A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea | Hacker News Reader

A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea

newscientist.com

13 pointspetethomas8 comments

However, applying just the first part of the title statement - a rational nation - would be world-changing...

Aside from making direct democracy such as Swiss-style referenda possible, the most terrifying outcome (to political elites) would be in national defense/offense.

A E van Vogt covered this in 'The World of Null-A': an invading army was confronted with a populace that mobilized instantly, utilizing every available implement that could be used as a weapon, and able to make rational decisions regarding local defense without an overarching leadership.

As for offensive actions: if enough whys had been asked before and during WWI (and countless other conflicts), millions of soldiers would not have needlessly perished.

Developing and cultivating rationality, and super-rationality (as detailed by Douglas Hofstadter), is largely a matter of early education... Schools and teachers could change the world!

And yet, despite its abysmal track record, people continue to have extremely positive opinions of “science.”

I have no fear whatsoever (even though maybe I should) of not having enough to eat. I believe very strongly that if I cut myself on something, the infection won't kill me. I've got every expectation of seeing every child I have live to adulthood. These are incredible achievements.

Abysmal? Science's track record in improving the condition of humans is phenomenal.

Science doesn't tell you what is valuable. Any form of government is inherently going to rely on a set of moral axioms to tell the government what to value. The difference between a rational and an irrational government would be that the rational government would be more likely to get results that match what is valued by its set of moral axioms. None of that changes the fact that a government guided by a bad set of moral axioms is going to get bad results, whether it is rational or irrational.

On the whole, I think liberal democracies have come up with a relatively good set of moral axioms so applying rationality would be more beneficial than harmful.

Somewhat circular to see someone attempt to use reason to argue against the use of reason.

To simplify the argument in the article a bit: you can, of course, use reason to solve some specific problem, but not as a universal system to solve every problem. That's not circular.

No. For starters he brings out the standard examples of dystopias that were supposedly "based on science" -- Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Nazis were obsessed with mysticism and were only interested in science in terms of weapons. The Soviets liked to throw around the word "scientific" a lot, but as with their promotion of Lysenkoism over real biology, they clearly valued ideology over science.

The 'problem' is that not only does science not produce moral correctness, we're a long way towards believing that it cannot do so. We cannot build a "wrongon" detector to filter out inherently immoral ideas, acts, and people.

You can use science to achieve objectives, but you cannot use science to tell yourself what your objectives should be.

Most basic "moral" principles are just descriptions of how to live in a functional society. While many cultures say murder and theft are "wrong" and attribute this decision to the will of a deity, it isn't at all hard to see that a society where people are constantly killing and robbing each other won't last.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com