interpretations should not be "should individual scientists automatically be assigned to rule the world" but "should scientific consensus and research groups make (global) government policies."

your interpretation of the downsides is stating problems inherent to any government body made up of self-promotional individuals. Including the current ones. every one of your points is applicable to modern demo/plutocracy.

edited 25th Oct '11 11:35:46 PM by willyolio

My father is a scientist. Discuss politics with him some time. Any desire to see scientists run the world will be cured.

"Roll for whores."

Scientists are just as fallible as anyone else, and as far as the average joe goes, I wouldn't consider them any more prepared to make common sense leadership decisions.

Honestly? I think we need to grab some intelligent and practical common sense blue collar types to have a crack at capitol hill. There should be no such thing as a career politician because those types are all horrible leaders.

It seems like this thread is dominated by people who know one guy who's a total jerkass and is also a scientist and thus argue that scientists should not rule the world, and other people who correctly point out that the only difference to today's politicians is that this jerkass is a scientist.

In reality, the problem with the system today is not listening to reason, empirical observation, corruption and/or heavy ideological leanings. As I stated before, the point of running the world with "scientists" is that many of you who are against are merely picturing the exact same system except the people at the top are scientists. That is most certainly not the point of science. It seems like there is this mental image of "SCIENCE!" and "POLITICS!" and they're different camps of people and we must choose between them.

That's not science.

Science is the process of making decisions based on empirical observation, and checking if your conclusions were correct. If not, figure out why and then try again. It's not about restricting the position of office to only noble laureates.

edited 26th Oct '11 8:57:10 AM by breadloaf

I would say that if your image of a scientist is a noble individual bravely searching for truth in spite of opposition, then that's not science either, just *snicker* irrational romantism.

If we mean science as an empirical approach to external events, then the world is for the most part already ruled by it. Psychology and sociology were sciences the last time I checked, and important politicians all have their public image advisors.

edited 26th Oct '11 9:36:09 AM by lordGacek

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

Thread hop: but everyone who thinks they have a rational way to organize the world usually will fail in five years.

There no definitive, scientific answers to organizing human society. Change is constant, people bend the rules, and you can't set up proper experiments to determine the effect of policies.

T Hink about the issue of crime. What is the scientific solution to it? What ever system you try, it's imperfect. Crime will happen, it's only a question of how little it will happen.

Or unemployment, or any economic question. There's a reason Economics is called the Dismal Science.